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xiv Acknowledgments and Editors’ Note for the active duty component. Here, rigorous evaluation of existing outreach efforts provide the foundation upon which savvy programmers must build. We focus in section two of this book on examining resiliency programs making inroads with today’s veterans. Our best chance for making a difference in both the postservice and training environments (before a service member faces tran- sition stress) involves designing programs from a baseline of proven success. To operate in training commands requires great cultural competency, making mental fitness programming relevant to warfighters working to maintain readiness and improve performance. The narrative must become about mission success, not mental health treatment. It means not only trying to understand the veteran experience but also learning the most effective ways to communicate with different subsets of the veteran and military pop- ulations. To train is to actively participate, and this is a wellness concept with which service members are already familiar. Framing self-regulatory training as a way to “bulletproof the brain” renders palatable a training opportunity specifically designed to create more effective warriors who possess mental endurance. Framing mental fitness training as promotion of combat fitness, resilience, and mental endurance renders it accessible to the military popula- tion. We’re interested in building strengths after all. We have to speak the language of warriors who have been immersed in combat operations for over 15 years when we talk about resiliency-cultivation. PowerPoint presentations simply won’t cut it. By establishing mental fitness as another component of optimal combat readiness, we establish such train- ing as a crucial component of mission preparedness and, as a benefit, remove the stigma of such practices for postdeployment troops that may be strug- gling with stress illnesses of varying degrees. The message can become direc- tive just as Marines and soldiers learn mission essential skills and train their bodies for arduous combat, we must adopt practices designed to train and promote health in the mind, body, and spirit in a holistic sense. This training doesn’t succeed in sustainable fashion in a vacuum. Knowing the importance of social support to well-being and generally wanting to contribute to improved quality of life for service members require a focus on the larger community in which a warrior operates. Social and family fitness is part of mental fitness, and we must consider family readiness programming that is more extensive and progressive than our current offerings. When we consider how we could apply these basic recommendations to military veterans seeking relief from reintegration stress or to active-duty military preparing for it, we must consider how to make stress management a testable metric. Biofeedback tools exist that can do this. Checking for dehy- droepiandrosterone and blood cortisol ratios or conducting periodic blood cortisol checks can be as important as other physical standards are in the military. Biomarkers tell us quickly whether someone is taking time to prac- tice balanced wellness.