“Turning Steel” is a term used by active duty SEALs who served in the Global War on terror. Seconds before every target assault begins the lead breacher will prepare the assault team for violence of action by calling out “Turning Steel” over the radio. 

https://sealfit.com/sealfit-events/turning-steel/

Turning is a machining operation performed on a lathe in which the workpiece rotates at high speeds while a fixed cutting tool removes material.

https://www.huyett.com/blog/manufacturing-process-turning

The Backstory & Purpose

By William Leahy

Three weeks before Christmas a war hero just returned to the world from an intensive in patient veterans recovery program ends his life estranged from wife and children. Isolated in his apartment, the primary tool of his chosen profession is used by him one last time. In the wake of his death his wife and two boys struggle to make sense of why they were not enough. The Marines that served under him and survived are saying to themselves if MAJ Leahy cannot make it neither can I. Three out of the five Marines in my brother's MRAP during an IED explosion have committed suicide, and this is not ok. 

The owner of the manufacturing company where Sean was working and had a promising future lives with the unbelievable burden that comes with hiring veterans. The 4,500+ military and veteran non-profits that serve us veterans must solemnly add a data point to the population of fallen heroes. And a family of seven, that has shed blood for this country generation after generation, has to accept the cost of patriotism.

The youngest brother, Bill, is also veteran, alcoholic, and addict of everything. He and Sean have walked similar paths but Bill managed to make it across the void with a lot of help from a variety of veteran services both good and bad. Bill and Sean have had a contentious relationship fueled by constant competition for position, approval, and attention. They could go months and even years without speaking, however, they had just begun to connect on manufacturing. 

Sean had taken a leadership position at a manufacturing company in Green Bay, WI. There they make all the military coins that veterans treasure so dearly. Initially the conversations with Bill were hopeful as they collaborated for the first time. But as the dream began to form communication dwindled, calls went unanswered, and text unread. When the call came from Sean's father-in-law, a two-star admiral, nothing needed to be said. No one knew for sure yet, but Bill and anyone that really knew Sean knew he was gone. Within 24 hours Bill and his siblings had all arrived in Wisconsin.

His sister Jessie the Chief Executive Officer for a series of YMCA came in western Massachusetts. His older brother TD left his classroom and students in East Texas. His older sister Erin left her practice in Connecticut, and Bill who owns a manufacturing consultancy put it on hold. Bill was amid a collaboration with the University of Tennessee, and a team of engineers at Lockheed Martin. With Bill leading they are collectively pursuing a reimagining of US Manufacturing. The offering is called the Manufacturing Leaders Project (MLP), and after meeting all the people from all around the world that came to Sean's funeral. Bill knew it could be used to veterans in more ways.

At the funeral reception dozen different versions of Sean were constructed through the recollections of his friends. The grief was authentic, but every person knew a different version of Sean, which makes me believe no one really knew him and that was disturbing. But worse, there is an unspoken acceptance of suicide among the veterans that ceremoniously swallowed emotions with significant amounts of alcohol. Its fucked up, and everyone sees and even feels it but say nothing. It is not that they don't care, they just don't know how to care. They haven’t been shown.

Not knowing how to care is the same phenomena foundational to the issues Bill saw in manufacturing and discussed with Sean. Industry cares about reliability, and society cares about veterans, however, studies demonstrate that industry throws away at least a trillion a year recovering from unforced errors. It is at the confluence of the veteran and manufacturing issues where the solution wholly materialized. 

The solution executing the MLP at Medalcraft in Green Bay, and doing it is such a spectacular fashion that the world will have to sit up and take notice. Bill is taking six transitioning service members from different branches from around the country to spend three months in an immersive educational manufacturing experience at the very same factory Sean worked at. Jerry the company owner is searching for answers too and has freely opened his doors to try to prevent this from happening within his factory again. 

The team will operate within Bill's Reliability Engineering Team and be responsible for executing projects as part of the larger factory turn-around effort and the culmination of their certification. They will work side by side with their RR Reliability Coach and the civilian population they will be joining. They will have a manufacturing mentor to show them the ropes. They will have the skills needed to succeed in any factory, they will know their worth, and so will the thousands of companies scrambling to recruit them. 

There are 200,000 transitioning veteran entering the work force each year. The goal of the project was originally to educate a portion of there veterans in reliability to reinforce US manufacturing. Bill and most of his team have been through the transition and recall their anxieties and mental blocks, and to a person they believe there is a better way and we will discover it and demonstrate its efficacy to the world through film. The thing veterans in transition need most is certainty. Certainty in themselves, in their paycheck, and in the community of concerned Americans that want them to succeed. The MLP offers that and more. 

The purpose of this film is to demonstrate to the world how to care in the right ways. Every condition the VA lists for contributing to veteran suicide is addressed by the MLP. Additionally, the film will put the reliability crisis on the doorstep of those with fiduciary responsibility so they can finally see the wasteful absurdity of what is common practice and do what needs to be done.

https://rise.articulate.com/share/AKplgb-NcBCGsQ_ugGxcCrr8x3_ITvZt#/lessons/2Bq1l1w_BLBhqAI_DeARONogsP5CK4HY