Born A Soldier w/ Daniella Mestyanek Young

IndoctriNation

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2022

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Daniella Mestyanek Young is an American author and speaker born into the religious cult The Children of God. Daniella served as an Intelligence Officer in the US Army for over six years, making the rank of Captain, and became one of the first women in US Army history to conduct deliberate ground combat operations when she volunteered to serve on a Female Engagement Team. She is a recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Medal. Daniella lives with her husband and daughter in Maryland and is a candidate for a Master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Harvard Extension School. Daniella’s first book, UNCULTURED: A Memoir of Cults, War, and Belonging, is being published by St. Martin’s Press on September 20th, 2022. Daniella shares with Rachel some insights behind the stories in her book Uncultured, more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome. Throughout her story, Daniella draws parallels between her life as a child in the Children of God commune and her time as an adult in the U.S. military. Pointing out the stunning similarities in rape culture in both organizations. She goes on to explain the dangerous deification of the U.S. Army, and the cult-like devotion and martyrdom expected of its soldiers Before you Go: Rachel reflects on her experiences with Children of God survivors over the years, explaining the difficulties of "learning life as a second language" for those who have left the high control groups they were born into. You can pre-order Daniella's book Uncultured here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57290004-uncultured Visit her website here: https://www.uncultureyourself.com/ Watch Daniella's TEDx talk here: https://youtu.be/96gBf6LNxa4 Thanks to all of our newest Patreon supporters: Brooke Parker, Kerry Stout, Laura Ollanketo, Kylie Quilliam, Lisa Shklovsky, Jo March, Stephanie Roberts, Chelsea Fralick, Pamela Kyssa, Justine Fernandes, Shira Stanford-Asiyo, Michele Fullarton and Franny Yep To help support the show monthly and get bonus episodes, shirts, and tote bags, please visit: www.patreon.com/indoctrination Prefer to support the IndoctriNation show with a one-time donation? Use this link: www.paypal.me/indoctrination You can help the show for free by leaving a rating on Spotify or Apple/ iTunes. It really helps the visibility of the show! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control. I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.
0:13.7	Hi, everybody. Today on the show, we have Daniela Mestanek Young. She's an American author and speaker born into the religious cult,
0:22.5	the Children of God.
0:23.9	Daniela served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army for over six years,
0:29.6	making the rank of captain.
0:31.2	And she became one of the first women in the U.S. Army in the the history of the U.S. Army, to conduct deliberate
0:39.6	ground combat operations when she volunteered to serve on a female engagement team.
0:46.5	She's a recipient of the Presidential Volunteer Service Medal.
0:50.4	Danielle lives with her husband and daughter in Maryland and is a candidate for a master's degree
0:55.6	in industrial and organizational psychology
0:57.9	from Harvard Extension School.
1:00.6	Daniela's first book, Uncultured,
1:03.1	a memoir of cults, war, and belonging,
1:05.9	is being published by St. Martin's Press
1:08.8	on September 20th, 2002, and is available for pre-order.
1:15.7	Here's Danielle now.
1:31.5	I am very happy to have Danielle on the show today.
1:41.4	And she's going to be talking about a group that I have been dealing with just the fallout from since I think the late 80s, early 90s. So it's one that not enough people know about, and that's why it's very
1:46.3	exciting that she's coming out with her story. And so, Danielle, do you want to introduce yourself
1:51.6	and then we'll start talking? Absolutely. So my complicated name is Daniela Mestinek Young.
1:58.5	And I am an author. I have written a book called Uncultured that will be coming soon
2:04.3	about growing up in a religious cult and also being in the U.S. Army. And we'll get to that part
	...

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