VETERANS AFFAIRS 2019

SPECIAL EDITION

VETERANS AFFAIRS FREE 2019 EDITION

Valiant WOMEN & WELLNESS More accessing mental health care

INTO THE FRAY Heroes rise in times of tragedy

HIGHER LEARNING Military-friendly colleges ranked

BATTLEFIELD TO BUSINESS Entrepreneurs find success

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CONTENTS

2019 S PECI A L E D ITI O N

VETERANS AFFAIRS

SECOND ACT Patriotism, not partisanship, calls these veterans to run for office

GETTY IMAGES

NEWS

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FEATURES RIGHTING THE SHIP Veterans Affairs progressing toward stability, says Secretary Wilkie

TACKLING THE BACKLOG Under new VA rules, veterans have more options to file, amend disability claims

NO SMOKING Some veterans fuming over nationwide ban at VA facilities

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MILITARY DOGS FOREVER Commemorative stamps recognize canine heroes

ACTS OF VALOR HONORED Texas chosen as National Medal of Honor Museum site

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THE XX FACTOR

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VETERAN HEROES

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ADAPTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS

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Women vets are accessing mental health care in record numbers — but most still go untreated

During deadly mass shootings, protectors step in to serve

VA’s national rehabilitative programming offers life-affirming experiences

REYNALDO LEAL JR./ DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

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JOBS & EDUCATION

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TOP COLLEGES

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NAVIGATING A NEW FIELD

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NEXT CALLING

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System ranks higher learning institutions that serve veterans well

This is a product of

Veterans face unexpected challenges entering federal workforce

EDITORIAL

Next-generation wireless networks are coming, and the telecom industry is hiring vets to build them

DIRECTOR Jeanette Barrett-Stokes jbstokes@usatoday.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jerald Council

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jcouncil@usatoday.com BLACK VETERANS PROJECT

HONORING THOSE WHO SERVED

HEALTH & HEALING

MANAGING EDITOR Michelle Washington mjwashington@usatoday.com

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FIGHTING FOR CHANGE Black Veterans Project advocates for racial equity, historical preservation

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Enterprising veterans find success starting craft breweries

MISSION TO SERVE Vets running smoking-hot barbecue businesses

Iranian American veteran uses her nonprofit to honor those who served

WELCOME HOME

ROAD TO WELL-BEING The VA’s best links for health resources

LIBERATING LIMBS 3D-printed prosthetics give veteran amputees more independence, increased comfort

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VA renews mission to eliminate homelessness among veterans

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STILL SERVING Diverse array of veterans groups cater to myriad experiences, backgrounds

ISSUE DESIGNER Gina Toole Saunders EDITORS Amy Sinatra Ayres Tracy Scott Forson Harry Lister Debbie Williams

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Matt Alderton, Jennifer Barger, Brian Barth, Michael Casey, Anna Katherine Clemmons, Caren Chesler, Holly V. Hays, Gina Harkins, Jodi Helmer, Ruksana Hussain, Quinisha Jackson-Wright, Patricia Kime, Josue Ledesma, Alex Mohajer, Joe Purtell, Rina Rapuano, Aleanna Siacon, Jen Rose Smith, Adam Stone, Annette Thompson, Kelly Tyko, Nicholas Wu

VETERANS DAY DEALS Active, former military can earn discounts throughout the year

ISSUE EDITOR Sara Schwartz

DESIGNERS Hayleigh Corkey David Hyde Debra Moore Lisa M. Zilka

RESOURCES

BACK IN ACTION National Guard gives veterans a way to keep on serving

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HOSTING THE VETTYS

SERVICE BREWING COMPANY

TRIBUTE ALES

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ADVERTISING ALEANNA SIACON/DETROIT FREE PRESS

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HIVE-MINDED Michigan bee program finds sweet success in partnership with Ford Motor Co.

VP, ADVERTISING Patrick Burke | (703) 854-5914 pburke@usatoday.com

ACCOUNT DIRECTOR Vanessa Salvo | (703) 854-6499 vsalvo@usatoday.com

FINANCE

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ON THE COVER Various military awards

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION Getty Images

GREAT CITIES Traditional military towns are becoming top places for vets

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SACRED SPACES

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IN THE MONEY

VA cemeteries across U.S. offer alternatives to near-capacity Arlington National Cemetery

No matter what kind of investor you are, there’s an app for you

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DESPAIR TO HOPE Veteran survives personal tragedies and finds healing in helping others

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KEEP IT MOVING

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MOVING MOUNTAINS

VA exercise program helps seniors reduce medications while increasing mobility

Veterans Expeditions encourages camaraderie and teamwork outdoors

Billing Coordinator Julie Marco ISSN#0734-7456 A USA TODAY Network publication, Gannett Co. Inc USA TODAY, its logo and associated graphics are the trademarks of Gannett Co. Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Copyright 2018, USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. Editorial and publication headquarters are at 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, VA 22108, and at (703) 854-3400.

For accuracy questions, call or send an e-mail to accuracy@usatoday.com.

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NEWS

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie testifies before the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 19, 2018, in Washington, D.C. Since being confirmed in July 2018, Wilkie has pushed to change the way the agency understands and implements initiatives that benefit millions of veterans.

TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES

Righting the Ship VA Secretary Wilkie: Agency progressing toward stability

By Patricia Kime

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N 2018, THE DEPARTMENT of Veterans Affairs provided 58 million medical appointments at its hospitals and clinics and disbursed more than $4.3 billion in disability compensation to 4.75 million veterans.

Responsible for a department with

an annual budget of more than $200 billion, Secretary Robert Wilkie said VA is well-positioned to furnish quality services to current and future veterans. Wilkie spoke with USA TODAY about how the VA is adapting to serve a changing veterans population.

CONTINUED

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NEWS

“If there’s one glaring hole (at VA), it’s the infrastructure. We have too many old buildings and too many buildings I can’t dispose of. Our veterans deserve new modern facilities.”

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Prior to being confirmed as Veterans Affairs secretary, Wilkie speaks to Marc Short, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, on June 6, 2018, before attending a signing ceremony for the Mission Act, which authorized funding for the Veterans Choice Program for an additional year.

You’ve been in the job now for roughly a year. What do you count among your successes?

WILKIE: The place has calmed down. We have much higher employee satisfaction rates and are no longer at the bottom of the list when it comes to places in the government to work, which translates into better customer service for veterans. Our veterans satisfaction rates are at an all-time high — 89.7 percent from the last surveys. In addition, we implemented the Mission Act, (the law that consolidated VA’s community care programs and implemented an urgent care benefit) which went off without a hitch. And I’ve signed the memorandum of understanding so we’re now part of the Defense Logistics Agency supply chain … we’ve now got a computerized 21st-century supply chain that’s coming online.

Q

And the electronic health record?

We’re going to start testing that next year in Washington state. Why Washington? It has a massive Army and Navy footprint, and the Madigan Army Medical Center (which was among the first facilities to test the new Cerner electronic health records system for the Defense Health Agency) is perfect for us to work with. Same with Alaska. You have the most veterans per capita of any state in Alaska. So that’s where you want to test those things.

You have the largest budget in VA history. But what would you do if you were offered, say, another $2 billion or so?

It’s not $2 billion; it’s $60 billion. The last three official acts of (President Abraham) Lincoln’s life were to create soldiers’ homes in Maine, Ohio and Wisconsin. We still have a lot of the same buildings. We

have over 500 buildings that are over 100 years old. … The bill for renovating those that we can renovate comes to about $60 billion. If there’s one glaring hole (at VA), it’s the infrastructure. We have too many old buildings and too many buildings I can’t dispose of. Our veterans deserve new modern facilities.

You are supposed to have the authority to dispose of real estate VA no longer needs. What is going on with that?

I’m conducting market assessments in 96 areas of the country. I have to take those market assessments and then hand them over to the Asset and Infrastructure (Review) Commission, which will begin business in 2022. The commission will work to have a list of places we can shut down as well as a realignment of resources to address what is coming in terms of the veterans population. …

What we are seeing is an explosion of the population in the Southwest and the Deep South. If you are looking at the veteran populations today, most veterans are in California, then Texas. By 2025, it’s going to be Texas, one; Florida, two; California, three; and North Carolina, four, getting real close to California. … As a department, we have to go where the veterans are.

What are some of your other challenges?

The main challenges would be mental health and suicide. We wanted to hire 7,000 mental health professionals last year. We hired 3,900. We’re not divorced from the trends across the country where there’s a shortage of mental health professionals. Regarding suicide, we still see 20 (veterans) a day die by suicide CONTI NUED

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NEWS

AL DRAGO/GETTY IMAGES

Wilkie places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2018, in Arlington, Va. “This day reminds all Americans that they sleep soundly at night because of the sacrifices of millions of ordinary men and women,” he said during his keynote address.

… I’m going to go back in history, but this was first recognized as a problem when Benjamin Harrison was president.

There was a large number of suicides among soldiers and officers in the U.S. Army, and that number has remained pretty constant over a hundred years and … we’ve never had a focus on how to address this. I hope if we do anything, we begin a national conversation about life and health. I think we can help.

I will say if it’s just about studying the last act in a veteran’s life, it’s going to be a useless exercise if we don’t talk about mental health, if we don’t talk about addiction. It’s all part of the continuum.

Speaking of addiction, VA has made progress in decreasing the number of opioid prescriptions. But many veterans are suffering from chronic pain, and there’s a call for VA doctors to be able to prescribe medical marijuana. What do you think?

I’m going to say something that will probably get a lot of opposition … we’ve reduced opioid prescriptions by 51 percent, but I am afraid of the growing chorus that is demanding we replace

opioids with marijuana, that this is some sort of panacea. This ain’t Janis Joplin’s marijuana. It’s very powerful. We know from studies the devastating impact the stuff has on growing brains and the hallucinogenic effects of the stuff that’s really grown in a laboratory, that we have not begun to get our arms around. We better tread carefully. In Congress, the people who are demanding that we get our arms around addiction are advocating replacing those drugs with this. This is where I have planted the flag.

Does that mean you are averse to doing research on it?

Well, it’s against the law, right? Yeah, there’s research out there, and the research that I’ve seen is scary. It is frightening, particularly on hallucinogenic effects.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order that will expand suicide prevention efforts and allow VA to issue grants to nonprofits and other organizations to provide mental health support and outreach. Why do you support this?

The formula that we used to address homelessness — providing grants to cities or nongovernmental organizations to help reduce the veterans homeless population — was very successful. We hope that the model, which can be used by local organizations that understand the veterans in their area as well as the culture, will help.

There has been much progress at VA, but there also have been some major issues at VA hospitals — an investigation into suspicious deaths in West Virginia; the veteran covered with ant bites at a VA-run nursing home in Florida. Can you comment?

(The West Virginia investigation) is tragic. We just don’t know, and I have no insight into the day-to-day investigation nor do I have an estimate of when it (will be) complete … As for Atlanta, I don’t care what steps were taken to address the issues. We did not treat a vet with the dignity that he and his family deserved.

(The day that USA TODAY spoke with Wilkie, he ordered the reassignment of nine employees in the Atlanta region and a full investigation.)

“If (looking at suicide is) just about studying the last act in a veteran’s life, it’s going to be a useless exercise if we don’t talk about mental health, if we don’t talk about addiction.

It’s all part of the continuum.”

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NEWS CLAIMS PENDING BY REGION

Tackling the Backlog

TOTAL: 362,722

Northeast 87,765 Pacific* 70,295

Continental 68,806

VA announces new ways to file, amend claims

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Southeast** 131,862

N A BID TO tackle its disability claims backlog, the Department of Veterans

Outside U.S. 3,994

Affairs in February implemented a new appeals process, giving veterans more options for contesting their claims. Under the Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act, the “supplemental claim lane” allows veterans to introduce new evidence in their case and allows a regional specialist to review it and make a decision. The “higher-level review lane” allows for the claim to be looked at by a senior adjudicator rather than the regional office. In these cases, adjudicators will be looking for errors made in interpreting VA policies or laws governing the claim. Lastly, as is the case in the current system, they can appeal the decision to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.

STATES WITH THE MOST PENDING CLAIMS 38,930

Texas 34,213

California 28,285

Florida 18,308

Georgia

PENDING CLAIMS IN 2015, 2017 & 2019*

16,883

253,522

North Carolina

188,643

■ 2015 pending claims ■ 2015 claims over 125 days ■ 2017 pending claims ■ 2017 claims over 125 days ■ 2019 pending claims ■ 2019 claims over 125 days

Ohio

Pennsylvania 9,934 Tennessee

9,885

19.7%

24.5% 22.4%

71,017

74,331

72,623

90,318

127,916 33.2%

22.3%

9,298 (AS OF OCT. 5, 2019)

77,558

25.9%

80,501

97,382

40.9%

84,648

10,843

% of claims over 125 days

48.8%

95,837

13,694

Virginia

New York

24.6%

WHO FILES THE CLAIMS TOTAL INVENTORY

Korean War*

19.6%

Peacetime (the end of the Vietnam War to the Gulf War)

22.5%

25.6%

3.6% Vietnam War

28%

JANUARY

2019

2017

APRIL

SOURCE: Department of Veterans Affairs

2019

2015

2017

2019

JULY

2015

330,820

368,771

345,877

368,858

385,337

360,992

375,646

461,677 2015

2017

362,722

2017

330,035

389,824

519,530

11%

2015

(AS OF OCT. 5, 2019)

*Includes Philippines; **Includes Puerto Rico

Gulf War (1990s conflict)

2019

31%

OCTOBER

*Date reflects beginning of each quarter

World War II*

2%

Post-9/11 (Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts)

24%

Other era claims*

0.5% *Percentages are rounded up

$ Find out how to get your claim processed faster at: ubenefits.va.gov/ FDC Applying for Veterans Affairs benefits for the first time? Visit: uebenefits.va.gov GRAPHICS: LISA M. ZILKA

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NEWS Prevention, and many were introduced to the habit while serving. Tobacco has long been tied to the military: Cigarette ads featured troops, and the culture of the service historically promoted smoking on the battlefield or as a welcome respite from the stress of combat.

“We recognize this is a difficult change for many folks,” said John D’Adamo, who is co-chairing the smoke-free implementation working group for VA Boston. It is gradually implementing the ban for the 62,000 veterans it serves over the coming months, including providing resources that could help veterans kick the habit.

Violators will initially be warned of the policy, and eventually VA police will enforce it.

“This is a major cultural change,” D’Adamo continued. “It’s really been something often utilized for camaraderie, essentially a sense of community.”

But even a gradual rollout is seen as too stringent for some smokers — and even some veterans who don’t smoke. They argue that there should be a designated place for smoking at VA facilities and fear that some veterans may choose cigarettes or cigars over visiting their VA doctors.

“It’s going a little too far,” said Gregory d’Arbonne, president of the New Hampshire chapter of the Association of the United States Army. “I’m against smoking, but there are people who smoke.

When they do, they go outside and have this little smoking area. Now, what are they going to do?”

Jorg Dreusicke, a 72-year-old former smoker from New Hampshire who recruits members for the Veterans of Foreign Wars nationwide, called the move government-overreach. He started CHARLES KRUPA/ASSOCIATED PRESS smoking at the age of 10 and quit three years ago. “It’s Big Brother telling people Michael Swan smokes inside a designated shelter Sept. 30 outside the West Roxbury campus of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center how to live,” he said. “Some people don’t in Boston. Since Oct. 1, the VA has banned smoking on all its grounds nationwide, causing many veterans to complain. mind because it doesn’t affect them. But for those it affects, they are pissed.”

By Michael Casey be smoking inside the VA,” Holland said. veterans and our staff,” said Kevin ForHe predicted that after a “period of “But as far as outside, I think they should rest, associate director of the Manchester revolt” and complaining, veterans would ERVING UP DRINKS AT the still have a smoking area. I mean you’ve VA, which serves 27,000 veterans. “It’s a eventually return to medical centers.

American Legion post in got guys from World War I, World War safer environment. It reduces Others are welcoming the Concord, N.H., Jeff Holland II where this is all they have known for fire risk. There is certainly ban, saying it is long overdue. gets a little testy when the talk 40 or 50 years. To kind of take that right evidence that smoking and Tony Botticello, a 76-year-old uTo reach turns to smoking. away, it’s kind of a shame.” secondhand exposure is a Coast Guard veteran whose the VA’s A Marine veteran who enjoys lighting Smoking was already prohibited medical risk for our veterans.” lung cancer is in remission, tobacco up, 44-year-old Holland fought unsucinside VA medical buildings, but allowed The smoking ban, ansaid he would often pass quitline, call cessfully against a ban at the post that in designated shelters dotting the nounced in mid-2019, brings smokers in the parking lot on 855-QUITwent into effect in October — one that grounds. Now it’s banned for everyone, the facilities in line with bans the way to his treatment at the VET. also prohibits smoking at the nearby everywhere on the campuses. Posters already in place at 4,000 mediManchester VA. He smoked for Manchester VA Medical Center. and banners promoting the ban have cal facilities and four national more than 50 years but quit It is part of a nationwide smoking ban been put up in facilities, and the VA is health care systems that have five years ago. “It’s personal outside all VA medical facilities that apalerting veterans through social media made their grounds smoke free. for me,” he said. “Maybe this will make plies to visitors, patients and employees. and letters. They have also held forums But the move isn’t without controversy. somebody think about the ramifications “I get the aspect that it’s a hospital and on the topic.

One-third of veterans smoke, according of smoking and how some people find for all practical purposes you shouldn’t “This is a really good thing for our to the Centers for Disease Control and smoking offensive.”

No Smoking Nationwide ban at VA facilities has some veterans fuming

S

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Early sketch by DKNG Studios

PROVIDED BY U.S POSTAL SERVICE; PROVIDED BY DKNG STUDIOS

Military Dogs Forever Commemorative stamps recognize canine heroes

By Ruksana Hussain

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HE NATION’S FOUR-LEGGED

heroes received muchdeserved recognition this year. The United States Postal Service (USPS) honored America’s military working dogs with commemorative Forever stamps featuring four breeds that commonly serve in the U.S. armed forces: Belgian Malinois, Dutch shepherd, German shepherd and Labrador retriever.

The booklets feature blocks of four stamps with stylized geometric illustrations in a patriotic red, white and blue color scheme.

“There has been positive feedback to the fact that we honored military working dogs,” said William Gicker, acting director of Stamp Services, USPS. “I’ve been at the Postal Service now for 20 years, and we’ve been getting letters in support of this subject the whole time. The buying public definitely likes animal stamps, and we always felt that these dogs played an

important role so they certainly were well deserving of a stamp.”

The stamps were released in August and will be available for a year. The first-day-of-issue event was celebrated with a special ceremony at the American Philatelic Society Stamp Show in Omaha, Neb. “My military working dogs were my protectors and daily partners,” said Deana Stone, who served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years and handled military working dogs for 12. “They were by my

side as we supported stateside and overseas bases and while I supported missions with U.S. Customs (and Border Protection) and the Secret Service. I am thrilled that USPS is honoring their contribution.”

USPS receives about 30,000 requests for stamp designs annually. Postal services staff and the Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee review themes and make recommendations to the postmaster general. This year, the committee recommended military working dogs, and Postal Service Art Director Greg Breeding sketched the concept for the stamps.

“I’m glad to see the military working dogs getting the recognition they deserve,” added U.S. Army veteran David Laboy Jr., who lives in Brown Deer, Wis. “During my time overseas, I had the privilege of working alongside a military working dog named Darka. Her courage and sense of duty could not be matched by anything else except a soldier’s. These dogs are determined to complete their mission at any cost.”

Gicker shared that artists across the country are considered for stamp illustrations. In this case, San Franciscobased DKNG Studios was selected. “As dog lovers, being able to illustrate some of our favorite animals, while also paying tribute to military working dogs was a special experience,” said Nathan Goldman, founder and creative director at DKNG Studios, which brought Breeding’s sketches to reality. “The opportunity to work on a postage stamp design for USPS is a huge honor for any designer, regardless of the subject matter, but this project was especially meaningful to us.”

Military working dog stamps can be purchased at usps.com and Postal Service branches across the country.

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NEWS

Acts of Valor on Display Texas chosen as National Medal Of Honor Museum site

The Medal of Honor hangs around the neck of Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia.

CAROLYN KASTER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Sara Schwartz

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HE NATION’S HIGHEST MILITARY award for

valor will soon have its own museum. Arlington, Texas, was chosen as the future home for the first museum dedicated solely to the Medal of Honor.

“Arlington, Texas, is the optimal location to build America’s next national treasure — the National Medal of Honor Museum,” Joe Daniels, president and CEO of the

National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation, said in a statement in October. “All of us at the museum were simply overwhelmed with the enthusiasm, warmth and level of commitment of those involved, who have worked beyond expectation to have the museum come to Texas.”

The Medal of Honor is the oldest continuously issued combat decoration of the United States armed forces, first authorized in 1861 for sailors and Marines, and then for soldiers the following year.

“Located in the heart of our na-

tion, we look forward to commemorating the stories of the 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients to educate, inspire and motivate our youth to understand the meaning and price of freedom,” Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said. “We are excited and humbled to provide a national platform to spread this message throughout our great country.”

The museum is expected to open in 2024.

Since the first Medal of Honor presentation took place in 1863, there have been 3,524 awarded.

In 2019, President Donald Trump awarded the medal to Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, the first living Iraq War recipient, and posthumously to Army Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins, who was killed in action on June 1, 2007.

On Oct. 10, the White House announced it would award the Medal of Honor to Master Sgt. Matthew O. Williams, United States Army, on Oct. 30 for “conspicuous gallantry while serving as a Weapons Sergeant in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.”

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ARMY’S DAVID BELLAVIA BECOMES FIRST LIVING IRAQ WAR MEDAL OF HONOR RECIPIENT in 1999 and served in Kosovo before deploying to Iraq in 2004. He was discharged from the Army in 2005, and co-hosts a daily radio talk show in Buffalo, N.Y. He is the co-founder of Vets for Freedom, a conservative veterans advocacy group.

Bellavia spoke at the Pentagon about the award and praised his Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia fellow soldiers, though he added that the attention ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS for the Medal of Honor felt “awkward.”

By Nicholas Wu “You can be victimized by it; you can become prisoner of all of these Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia rethings, or you could just say, look, ceived the Medal of Honor June 25 what do I feel comfortable talking for rescuing his squad and clearing about? I know I care about these out a house full of Iraqi insurgents guys. I know they love me. Let’s talk during the Battle of Fallujah. about those people that we love.

President Donald Trump presentLet’s talk about why this is ours,” he ed the Medal of Honor to Bellavia, said. who became the first living Iraq During the Second Battle of War veteran to receive the award.

Fallujah, Bellavia’s platoon was He received it for his “conspicuous ordered to clear out a block of 12 gallantry” during the Second Battle buildings when it became pinned of Fallujah, the bloodiest battle of down by enemy fire. Rather than the Iraq War. put one of his own men at risk, In a ceremony attended by Bellavia grabbed an M249 light members of Congress, administramachine gun and provided covering tion officials and military leaders, fire for his fellow soldiers to escape.

Trump praised Bellavia for his heroWhen they came under fire again ism. Thirty-two service members from a house full of insurgents, who fought alongside Bellavia in Bellavia ran inside with an M16 Iraq were in attendance, including and killed four insurgents. Bellavia 12 who fought with him during the entered a room full of propane Second Battle of Fallujah. tanks and plastic explosives. To “America’s blessed with the prevent an explosion, he fought heroes and great people like Staff an insurgent hand-to-hand before Sgt. Bellavia, whose intrepid spirit wrestling him to the ground and and unwavering resolve defeats stabbing him. our enemies, protects our freedoms Bellavia’s guest at the ceremony and defends our great American was Gary Beikirch, a Vietnam War flag,” Trump said. “David, today we veteran who received the Medal of honor your extraordinary courage; Honor for heroism as a Green Beret we salute your selfless service, and medic. we thank you for carrying on the Bellavia was previously awarded legacy of American valor that has a Silver Star for his actions. The always made our blessed nation the presentation of the Medal of Honor strongest and mightiest anywhere came after the Pentagon reviewed in the world.” valor awards and upgraded them for Bellavia enlisted in the Army many service members.

ARMY STAFF SGT. TRAVIS ATKINS DIED SHIELDING COMRADES FROM IRAQ BOMBER pinned him there, shielding his fellow soldiers who were only a Saluting a fallen hero who few feet away.” reached glory by saving othTrump presented the Medal of ers, President Donald Trump Honor to members of Atkins’ fambestowed the Medal of Honor on a ily during the somber ceremony. soldier who gave his life to protect Trevor Oliver, Atkins’ son, three comrades from a suicide praised his father as a kind and bomber. courageous man, and told a Army Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins, crowd of relatives, lawmakers and at age 31, died June 1, 2007, after comrades-in-arms, “I feel so close he tackled an Iraqi insurgent with you and to him.” who was trying to detonate his Jeff Krogstad, who met Atkins bomb vest. Atkins wrapped in the first grade, said after the White House event that he was not surprised by his friend’s heroism.

Atkins, he said, believed that the duty of a squad leader was to bring his troops home safe.

“He always put others before himself,” Krogstad said.

Born on Dec. 9, 1975, Atkins grew up in Trevor Oliver, son of Bozeman, Mont., Army Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins an outdoorsman who loved to hunt and fish. He MANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS first joined the himself around the man as the Army in 2000, according to the bomb exploded, protecting three Pentagon, and became an infantry colleagues from the blast. team leader shortly after the “He put himself on top of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in spring enemy, and he shielded his men 2003. from certain death,” Trump said While he left the service later during a White House ceremony that year, Atkins decided to reMarch 27. enlist two years later, according to “In his final moments on Earth, the Defense Department. He was Travis did not run,” Trump said. promoted to staff sergeant while Instead, he “laid down his life to serving in Iraq in 2007, the year of save the lives of his fellow warhis death. riors,” and embodied the motto of Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., the 10th Mountain Division: “He attended the Medal of Honor climbed to glory.” ceremony and said Atkins’ family In an account of the incident, and friends were “very emotional” the Defense Department said, about recalling his bravery.

“Without pausing, Atkins bear“There’s no greater courage,” he hugged the man from behind, said, “no higher level of bravery threw him to the ground and than that.”

By David Jackson

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T C A D N O C E S A E C I V R E S OF ip, h s n a s i t r t pa o n , m s i t s n a Patrio r e t e v e calls thes again to serve

GETTY IMAGES

USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION

By Matt Alderton

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F YOU JUDGE A country’s health by the level of trust in its government, the U.S. may be in serious and not particularly stable condition, suggested the Pew Research Center. In a recent analysis of surveys dating to 1958, it found that public confidence in government reached a high of 77 percent in 1964, fell dramatically in the 1970s, recovered modestly in the 1980s and early 2000s, then plummeted to historic lows. Today, Pew reports, just 17 percent of Americans trust the government.

But if democracy is broken, there’s at least one group that might be handy enough to fix it: veterans.

“Over the last 50 years, veteran representation in Congress has fallen from an all-time high of over 70 percent to historic lows of less than 18 percent. At the same time, Congress has become more polarized and is now the least-trusted public institution in the United States,” said Marine Corps veteran Rye Barcott, co-founder and CEO of With Honor Action, a cross-partisan organization whose mission is advancing veteran leadership in elected office. “We don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

When it analyzed congressional voting records, With Honor Action found that Congress tended to collaborate more across party lines when there were more veterans in its ranks. Veterans likewise score higher than nonveterans on The Lugar Center’s Bipartisan Index, which measures how often members of Congress cross the aisle to sponsor or co-sponsor legislation.

“Everybody who has served has shown a proven commitment to putting public interest over self interest,” Barcott continued. “When you serve in the U.S. military, you take an oath to support and defend the Constitution ... and potentially even (giving) your life in order to do it. That’s the type of service, frankly, that we need a lot more of in our public institutions.”

BORN TO SERVE Veterans are as willing as they are wanted, according to Army veteran Nick

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Armstrong, senior director for research and evaluation at Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), which this month is hosting its inaugural Veterans Program for Politics and Civic Engagement, a weeklong residency during which veterans and military family members will receive a crash course in running for office. Although there’s room for only 22 students, more than 600 veterans and spouses expressed interest in the program when it was announced in April, and nearly 160 submitted applications.

“As veterans, we have an inherent motivation to serve,” Armstrong said.

Of course, there’s also the paycheck.

Although state and local officials typically earn much less, the base salary for most members of Congress is $174,000. Activeduty soldiers, on the other hand, earn a starting salary of less than $21,000 per year.

But veterans do it for the mission, not the money, said Barcott, who added that members of Congress typically maintain two households — one in their home district and another in Washington, D.C. — and often share apartments to make ends meet.

“There’s a common misconception that Congress is a place where a lot of people make a lot of money. That’s not the case, especially for young veterans, a lot of whom are married with kids,” he said. “They’re not doing it for the money. They’re doing it for the country. They view it as another deployment.”

WHY VOTERS VALUE VETS Whatever veterans’ reasons for running, the nation reaps significant rewards when they do, suggested Emily Cherniack, founder and executive director of New Politics, a bipartisan organization that recruits and supports public-service candidates for elected office.

“When (veterans) sign up to serve, they learn fundamental leadership skills,” Cherniack said. “They learn how to work with diverse people from different backgrounds and different ideologies. They learn how to bring people together, and to lead people toward a mission greater than themselves.

They learn how to do boots-on-the-ground problem-solving.”

In 2018, New Politics asked 1,200 registered voters which traits they most associate with veteran candidates. Their top answers were: teamwork (57 percent), honesty and integrity (50 percent) and working with diverse people (47 percent).

People want leaders who will work to get things done, Cherniack said. “Whether they’re Republican or Democrat, veterans embody that type of leadership.”

STUMPING SETBACKS? Although veterans feel a lot of love on the campaign trail, military service can be a liability as well as an asset.

Take ego, for example — or the lack thereof. “When you’re part of the military … there is no individual. When you’re a candidate, it’s all about being an individual.

It’s your name on the sign,” Cherniack noted. “Culturally, that’s hard for them to wrap their heads around.”

Veterans also face social and financial barriers. While other candidates may have been working lucrative jobs and networking with influential community leaders, they were deployed outside their districts, earning a modest living alongside fellow soldiers instead of potential donors.

“The cost to run for office has gone up faster than anything else in the United States — even health care,” explained Barcott, who said the average House race costs more than $4 million, with the most contested races exceeding $15 million. “It’s a prohibitively high barrier.”

With or without structural challenges, veterans’ campaigns face uncertain outcomes. That’s the nature of elections.

Even when veterans lose, however, the country wins, insisted Cherniack, who said the mere act of running “activates” veterans in their communities. “Running for office is a leadership experience, so win or lose they become better for having gone through it,” she said. “Once they run, they become educated about the process and become leaders in the political space — whether they’re elected or not. And that’s helpful for our democracy.”

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CAMPAIGNING FOR CHANGE Battlefield experience and training translate well at the ballot box for vets

CANDIDATE

PETE

BUTTIGIEG Running for: President of the United States Party: Democratic Home: South Bend, Ind. Branch served: U.S. Navy Reserve Age: 37

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efore he was the first openly gay candidate to mount a major presidential campaign, and before he became the corn-fed mayor of South Bend, Ind., Pete Buttigieg was an anti-war protester. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he spoke at a student rally opposing the Iraq War. Still, he walked into a recruiting center six years later and joined the U.S. Navy Reserve. He subsequently became a naval intelligence officer, and in 2014 — during his first term as mayor — was deployed for seven months to Afghanistan. Now he’s vying to become the Democratic nominee for the nation’s commander in chief.

As someone who opposed the Iraq War, what made you enlist?

I was knocking on doors in Iowa for Barack Obama in (the) winter of 2007-2008, right

around New Year’s. I met so many young people in small towns … who were serving, and it reminded me of how military service had become a big dividing line. For a previous generation, people who had gone to college and lived in cities were just as likely to serve as people from rural areas. But by the time I was growing up the reverse was the case. I huddled in a diner with my friends in Iowa trying to count the number of people we knew who had gone to Harvard who had served, and you could count them on one hand. I began to feel like unless I served I was part of the problem.

How did military service prepare you for executive office?

One thing you get from military service — especially if you’ve deployed — is a sense of calm. When you’re an executive in govern-

ment you’re often presented with a difficult decision … where you have to make a choice that will not be easy no matter what. Being any kind of military officer gives you a sense of how to do that without losing your head.

How does being a veteran serve you on the campaign trail?

It not only allows me to explain where my heart is when it comes to service and why I care about keeping this country safe, but it gives me a way to talk to people very different from me. Even somebody who served in a different branch in a different conflict in a different generation, we still have something in common, which makes it easier to strike up a conversation and relate to each other. And at a time when we’re so fragmented, having something like that to connect you to other people … is an asset.

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loyd McLendon isn’t In what ways do you think the type to back down your service can be an asset from a challenge. in Congress?

Originally from the South Humans are afraid of change.

Side of Chicago, he enlisted They’d rather be comfortable in the U.S. Navy Reserve in with something they don’t like 1992 and became active-duty than change to something Navy shortly that’s uncerthereafter. tain. Military Six years into veterans his service, don’t have he decided that luxury. to become a We’re used Navy SEAL — to changing even though commands he didn’t every three know how to to four swim. When years — going he finally to another achieved his environment, goal, it was being linked because of the up with self-discipline people we and determidon’t know nation that and being his service responsible CANDIDATE instilled in for a job we him. Now, never did after 25 years before. So MCLENDON in the military, we learn Running for: the father of to adapt.

U.S. House of four wants to Because Representatives channel those our world is same qualities drastically Party: into reprechanging, Republican senting Texas’ I think that Home: Dallas 32nd District adaptability Branch served: in Congress. will help me U.S. Navy serve the Why are you American Age: 46 running for people so Congress? they continue PROVIDED BY FLOYD MCLENDON I did a legislato prosper. tive fellowship on Capitol Hill in 2017. I got to see the What’s your biggest challenge inner workings of Congress on the campaign trail? and how our representatives The No. 1 challenge I’ve faced conduct their business. I on the campaign trail is that was disheartened because the American people don’t I noticed they talk at each know what I’ve done in my other instead of to each other. military career and how that When you’re a Navy SEAL, will translate into public office. communication is the most That’s a big challenge for most important thing. We have veterans who are running for to communicate in order to office. We’re coming from a get the mission done. I feel different lane, so we have to like I bring that to the table be able to communicate what and could be an example of attributes and assets we bring how we should represent the to the table and how they people of our country. translate to being a leader.

FLOYD

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my McGrath was 13 What do you think military years old when she veterans offer that political decided to become a veterans don’t? fighter pilot. There was just Frankly, there are a lot of one problem: Women were people like my opponent who banned from serving in comhave lived in the Washington, bat at the time. Nevertheless, D.C., area for 35 years. We she went on to need people graduate from in leadership the U.S. Naval who have Academy and real-life became the experience first woman in the 21st in the Marine century Corps to fly globalized a combat world. Also, mission in veterans an F/A-18 bring planfighter jet. ning and The mother of pragmatism; three flew 89 it’s nice to combat mishave great sions during ideas, but her 20-year you’ve got to career before have a plan returning to for how to CANDIDATE Kentucky, get things where she’s done. And now vying finally, we MCGRATH for Majority as veterans Running for: Leader Mitch take things U.S. Senate McConnell’s like character, U.S. Senate integrity and Party: seat. honor seriDemocratic ously, and I Home: You’ve think we have Georgetown, Ky. already a lack of that Branch served: served once. in our political U.S. Marine Corps What’s calling leadership you to serve right now.

Age: 44 again?

I’m called What’s the PROVIDED BY AMY MCGRATH to do this most difficult “second service” because I feel part about running for office like we need a new generation as a veteran? of leaders in this country. As I haven’t spent the last 30 veterans, we served our counyears sitting here in Kentucky. try, not our political party. We I’ve been off doing the work need leaders who have done of Uncle Sam, so I don’t have that and have shown that they the connections that lots of can put the country ahead of longtime politicians have. And their own personal interests let’s just be frank about it: and their own political party.

As veterans, we don’t have a Both my husband and I are ton of rich friends. We served veterans. My husband served the country, and we got paid 20 years in the U.S. Navy. I was for it, but you don’t go into a Marine. I’m a Democrat; he’s military service and end up a a Republican. For us, it’s about millionaire. Because politics America. It’s about being an today is so money-driven, American first. that’s a big disadvantage.

AMY

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o some people, Like a lot of other people I Bret Richards’ know, I’m just tired of politiAmerica sounds cal bickering. We’ve got to like an America that only do better. We need people exists in history books. His in office who serve the hometown has a population country, then come back of 350 people. He married and live as average citizens his high school again. That sweetheart. is the most And he spent motivating most of his factor for adult life me: We’ve working in his got to elect family busipeople ness: a small who care chain of more about convenience the country stores his parthan their ents started career. in 1977 and sold in 2015.

How can But if you ask veterans Richards — change who served Congress? as a combat People engineer who have in the U.S. served in CANDIDATE Army — Main the military Street works know how a lot better to get than Capitol things RICHARDS Hill does. done. Of all Running for: That’s why the people U.S. House of he’s running I ever met Representatives to serve Iowa’s in the Party: 4th District in military, Republican Congress.

I don’t think I ever Home: Why did you knew their Irwin, Iowa decide to join political Branch served: the military, party. I asU.S. Army and to run sumed we Age: 48 for elected had similar office? values in a It’s not lot of ways, PROVIDED BY BRET RICHARDS necessarily but I didn’t that I was destined to do care if they were a Demoit, but it’s how I was raised. crat, a Republican or an My uncle was in the Army Independent … Congress is in Korea. My dad was in a great deal different from Vietnam. Both my grandthe military, but they’re fathers served in (World both about developing War II). So there is a service personal relationships. You component of who I am. have to show leadership to And I don’t think I’m done others who disagree with serving our country yet. you, be logical, treat people civilly and find ways to There are many ways to get the right things done. serve. Why did you choose That’s what military people Congress? bring to the table.

BRET

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atrick Batten may have give back to this community. taken a 15-year hiatus from politics, but he What do you think will be never took a break from public your greatest asset if you’re service. A graduate of San elected?

Diego State University, he The biggest asset I bring is spent seven years working on problem-solving. As a Marine, political camyou don’t paigns before take no for enlisting in the an answer.

U.S. Marine Whether Corps at the you’re in age of 27. By combat, in that time, the training or just father of four dealing with was married administrawith children. tive issues, During five you find overseas dethe solution ployments, he to whatleft his family ever problem behind, but arises. That’s never alone. one of the To thank the biggest community advantages that cared for that I have them in his coming into absence, Batthis council. ten — who still serves in the Elected office CANDIDATE Marine Corps is one way Reserve — is veterans have running for a to give back. nonpartisan What do they BATTEN seat on the receive in Running for: San San Diego City return?

Diego City Council Council.

My personal Party: Republican struggle comWhy do you ing back into Home: San Diego want to serve society from Branch served: on the City the military U.S. Marine Corps Council? was the fact Age: 43 I spent a lot of that I felt time overseas alienated. when I was Everybody PROVIDED BY PATRICK BATTEN deployed. I wants to come left my family in San Diego, but up and say thanks for your whenever I needed anything service, shake your hand and — whenever I couldn’t be there walk away. But then you still — somebody in this community feel kind of alone. Politics and always stepped up, whether government are an opportuthat was making sure my family nity to continue serving using was safely evacuated during the skills and life lessons that the (2007 California wildfires) you learned in the military. or fixing the water heater when When we as service members it went out. For a six-pack of get elected to office, it shows beer, somebody in the commuus the incredible value that we nity was always willing to help provide to our country — not out. This is an opportunity for just in combat, but also when me to continue my service and we return.

PATRICK

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orn in Jamaica, Jackie does. So when I came home I Gordon immigrated at decided to be more involved age 7 to the U.S. with than just voting. I found my her family and attended public local party and said I wanted to school in Queens, N.Y. She was get more involved. That’s how 20 years old when she saw a it started.

TV commercial in which the U.S. Army You’ve declared, already been “We do more serving in before 9 a.m. local office. than most Why do you people do all want to serve day.” In that in Congress? commercial, Actually, that she saw goes back to people workthe TV coming together mercial. In the and getting military you things done. In learn the Army short, she saw values of selfCANDIDATE herself. She less service, enlisted in the respect, loyArmy Reserve alty, integrity, GORDON in 1984 and honor, duty Running for: retired in 2014 and courage.

U.S. House of at the rank I was in the Representatives of lieutenant military for colonel. more than half Party: Democratic Meanwhile, the of my life, so Home: Copiague, N.Y. single mom those values Branch served: of two has are ingrained U.S. Army Reserve spent 32 years in me. When I working as a look at what’s Age: 54 high school happening in guidance Washington, PROVIDED BY JACKIE GORDON counselor.

I see a lot She became an elected official of slippage from those core in 2007, when she won a seat values. If we elect people who on the Town Board in Babylon, have those core Army values, I N.Y., and has now set her sights think we’ll be in a better place on federal office, seeking to as a nation. unseat veteran Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., in New York’s 2nd Your military values may Congressional District. translate to Congress, but will your military skills?

A TV commercial inspired The military trains you to always you to join the military. What be ready and to be prepared inspired you to run for office? for anything. That focus on how I was deployed to Iraq for 14 to plan and how to prepare can months, and that caused me serve you anywhere. It’s the to miss the 14th year of my way I run my life. I know what daughter’s life. That’s what my end game needs to be, and made me realize how important I plan from there. That’s how I our elected officials are, beget to my goal. Congress is difcause they make decisions that ferent, and navigating it is not affect all of us. A lot of people going to be easy, but the skills say, ‘I don’t vote because my I learned in the military have vote really doesn’t matter.’ That prepared me to get through all brought it home to me that it manner of rough terrain.

JACKIE

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s the son of an ample, a woman recently told immigrant and the me that her granddaughter grandson of refugees had lost the ability to get her — Holocaust survivors who asthma medication because came to the United States afher daughter — the child’s ter World War II — Dan Helmer mother — had been erronemight appreciate his country ously denied Medicare covermore than age. Because most. A West I have been Point graduate campaigning who served in and have the U.S. Army made connecfor 11 years tions in the and continues community, to serve in I was able to the U.S. Army help fix the Reserve, the situation and father of two get this little has always girl asthma endeavored medication. to serve his Those are country as the kinds of CANDIDATE thanks for things you welcoming can even do his relatives while you’re HELMER during their running.

Running for: Virginia time of need.

House of Delegates He hopes to You have such

DAN

a compelling family story.

Home: Fairfax, Va. What’s it Branch served: like for your U.S. Army family seeing you serve in Age: 38 this capacity?

My grandPROVIDED BY DAN HELMER You ran for mother, who Congress in 2018 and lost. is a Holocaust survivor, is still What do you think you can alive. She hid for a year and achieve in state politics that a half with her family under you couldn’t in federal office? the baseboards of a baseI’m excited about the opporment when Nazis liquidated tunity to make positive change their village in Poland. They quickly in a way that can only subsequently were declared be done in our General Asenemies of the state by the sembly in the Commonwealth.

Soviet Union and eventually And more specifically, I think escaped to our country as we deserve a government that refugees. Coming from that, fights for our veterans … I can my family knows what this do that really effectively at the country stands for and has state level. been fighting side by side with me, walking the district with What’s something that has me, helping me collect money, surprised you about running making phone calls, etc. I’m for office? humbled by all the help they Something I didn’t recognize have given me, and by the about being involved in politics thousands of Virginians who is how much good you can do have given up their time and for your community just by treasure to try to effect real running for office. For exchange in our politics. continue doing exactly that representing District 40 in the Virginia House of Delegates.

Party: Democratic

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By Jodi Helmer

Women vets are accessing mental health care in record numbers — but most still go untreated

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URING A 1993 DEPLOYMENT to Somalia, Gina

Foringer was one of four soldiers in a convoy when a command-detonated land mine ignited under her truck. During the same deployment, she assisted in the recovery mission after two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu.

The experiences left Foringer, a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army on active duty from 1990 to 1994 and an individual ready-reserve member from 1994 to 1998, with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“We had a battlefield debriefing in Somalia acknowledging the trauma, but it wasn’t until I was leaving active duty (and going into individual ready-reserve) that a psychiatrist diagnosed me with PTSD,” Foringer said. “I had all of the symptoms: disturbed sleep, trouble in crowds, jumping at loud noises. … I still have the feeling, at times, that I’m still in combat boots and always at the ready.”

Military service can take its toll on mental health. The suicide rate CONTI NUED

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“I still have the feeling, at times, that I’m still in combat boots and always at the ready.”

GINA FORINGER, Army veteran

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issues, according to Esperansa Perez, a case manager at Women Vets on Point, a California nonprofit aimed at addressing the barriers to mental health care for female veterans.

Perez, who suffered from depression after serving as a sergeant in the Army from 2001 to 2009, never considered calling the VA to access treatment for mental health issues when she transitioned out of the military.

“We feel that most women that come through our program need mental health (services) … but some of them are in denial,” Perez said. “In the military, (asking for help) is a sign of weakness, or maybe even (lead to) reprimand or even retaliation. You have to find that person who is willing to hear you and open their heart to what you have to say and what you’re feeling and what you have experienced.”

DEPLOYING ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Esperansa Perez PROVIDED BY ESPERANSA PEREZ

among female veterans is 2.2 times higher than non-veteran women, according to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs report, and a survey conducted by the nonprofit Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN) found that 61 percent of female veterans had been diagnosed with clinical depression; most cited military service as having a negative effect on their mental well-being.

Women make up 30 percent of the 9 million veterans enrolled in the health care program operated through VA, and their greatest need is for mental health services. Over the last decade, the department has experienced a 154 percent increase in the number of women seeking behavioral health services.

Despite the ever-increasing numbers of women seeking health care through the VA, the figures represent just 25 percent of the female veterans who are eligible to access agency services, noted Patricia Hayes, chief consultant for the Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group in the VA Office of Patient Care Services.

“Women are underutilizing the VA compared to men very significantly,” Hayes said. “Our research has shown repeatedly that women veterans particularly don’t understand that … they are entitled to various health care and mental health care services from the VA.”

COMBATING STIGMA Foringer knew she needed professional help. She signed up for a six-week, VA-led support group for veterans with PTSD. She attended the first session in 1994 and was not surprised to be the sole woman in a group of men who served during the Vietnam and Korean wars. Most assumed she was the instructor, not a soldier.

Participating in the support group also triggered feelings of imposter syndrome.

There was a competitive culture among male soldiers, each one sharing war stories more dramatic or harrowing than the next, Foringer said.

“A lot of the men had been on multiple deployments and when I held my experience in contrast, it didn’t feel worth mentioning,” she said. “As a woman, I felt like I had to ‘butch up’ and prove that I could handle it.”

Foringer faced additional stigma in seeking treatment: She served during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era, and she knew that coming out as a lesbian would lead to a dishonorable discharge. Instead of scheduling individual therapy sessions through the VA, she made an appointment with a non-VA psychologist and paid for the sessions out-of-pocket.

Stigma is one of the primary reasons many female veterans live with undiagnosed and untreated mental health

To address the stigma associated with accessing care, the VA introduced Telehealth Services. The program connects veterans with therapists for real-time video counseling sessions and provides additional health care needs.

Because of the number of veterans using the service for mood and anxiety disorders, addiction, stress and military sexual trauma, mental health services account for 46 percent of all telehealth clinical specialties, according to Susan McCutcheon, the national director of family services, VA’s women’s mental health and military sexual trauma.

“If you (meet with a therapist via) telehealth in your home, nobody is seeing you walk into a clinic,” Hayes added. “For some veterans, it’s a much safer way to approach mental health care. … We see this as an integral part of care.”

But Hayes recognizes that the VA might not be seen as the first point of contact for care, even among female veterans who are willing to reach out for help. To spread the word to eligible veterans, the VA launched the Women Veterans Call Center in 2013.

In addition to contacting female veterans who had never used the VA to explain their benefits and ask if they needed help or health care, the agency set up a dedicated phone line, 855-VA-WOMEN, that female veterans can call or text to speak with other women who are trained to answer questions about benefits and respond to crisis situations, including mental health emergencies. The Women CONTI NUED

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154%

The increase in the number of women seeking behavioral health services from the VA over the last decade SOURCE: VETERANS AFFAIRS

Expanded Access Veterans Call Center has fielded almost 80,000 calls since the beginning of the year.

Although the agency has deployed several new resources in an effort to increase health care utilization among female veterans, Hayes acknowledged that the VA needs help to meet the need and is working with other community groups “that want to support veterans to enhance this idea that there (are) various ways that people can help.”

Women Vets on Point, located in Bob Hope Patriotic Hall in Los Angeles, refers veterans to its clinic for mental health services and helps them access services through VA hospitals, health care centers and community-based outreach clinics.

But their help often starts with providing resources for housing and employment.

Once a relationship is built, the female veterans running the organization start conversations about mental health.

“Coming across another female veteran who knows what they’ve been through … helps them open up,” Perez said.

WINNING THE WAR ON WOMEN’S MENTAL HEALTH Lisa Foster, a Navy veteran who served as a petty officer third class during operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, acknowledges that the prevalence of verbal, physical and sexual harassment in the military can lead to mental health issues. For the women who

serve, the separation from their families is also traumatic.

“A lot of women see things … that are forever instilled in their minds,” she said.

“One of the biggest problems women face is trying to carry the world on our shoulders and not asking for help until it’s too late; we need to make it OK to ask for help.”

At SWAN, a network of female veterans advocating for female veterans and servicewomen, changing the conversation around mental health has helped persuade women to prioritize care and seek support, according to Ellen Haring, SWAN CEO and retired U.S. Army colonel.

“Reframing it to a conversation about ‘mental wellness’ has made women veterans more willing to talk about it,” Haring noted.

In SWAN’s 2018 report, The Mental Wellness Needs of Military Women, the organization suggests gender-specific mental wellness assessments during transition and demobilization activities, increased access to trained therapists at the VA, support groups for military women and improved access to resources.

Foringer believes that winning the war on mental health starts with outreach to women who are still on active duty.

“If it were my Army, psychologists would be coming to the barracks,” she said. “It shouldn’t be a question of whether or not you need help; the data supports that (members of the military and veterans) need it.”

Veterans can see private doctors at VA expense Veterans now have expanded access to medical care outside Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. The VA MISSION Act was signed by President Donald Trump last year, but its key provisions took effect in June.

Rules established under the law direct the VA to pay for veterans to see non-VA doctors if they have to wait longer than 20 days or drive more than 30 minutes for primary or mental health care at a VA facility.

For specialty care, they can see private doctors at the VA’s expense if they have to wait longer than 28 days or drive more than an hour to see a VA provider. Previously, veterans who had to drive more than 40 miles or wait longer than 30 days could choose to see a private doctor paid for by the VA. VA officials previously estimated the new rules could increase the number of veterans eligible for VA-sponsored private care to as many as 2.1 million — up from about 560,000.

The rules also allow veterans to see non-VA urgent care clinics at the VA’s expense without prior approval, although they may be required to make a copayment.

“Veterans should expect a fairly transparent and seamless transition to the new Veterans Community Care Program,” the agency said in a post explaining the new program.

The expansion of veterans’ medical care choices was a key campaign promise for Trump, and its rollout will be closely watched by veterans groups who have worried it will divert money from VA health care. They have said that diversion would damage the agency’s ability to provide care, causing more veterans to get non-VA care, and ultimately triggering the privatization of the agency.

— Donovan Slack

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TriWest Healthcare Alliance and its nationwide network of

1.2 million health care providers in the community believe that

EVERY DAY IS

VETERANS DAY Thank you to the VA providers and providers in the community for following the example of service before self by stepping up to care for Veterans every day.

Happy Veterans Day! On a Mission to Serve TriWest thanks VA and Congressional leaders for helping lead the way by consolidating multiple community care programs into one, through the VA MISSION Act. You are making a difference for our nation’s heroes!

TriWest.com  facebook.com/TriWest  twitter.com/TriWest

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The Future of Military Families For some vets, service-related injuries can make it challenging to start families. One VA survey found that 15.8 percent of women and 13.8 percent of men who served in operations Enduring Freedom or Iraqi Freedom experienced infertility.

Under the code of federal regulations, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has been excluded from VA benefits, noted Patricia Hayes, chief consultant for Women Veterans Health Strategic Health Care Group in the

VA Office of Patient Care Services.

In 2016, Congress passed a law that allowed the agency to offer IVF services to certain groups of veterans and their spouses.

“We have known for some time that there are risks and higher complications sometimes from service injuries … that result in infertility,” Hayes noted. “We want to make sure that veterans in general know that infertility evaluation and treatment, including things like artificial insemination

for veterans, is currently available and will continue to be available.”

Eligible veterans can also access infertility and genetic counseling, sperm testing, ultrasounds, medication and other treatments. More than 700 couples have received IVF consultative treatments since the program started.

A new Transition Assistance Program provides information about reproductive benefits to women who transition out of military service, and the VA con-

tinues to spread the word about the availability of the offering.

Hayes warns that the qualifications are restrictive: Veterans must be legally married and donor sperm, eggs, embryos and surrogacy are not covered under the benefit.

“There are veterans who are continuing to work to seek from Congress a widening of disability so that we could offer additional services,” she said.

— Jodi Helmer

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DURING DEADLY MASS SHOOTINGS, THESE PROTECTORS STEPPED IN TO SERVE

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By Gina Harkins

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HE FIRST FEW POPS imme-

diately caught Taylor Winston’s attention.

It had been years since he deployed to Iraq, where his team occasionally took fire from a distance as they trained local police officers.

But when the next round of shots erupted at a rate like that from an automatic weapon, the veteran Marine sergeant knew they were under attack.

Winston and his girlfriend were in Las Vegas from San Diego for the October 2017 Route 91 Harvest festival. The pair was dancing the two-step as country music singer Jason Aldean performed onstage for about 22,000 fans.

Then, just after 10 p.m., a gunman began firing at the crowd from the 32nd floor of a nearby hotel on the Vegas strip.

“It’s not anything like combat,” Winston said of the mass shooting. “You’re just fish in a barrel getting shot at, and there’s no escape. It was pretty unsettling to watch people get shot all around you.”

After escaping the initial barrage of bullets, Winston found a truck with the keys inside and drove it back into the line of fire multiple times to help evacuate the wounded. He’s credited with saving dozens of people by getting them to an area where they could be transported to a medical facility before ambulances could enter the scene.

Winston, a product designer and manufacturer for Country Rebel Clothing Co., is one of several veterans or active-duty service members who’ve made headlines in the wake of horrific mass shooting events. Their heroism directly opposes an all-too-common assumption: that a troubled vet is on the other end of the gunfire.

The desire to help is deeply ingrained in those who serve, said Shiva Ghaed, a California-based clinical psychologist who has treated veterans and active-duty troops for decades. Ghaed, who works at a Marine Corps base, also survived the Route 91 shooting, which killed 58 and left more than 500 injured.

Taylor Winston was hailed a hero for rescuing concertgoers under fire at a Las Vegas event in 2017.

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Shiva Ghaed, second from the left, with friends at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest festival

“Taylor’s one of those guys, one of probably many veterans that are just that select group of very special people on this planet who run into the fire,” she said. “Perhaps they would do it even without training because it’s a character and personality thing. But it’s also part of a person’s identity.”

Veterans, active-duty troops, prospective recruits and members of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps have all put themselves at risk during mass shootings to help others. Some paid the ultimate price in doing so.

Winston said he’s thankful to see those associated with the military help during mass shootings — although he finds it unfortunate they’re put in those situations.

“It’s very unsettling to have to step up again when you’re at home and everyone thinks we’re safe,” he said. “But I know for most all service members, it’s bred in them to serve and protect. I think that’s embedded into the member for their whole lifetime. You’re not getting rid of it.”

The Route 91 Harvest festival, an Oregon community college, a Florida high school, a Texas shopping center, bars in Orlando and California, and a San Diego synagogue are just some of the places where veterans or troops have sprung into action during active shootings.

‘I THREW THE DICE’ hen a gunman opened fire in Oscar Stewart’s San Diego County synagogue in April, his first instinct was to run.

“I was like everybody else, rushing toward the door,” said Stewart, who served as an explosive ordnance technician in the Navy during the Gulf War then later enlisted in the Army and deployed to Iraq in 2003. “But when I got to the door, I turned around and went back toward the shooter.”

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Oscar Stewart chased the gunman who attacked his synagogue in Poway, Calif., in April.

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Their heroism directly opposes an all-toocommon assumption: that a troubled vet is on the other end of the gunfire.

Two women offered each other solace outside the synagogue where a shooter interrupted services.

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It wasn’t a conscious thought, he said, and he still doesn’t know what exactly made him turn around. As he ran toward the exit of the Orthodox synagogue, where the men and women sit separately, he recalled seeing women and children caught between the lobby, where the gunman was standing, and the exit.

“Maybe that’s what made me turn around,” he said. “There was no way they were going to get out of there if he had decided to go into the sanctuary.

Maybe that’s what triggered me.”

Stewart ran in a zig-zag pattern toward the lobby, trying to avoid the gunfire as he’d been trained.

The man was holding a rifle, and he fired off two more shots. Stewart — who was unarmed — raised his arms as he ran toward the man and yelled, “I’m going to kill you!”

The shooter dropped his weapon and ran.

Stewart followed him to his vehicle along with an off-duty border patrol agent.

“I threw the dice,” Stewart said. “He didn’t have any expectation of anyone doing this at all and probably thought he was going to be in complete control. He had no training to fall back on to say, ‘OK, what do I do as the situation changes?’ He just lost it.”

A 60-year-old woman was killed in the attack and three others, including the rabbi, were injured.

The San Diego Sheriff’s Department credited Stewart with risking his life to stop the shooter. “(He) saved lives in the process,” Sheriff Bill Gore said in a statement.

Like Winston, Stewart said veterans have already committed to serve once. That’s not a part of one’s character that ends with their enlistment, he added.

“It takes a special person to be willing to serve — not only to be in the military, but to be a teacher, to be a fireman, to be a policeman,” he said. “For the most part, the average person in the military has already made a commitment to help; to go above and beyond.”

BREAKING A STIGMA hen a gunman shot and killed a dozen people at a bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif., last year, President Donald Trump drew a connection between the shooter’s military service and his mental state.

“He was a war veteran — he was a Marine,” Trump said at the time. “He saw some pretty bad things, and a lot of people say he

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had (post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD) and that’s a tough deal. People come back — that’s why it’s a horrible thing; they come back (and) they’re never the same.”

The president’s “extremely unhelpful” comments “perpetuate a false and damaging narrative that veterans are broken and dangerous,” said Paul Rieckhoff, president of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which represents more than 400,000 people. “Most people who suffer from PTSD, when able to access effective treatment, are able to live healthy, happy, meaningful lives.”

That’s true, said Ghaed, who treats hundreds of Marines and sailors every month. Despite the stereotype, she said most military war veterans never develop post-traumatic stress.

The Department of Veterans Affairs puts the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress in any given year between 11 percent and 20 percent. For those who’ve witnessed mass shootings, she said the rate is higher.

“And even that number is still about 30 percent,” Ghaed said. “For all other kinds of trauma, which means rape, domestic violence, child abuse, combat, natural disaster, it’s about half of that.”

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Mourners gathered in Thousand Oaks, Calif., where a shooter opened fire on bar patrons in 2018.

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Veterans have already committed to serve once.

That is not a part of one’s character that ends with their enlistment.

That means many veterans who go to combat “recover completely and move on with their lives,” she said. Even those who do develop (PTSD) — which Ghaed said is most common in those with pre-existing trauma, depression or anxiety — it’s “extremely treatable.”

“I’ve treated thousands of patients. PTSD is treatable because it is simply a set of thoughts and behaviors that manifest after trauma,” she said. “If you change your worldview and you keep it realistic and you get balanced and you don’t avoid what triggers you, then you don’t develop PTSD.” Ghaed and Winston have spread this message to other mass shooting victims. Their website, route91therapy.com, offers videos, an e-book and other tools to help victims of mass violence.

After surviving the Route 91 attack, Ghaed experienced trauma symptoms and reactions.

Since she had so many patients counting on her, she said she forced herself to deal with those feelings. She knew she had to put in the same hard work she prescribes to her military patients.

“Don’t avoid feeling your feelings. Don’t avoid the panic attack,” Ghaed said. “If you’re going to have a panic attack, just have it — embrace it, and you’ll get through it. Nobody dies from a panic

attack. I told myself to go back to Vegas, go back to concerts. Don’t avoid events with high rises, noise, lights and fireworks, and keep listening to Jason Aldean.”

When Ghaed and Winston met at an event for Route 91 survivors, the psychologist encouraged Winston to assess his mental health after the event, too. Having a Marine veteran be so open about what he has done to work through the stress of being a part of a mass shooting is sure to help others, Ghaed said.

“It’s very powerful for him to also be part of this because he’s male. He’s former military, and this is traditionally a sector of the population that doesn’t ask for help,” she said.

Winston credits his work with Ghaed and country music artists for keeping his head strong.

Veterans and mass shooting victims are exposed to horrific conditions, but he said educating himself about trauma and how to cope has kept him on a healthy path.

He and Stewart said they hope people seeing veterans helping during the worst times ends the stigma, particularly for this generation of combat warriors, that they’re all broken.

“If the good people stand up to the bad, the bad are never going to succeed,” Stewart said.

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ADAPTIVE TRANSFORMATIONS VA’s national rehabilitative programming offers life-affirming experiences On his first day, Miller signed up for surfing. As he stood on the beach, he could IXTEEN YEARS AGO, A retinal hear the Pacific Ocean waves crashing, issue caused former and felt his anxiety growing. At 6 feet, 2 Army Capt. Chuck Miller to go inches tall and 210 pounds, he worried blind. He struggled to adapt that he was too big to be able to stand on and reluctantly visited his the board. And he couldn’t see what he VA’s recreational physical was doing. therapist. After several apBut his team leader, Brad pointments, she told Miller Howe, reminded Miller about the VA-sponsored that he’d be next to him the National Veterans Summer “The Summer entire time, whether they Sports Clinic, held in were floating out on the Sports Clinic San Diego each year. She water or riding a wave to wanted him to attend so he shore. Initially, Howe stood is so teamcould try adaptive surfing, in the water, steadying cycling, sailing and more. oriented ... it the surfboard as Miller “I think this experience attempted to stand amidst gives you back the waves and acclimate to might change your life,” he recalled her saying. feeling of the surf. As that purpose the But Miller was reluctant.

Miller progressed to standDuring his childhood, you had in the ing on the board, Howe he didn’t play team or rode on the back, guiding military.” individual sports, and the him. At other times, Howe military was his primary body-surfed alongside — CHUCK MILLER, form of activity throughout Miller, serving as a vocal former Army captain his 28 years of service. He and physical guide while had, however, wanted to Miller gained confidence. try surfing and sailing “at some point,” “I don’t know how he accomplished that, but had always postponed for one reason but I never felt alone out there,” Miller or another. After losing his sight, Miller said. assumed those opportunities were gone.

Miller was told that he was the first “In my mind, those activities were for one on the water and the last to leave. sighted people.”

After that first day, he couldn’t wait to Still, he agreed to travel to the sports try again. “The freedom of being able to clinic from his home in Gainesville, Fla. do something that I thought I couldn’t

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do — I was able to stand up on the board a couple of times, which blew my mind,” he said. “It was amazing. It gave me my sense of freedom back, my individuality, self-confidence and courage — all the things I lost when I went blind, I was able to slowly get back from adaptive sports.”

That sentiment has been echoed by thousands of veterans who have participated in adaptive sports worldwide.

Because of the VA’s vast network of connections to local adaptive sport organizations as well as their own clinics and competition-based games, adaptiveathlete veterans can experience the joy and power of rehabilitation through sport.

BELIEVE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE What began as local VA hospitals and clinics working with a few veterans to organize wheelchair basketball games almost four decades ago as part of VA’s engagement during the International Year of the Disabled has grown into programming that serves more than 15,000 veterans throughout the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, said Leif Nelson, director of National Veteran Sports Programs and Special Events.

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CHUCK MILLER’S SPORTS:

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presenting in the past six years. By taught her to “believe in the impossible.” promoting rehabilitation through As a result, she was a high-achieving adaptive summer sports — such as goal-setter. But, like Miller, she was surfing, sailing, kayaking and cycling — never an athlete. She tried playing on a the clinic treats traumatic brain injury, volleyball team while stationed in Korea. post-traumatic stress disorder, visual On the first play, she was hit in the head impairments, neurological conditions, by the volleyball and knocked out. When spinal cord injury or loss of limb. Hosted she came to, she officially quit. by the VA San Diego Healthcare System In 1994, Adams was severely injured and held in locations throughout the in a car accident. She broke the C4/ San Diego area, the five-day clinic is one C5 vertebrae in her neck, and doctors of six annual, national rehabilitation told her she would never walk again. events offered through the VA’s National For the next eight years, “my life was Veterans Sports Programs and Special about managing pain,” Adams said.

Events. These programs are designed for “Learning to accept what was happening the practice of formalized adaptive sports and adjusting, because the other choice and serve as the largest coordinated was just not to be here.” She gradually therapeutic arts program regained movement, albeit for veterans. limited, but she avoided In addition to the athletic activity.

Summer Sports Clinic, At her annual spinal cord “I’m learning the VA hosts five other injury exam in 2002 at the national events each year: veterans hospital in Richto live life the National Disabled mond, Va., a recreational differently — Veterans Winter Sports therapist asked Adams Clinic, co-sponsored whether she was interand having with Disabled American ested in attending the VA’s Veterans (DAV); Naannual National Veteran tons of fun.” tional Veterans Golden Age Wheelchair Games, so she — TWILA ADAMS, Games; National Veterans could participate in and former Army sergeant Wheelchair Games (coexperience adaptive sports. sponsored with Paralyzed Adams asked her which Veterans of America); National Disabled sports she might be able to participate in; Veterans T.E.E (Training, Exposure, her therapist responded, “anything.”

Experience) Tournament (co-sponsored Adams’ injuries caused neuropathy, with DAV); and National Veterans grip problems, chronic pain and burning Creative Arts Competition & Festival, sensations in her hands, arms and legs. co-presented with the American Legion Like others with paralysis, she is often Auxiliary. too hot or too cold because she can no Close to 6,000 veterans, regardless of longer regulate her body temperature. age (a 101-year-old veteran from Alaska She has trouble sitting in her chair for won a gold medal at the 2019 Golden long periods of time and has limited Age Games) or ability, participate in walking capabilities via a walker or cane. the introductory clinics or compete in Still, she decided to travel from her CrossFit, billiards, wheelchair basketball, home in North Carolina to the 2002 tennis and other sports at Wheelchair Games in Cleveland. On the the games. first day, Adams competed in billiards.

“How many folks ever thought they’d She had never played before and worried be able to surf at all, let alone now that about adjusting to the table height while they have a spinal cord injury or limb seated in her chair. She won the competiamputation?” Nelson said. “Every single tion. She also competed in ramp bowling, one of these can be that powerful impact table tennis and trapshooting. She loved moment that changes folks’ perspectives them all. on themselves.”

“Never in my life did I think when I For 60-year-old retired Army Sgt. Twila went to Cleveland that it would happen Adams, learning about the National the way it’s happening today,” Adams Veteran Wheelchair Games from her said. “I’m learning to live life differently physical therapist in 2002 was a trans— and having tons of fun.” formative experience. Adams’ parents Through the annual games, which she

has attended 12 more times since her inaugural trip, Adams has learned more about her injuries and how to be active in spite of them. She now competes in more than eight events, including power lifting. Adams particularly loves meeting children at the event and showing them all that is possible despite their physical limitations.

“I have forged lifelong relationships with people through adaptive sport,” she said. “To share a little ray of hope with someone who doesn’t have any. I’ve been in those dark moments. I know that sometimes your mental pain, physical pain, it overwhelms you. But when I reach a little deeper, I think, ‘I’ll just do it for someone else.’ Watch the possibility — the impossible becomes possible.

To me, what is there to fear? What will they do, break my neck? Just do it — and thrive in the possibilities that life has to offer.”

At the 2019 National Veterans Wheelchair Games in Louisville, Ky., Adams received the Spirit of the Games award, given to the one wheelchair athlete out of hundreds who demonstrates the most leadership, offers encouragement and maintains a never-give-up attitude.

‘THEY SEE THAT THEY CAN DO THIS, TOO’ Even if a new sport doesn’t become a veteran’s passion after they try it, the programs are designed to instill a sense of confidence and self-worth, Nelson noted. He added that perhaps these new experiences will inspire attendees to become more involved by volunteering in their community: “We want them out of their basement and out in the world, living their lives.”

That also means working closely with community providers. As Nelson pointed out, VA providers are the experts in veteran care, whether it’s education, training or therapy. “But they won’t always be experts in all sports,” he said. So, the VA partners with community providers who offer adaptive sport instruction or group activities.

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TWILA ADAMS’ SPORTS:

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JUSTIN ASHBAUGH’S SPORT:

ANDREW LESSARD’S SPORT:

Justin Ashbaugh, above, and Andrew Lessard during a National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic

bike and started riding with a local club (he now rides upward of 40-50 miles per week). He joined kayaking groups and began taking courses toward his sailing certification. Today, Miller is the first blind veteran to be officially certified by the American Sailing Association.

Miller continues to challenge himself. He used to be afraid of heights; now, he wants to try skydiving and zip lining. He recently embarked on a 900-mile bike journey with a group of friends.

“One thing that’s really neat about being in the military is it’s a family — you’re on a team, you know the team is there for you at all times,” Miller said. “The Summer Sports Clinic is so team-oriented, and it gives you back that purpose you had in the military that you lost when you became disabled. The VA has given the disabled veteran the ability to find that family and that teamwork, again.”

In 2019, Miller returned to the Summer Sports Clinic as an ambassador. In this role, which many veterans assume after completing a clinic or games competition, he encourages attendees to try new sports and push themselves.

“The impact on fellow veterans when they see another (veteran) doing it successfully, the lightbulb goes off,” Miller said, pausing for a moment as he becomes emotional. “They see that they can do this, too.”

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JOBS & EDUCATION

Best of the Best Ranking system spotlights veteran-friendly colleges and universities

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struck during his junior year in college, Garrett FitzGerald was unable to fulfill his dream of entering the Marine Corps officer program. He had many friends who were in the military, however, and

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JOBS & EDUCATION school, but not in collegiate opportunities,” he said. “Place yourself eight years after high school — you’re an adult, maybe have a family. Predatory schools come into play, marketing to veterans, promising things.”

FitzGerald got the idea to start CollegeRecon, a free website that allows anyone who qualifies for GI Bill funding to search colleges and connect with universities directly. The platform launched in 2015, offering advice and tools on a number of relevant topics including dorm shopping, accessing financial assistance and a basic allowance for housing calculator.

“We don’t charge veterans, so we do work with colleges,” FitzGerald said of the site. But he stressed that partner schools aren’t the only ones highlighted on CollegeRecon, so veterans are exposed to schools whether they boast a large veteran outreach budget or not.

“Schools will come to us and say, ‘We got a couple people from you. How can we get more?’ We work with them to market those programs.”

To further aid veterans in their quest, CollegeRecon recently debuted a ranking system of veteran-friendly colleges and universities. But instead of using its own data, the list is an aggregation of other well-known lists from sources that include U.S. News & World Report and militaryfriendly.com. The site cross-referenced these established lists to find which schools appeared most frequently.

While CollegeRecon came up with its top three schools based on other groups’ lists, there are three important qualities that most rankings use to determine whether a school is military-friendly: participation in the Yellow Ribbon program; having a veteran student organization; and flexibility and affordability for military and veteran students, such as awarding credits for service.

“We’re just collecting information and presenting it to veterans in an impartial way,” FitzGerald noted.

In its inaugural year, CollegeRecon’s list found that the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and the University of South Florida in Tampa were the top three schools for veterans.

We caught up with two of those schools to learn more about why they’re great options for vets:

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA When James Gittens decided to transfer to the University of South Florida

Veterans attend a campus expo at the University of South Florida.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

(USF) to pursue a degree in international studies with a focus on the Caribbean and South America, he said he felt alone and a bit intimidated until he found fellow veterans. For the 29-year-old senior, who served in the Army for more than five years, walking into the campus veterans center felt like coming home.

“It wasn’t until I came to the Office of Veteran Success that I really knew I wanted to be part of the team,” noted Gittens, who works in the office part time for his work study. “I didn’t have to pretend to be young or hold back on military terms.

We have similar jokes, lifestyles and are all motivated on a common goal — focusing on veterans, and of course we’re always trying to help people.”

One thing he appreciates about how the school supports veterans is that the office removes barriers to success, whether it’s making sure veteran students receive credit for military service when they can, helping to expedite late benefit forms or even helping alumni find jobs. “If there’s room to help, we’re going to find a way. We’re going to do it,” he said.

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Through the University of South Florida’s Office of Veteran Success, veterans can also register for a veterans-only transition and employment readiness class.

James Gittens AHMAD BERAN/UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA

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Students at the University of Southern California study in the Doheny Memorial Library.

PETER HOWARD

Jason Miller, associate director of the center and a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said the center’s success is partly based on the partnerships they’ve established with organizations. He said the local chapter of Mission United helps fill gaps when neither the VA nor his office can help, such as with legal assistance.

“There’s an answer to everything, but not necessarily something we provide inhouse, so we have folks in the business and nonprofit communities that do what

they need to do to help,” Miller said.

Another community partnership called Industry Recon allows veterans to speak with a career coordinator about what they would like to do after graduation. Miller said a student might want to be an engineer but not know which type or what opportunities are out there.

After defining a goal, the student is paired with a partner in the field so he or she can shadow a professional and see whether it’s a good fit. Sometimes, those relationships turn into mentorships,

internships and job offers.

One big bonus about being a veteran student at USF is the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital across the street, and a hospital employee serves on campus as a counselor and liaison between students and the hospital. “Not all universities have that,” Miller said.

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA For Brandon Wexler, a 35-year-old who served in the Navy’s military police,

going to the University of Southern California (USC) was a lifelong dream — but one that always seemed out of reach.

An injury kept him from football scholarship opportunities, and the unexpected news that he was going to be a young dad meant he had to figure out how to provide for a family — and quickly.

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It wasn’t until his recruiter told him he was eligible for funding through the Yellow Ribbon Program, which helps fill the gap between the GI Bill and the tuition costs of a private university, that he knew his dream could finally come true. Now he’s in his final semester at USC, pursuing a double major in cognitive science and linguistics, plus working in the provost’s office of military and veteran’s initiatives as part of his work study.

He pointed out that USC takes care of its veteran students from the very beginning by waiving the application fee. It also provides numerous networking opportunities, early registration to ensure they get the classes they need and career preparation with mock interviews and résumé-building sessions. There’s even dedicated and reasonably priced housing for veteran students.

“Being around your community helps because there are conversations we can have amongst ourselves that might be a little bit odd with another student,” said Wexler, who used to have more than an hour commute before he moved into the vet housing last year. “If someone’s having a rough time, we all go visit and see if anyone needs help, find resources for each other.”

Another big way that the university shows its commitment to those who have served their country is a fairly new master’s degree program in business developed solely for veterans.

The Master of Business for Veterans (MBV) under program director James Bogle is working with other business

LOAN FORGIVENESS In August, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum making it easier for veterans with a Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge to benefit from student loan forgiveness programs. Now, instead of veterans having to jump through hoops to apply, the Department of Education automatically opts TPD veterans into the program based on information it receives from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration. Qualifying veterans receive letters detailing the benefit, but you can find more information at disabilitydischarge.com/TPD-101 if you believe you may be eligible but haven’t received a letter.

Brandon Wexler UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

The University of Southern California’s Master of Business for Veterans program, which was created specifically for transitioning military leaders, teaches business skills and how to run an organization. USC is working with other institutions to launch similar programs.

THE BEST FOREVER GI BILL BENEFITS The Forever GI Bill, also known as the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, is a military benefit that veterans can use personally or transfer to a dependent. GI Bill benefits can be used for traditional college degree programs, online education, certification, approved training programs, flight training and more. There are many attractive features in the Forever GI Bill. Here are three: GI Bill housing allowance Those using the Post 9/11 GI Bill receive a housing allowance or stipend based on the facility ZIP code where the student takes classes. This taxfree monthly housing allowance is payable on a prorated basis, based on the number of monthly school days attended.

No housing stipend is paid for winter, spring or summer break, though

students using the GI Bill to attend summer classes will qualify for the housing payment.

No expiration date The Forever GI Bill removes benefit expiration dates known as the use-it-or-lose-it rule for veterans discharged on or after Jan. 1, 2013.

Those discharged or released before Jan. 1, 2013, had to use or lose

their GI Bill benefits within 15 years post-discharge per the original rule.

Restores benefits used at a school that has closed Previously, veterans using the GI Bill had no recourse if a participating institution closed or lost accreditation.

Under the Forever GI Bill, students may petition the VA to have benefits restored.

schools nationwide to create similar programs.

“It’s the only program of its kind that we’ve created specifically for transitioning military leaders,” noted Bogle, who retired from the Army in 2012 after 25 years of service. “We have a lot of applicable experience on the leadership side, (such as) how to run an organization, but some of the business skills are what’s missing — language, reading of financial documents, vocabulary. So, the idea kind of took root here in the Marshall School (of Business).”

The MBV caters to veterans by making it a shorter program, since these are generally midcareer professionals; having a faculty that’s trained to understand who its audience is; and focusing on entrepreneurship that teaches veterans how to operate outside of the unit structure that becomes so familiar in the military. “It’s a much more open kind of environment where you have to make things happen yourself and have to provide your own resources,” Bogle said.

Bogle also points to career development as a crucial aspect of the program.

For example, Gen. David Petraeus has served as faculty adviser for the USC Veterans Association.

“He works those guys, too,” Bogle said of the ex-CIA director. “I love it. It becomes a real learning experience when you have to answer questions from this brilliant four-star (general) and produce results. He’s very much committed to their learning and challenging them.”

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Navigating a New Field Veterans face unexpected challenges entering federal workforce

By Adam Stone

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ETIMA MCCRAY NO LONGER

wears the uniform, but she still wants to be of service to her country. “Pursuing a federal career opportunity felt like an extension of military service. I wanted to have a way to be a part of something that was larger than myself,” she said.

After McCray left the Marine Corps in 2012, she studied for a degree in account-

ing, and in May 2019 she put her training to work, taking a job as a staff accountant in the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “I joined the military because I wanted to show that I could have a greater purpose,” she said.

“I saw federal work as a continuation of that feeling, being part of a big machine that touches many lives.”

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U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ corporate recruiters Timothy Knoth and Amelia Palmer engage with the career-seeking military community at a May Department of Homeland Security-sponsored recruitment and outreach event on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. Knoth said his veteran status helped him land his job.

McCray is not alone: Veterans make up some 31 percent of the federal workforce, according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), accounting for more than 633,000 of some 2 million total government employees. With former President Barack Obama’s 2009 Veterans Employment Initiative, the government committed itself to hiring veterans. Still, many say they struggle to navigate the complex federal hiring system.

GIVING PREFERENCE OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas said federal officials want to make it as easy as possible for veterans to get hired.

That’s why vets get special preference

for many government positions, and why agencies have various authorities to help fast-track vets into the workforce.

Agencies have a moral obligation to honor military service, Rigas said, and can benefit from the high level of readiness that veterans bring to the table.

“You have individuals with training and skills in a lot of the same areas that government needs, whether that is information technology, program management, cybersecurity, acquisitions and contracts,” he said. “And there’s the esprit de corps that veterans have.

In the military, you have to achieve the mission, and having that mindset is very important in the federal government.”

Federal agencies give preference to veterans based on factors such as time served and level of disability. When a job is publicly advertised, “veterans who meet the qualifications for that job rise to the top (of the candidate list),” Rigas said. Agencies also have “special hiring authorities” that allow vets to be hired non-competitively for certain jobs, and also to compete for jobs that would otherwise only be open to those already in federal service.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Timothy Knoth leveraged special hiring authority in 2018 to land a job as a human resource specialist with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “I was able to be

considered through an announcement that otherwise would have been available only to current employees,” he said.

“It gave me a chance to showcase my qualifications, the knowledge and skills and ability I had acquired in my time in the military.”

Not everyone is as fortunate. Despite the preference points, many former military still struggle to navigate the government’s hiring protocols.

‘LABYRINTHINE SYSTEM’ Federal job applications need to mirror almost exactly the language of the job CONTI NUED

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JOBS & EDUCATION listing, and that can be a problem long,” he said. for vets whose military work doesn’t Despite the hurdles, there are ways have an exact civilian equivalent. that vets can give themselves an The government’s jobs listing portal, edge when applying for federal work. usajobs.gov, also is persnickety Rigas points to OPM’s fedshirevets. about details like formatting and gov as a key enabler. “It has a lot of language, said Adam Hughes, a tools to help demystify the federal director in Grant Thornton’s Public hiring process and maximize their Sector division, which consults with opportunities for success,” he said. federal leaders on personnel and These include a primer on preference other issues. and a virtual classroom with links Former Army Lt. Bruce Mento veterans resources in government delsohn recently sought federal agencies most likely to hire vets, employment. A communications including Defense, Homeland professional, he left the military in Security and Veterans Affairs.

1993 and decided to make the leap Knoth tapped his network of exfrom private sector to government military friends when seeking federal work. Despite his veteran status, work, and they gave him guidance. he found it difficult to pry open the “I knew folks who had made the doors. transition to federal civilian service,” “It is a labyrinthine system; it he said. “They were very supportive is very difficult to in (helping) me over navigate,” he said those hurdles and With former of usajobs.gov. helping me to bring “Getting the proper my Army skills to bear President Barack paperwork to prove in a résumé.”

Obama’s 2009 your disability status For those struggling is very complicated. to get the wording just Veterans EmployThen you need to put right on a résumé, together a federal Hughes suggested ment Initiative, résumé that connects a simple expedient: the government to that job descripLook at the phrases tion. All of that can and keywords used in committed itself take a long time.” the job listing and use As of September, to hiring vets. Still, those when describing he’d applied for 15 your relevant military many say they federal jobs, with no experience. “The best nibbles. “If you make strategy is often to struggle to navia mistake, if you copy the language don’t provide exactly gate the complex from the job listing the information they directly into your hiring system. are looking for, that résumé,” he said. “You screens you out. So it want to mirror that is really incumbent upon the aplanguage exactly in order to rise to plicant to be thoughtful in how they the top of the pile. If there is a verb put the stuff together,” he said. that is used four times in the job description and that is not in your STANDING OUT résumé, you are not getting that job.”

Veterans can improve their Those who succeed said the chances by digging deep into the rewards of federal work can be well nuances of how the jobs website worth the extra effort. McCray, screens applications. for instance, pointed to a USDA “A lot of it is just about formatting international development program it correctly,” Hughes said. “It can be she helped to support. the difference between talking about “We go to countries that may have ‘outcomes’ and ‘outputs,’ talking less of a well-designed economic about what you did versus what you structure, and we help them to set achieved. These are tiny things but up jobs. We teach them to grow they trip people up all the time.” soybeans, and we give them the Also, it can take months to hear business knowledge to sell those back. “If you are applying externally soybeans,” she said. “It’s not just to work in government, it can be a numbers on a page. I am actually nine- to 12-month process before helping to better those countries, and you know whether you’ve got the job.

I find it fascinating to be in the center Many veterans simply can’t wait that of that effort.”

ADVICE ON GOING FEDERAL How vets can boost their chances of landing a government job

GO DIRECT Veterans can reach out directly to learn about their target agencies. “Most federal agencies have a personnel office where they can help you to understand all the acronyms and terms you might not be familiar with. Their goal is to hire the best employees, so it behooves them to share that information, beyond just putting it out on a spreadsheet or on a website.”

— David Turnbull, executive director, Military Solutions, Purdue University Global

NETWORK Make contact with ex-military comrades already working in government. “They can help you understand the culture of the agency or the program. Is that an entrepreneurial culture? Is this someplace where you have to be at your desk from 9 to 5 every day? When you are looking for a job, the more information you have, the better.”

— Adam Hughes, director, Grant Thornton’s Public Sector division

ATTEND JOB FAIRS Agencies will periodically announce job fairs through their websites and on social media. “A lot of times OPM will (grant the agencies) with direct-hire authority when they conduct those job fairs, so that is a way to really shorten the hiring process.”

— OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas

LEVERAGE TAP Experts in the military’s Transition Assistance Program can provide the inside scoop. “Even before I was looking for federal employment, I went through a workshop with a portion dedicated to the federal hiring process. That’s where I got a lot of the specific knowledge.”

— Army veteran Timothy Knoth

PROVIDED BY DAVID TURNBULL; PROVIDED BY MICHAEL RIGAS

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View from cellular communication tower WARRIORS4WIRELESS

Higher Calling Telecom industry hiring vets to build next-generation wireless networks

By Matt Alderton

U

.S. ARMY VETERAN DAVID

Medina is afraid of heights.

Like many soldiers, however, he learned to subjugate his fears in service to his country. Upon enlisting at the age of 17, he completed basic combat training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., advanced individual training at Fort Lee, Va., and, CONTI NUED

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JOBS & EDUCATION finally, airborne school — three weeks of paratrooper training that culminates in a series of five jumps from an airplane — at Fort Benning, Ga. “If you have self-discipline, you can do almost anything you put your mind to,” Medina said.

When he transitioned out of the military in December 2014, Medina felt like a ship without an anchor. Unsure of what he wanted to do or where he wanted to go, he almost re-enlisted half a dozen times before ultimately moving home to the Pacific Northwest, where he worked at a home improvement retailer designing kitchens and bathrooms. He liked it so much that he subsequently spent four years working for a countertop retailer as an interior designer.

Then he discovered a new opportunity in the last place you’d expect to find a self-confessed acrophobe: at the top of cellphone towers.

“Even though I’m deathly afraid of heights, it’s a great job,” said Medina, who recently joined network infrastructure company SAC Wireless as a tower technician. He learned about the opportunity from a career counselor at the VA regional office in Portland, Ore., who submitted his résumé to Warriors4Wireless (W4W), a nonprofit organization that provides training and job placement to veterans who are willing to inspect, install, replace and maintain equipment atop communication towers that can be up to 600 feet tall. It’s one of the most difficult jobs in the industry — and because wireless companies are in the midst of a revolutionary infrastructure upgrade to ultrafast 5G networks, it’s also one of the most important.

“Fifth-generation wireless networks are here, and we need tower climbers to help us build them,” explained Jonathan McKinley, co-founder and chief field services officer at SAC Wireless, who said there’s a national shortage of tower crews. “Somewhere around 10,000 people are needed to fill jobs working on the network. … I personally have about 200 open positions, and veterans are a great avenue for me to fill them.”

WHY WIRELESS? Although the jobless rate for all veterans fell to an 18-year low of 3.5 percent in 2018 and was 3.4 percent as recently as August, the positive numbers paint an incomplete picture, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, which in 2016 published a study of 1,000 recently transitioned veterans. Eighty-six percent of those surveyed found it challenging

And working atop cell towers can be, in fact, life-threatening. “In the military, you handle a lot of dangerous missions, but you’re taught that if you trust your equipment and follow proper procedures you will mitigate a lot of the risks. The same thing applies to climbing towers,” said U.S. Air Force veteran Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of W4W. “In the military you’re also taught teamwork, attention to detail and to do the job right the first time. All those things are critical to being a tower technician.”

SAC WIRELESS

to choose a career path, 53 percent faced at least four months of unemployment since leaving the military and 44 percent had left their first post-military job within a year.

“The drop in unemployment … only tells part of the story,” the study said.

“Equally important is whether veterans are finding the right jobs — are they finding jobs where they are fully engaged and maximizing their skill sets? Are businesses benefiting from those skills and retaining their veteran workforce? In many cases, the answer is no.”

The answer is more likely to be yes in the wireless industry, according to U.S. Navy veteran Christopher Challender, SAC’s head of training. “Veterans have a variety of skills that are immediately translatable to the wireless industry,” he said. “Veterans come to us with a very strong work ethic, for example, and a willingness to work long hours doing difficult tasks. They come to us with a very strict discipline around safety.

They’re physically agile, and they’re good at following instructions — particularly in situations that are life-threatening.”

TRAINING FOR TOWERS Although veterans already have many of the attributes they need to work in wireless, tower technicians must be trained and certified before they’re allowed to climb towers. The industry has therefore invested heavily in training through programs like the one offered by W4W. The two-week residential program takes place 15 times per year at Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), a VA-approved trade school that’s affiliated with Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. Course tuition is $5,600 — which veterans can pay using their GI Bill benefits — while room and board is free thanks to a $500,000 grant from T-Mobile.

“It’s a cram-course in everything you need to know about being a tower technician,” said Kennedy, who added that about one-third of the veterans W4W works with enroll in W4W’s training program; for the other two-thirds, like Medina, W4W provides job placement services at 180 wireless employers.

Another go-to training provider is Airstreams Renewables, which offers its curriculum to transitioning service members at seven different active-duty military bases, and to veterans at its headquarters in Tehachapi, Calif. The 240-hour program takes seven weeks on bases, and six weeks in Tehachapi.

Tuition is $10,000 at the former and $14,000 plus $9 per day for housing at the latter; participants can use their GI Bill benefits to pay tuition at both locations.

“We started this training program because we wanted to make an impact,” said Airstreams President and CFO Jeff Duff. “It’s all about the individual student and trying to help them find a path in their life as they transition out of the military.”

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Trainees at Airstreams Renewables AIRSTREAMS RENEWABLES; WARRIORS4WIRELESS

programs. SAC, for example, has a 15,000-square-foot national training center in Elgin, Ill., that includes classrooms, two 35-foot indoor training towers and a 50-foot outdoor training tower. New hires like Medina — who said he felt a “little scared” on his first climb, but also “really, really safe” because of his safety gear — receive two weeks of preparatory education in their home markets, followed by a week of hands-on tower training in Elgin, after which they return

to their home markets for one more week of local training. Because they’ve already been certified, graduates of W4W and Airstreams may be eligible for accelerated onboarding that gets them in the field faster.

A TRANSFORMATIONAL TRADE Wherever they receive training, veterans who enter the tower trade usually end up climbing in more ways than one. The first, of course, is literal.

“Guys who are coming out of the military are looking for an adrenaline rush,” Challender said. “They want to do something physical and exciting.”

Tower technicians also climb figuratively — up their respective career ladders. Entry-level tower workers can advance within six months to a year, according to Challender, and eventually can move up to lead their own tower CONTI NUED

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“Veterans come to us with a very strong work ethic, for example, and a willingness to work long hours doing difficult tasks. They come to us with a very strict discipline around safety.

They’re physically agile, and they’re good at following instructions — particularly in situations that are life-threatening.”

— CHRISTOPHER CHALLENDER, SAC wireless head of training

crews. And when they someday want to stop climbing, there are opportunities to lead construction projects on the ground.

The pay is good, too, according to Duff, who said entry-level tower technicians typically make a starting wage of $18 to $22 per hour.

Finally, there’s a service aspect to the work, suggested McKinley, who said the connectivity on which modern Americans rely would not be possible without talented tower technicians. “Tower crews are the backbone of wireless infrastructure because they’re the ones installing the equipment and making the network run for carriers,” he said. “Companies like SAC help our customers keep the world connected, and veterans play an integral part in that.”

Their contribution is even more salient in the context of new 5G networks, whose high speed and low latency will enable myriad positive uses, such as providing ultrareliable communications for first responders during emergencies, monitoring patients who want to receive remote health care and connecting autonomous cars with each other and infrastructure to reduce fatal collisions.

“The 5G network is being treated as a strategic asset for all of the most important countries in the world, and the United States is no different,” said Sandro Tavares, global head of mobile networks marketing for Nokia, which owns SAC Wireless. “Veterans (who become tower technicians) can be 100 percent sure that they’re engaging in something that is absolutely transformational and will add a lot of new capabilities to this country.”

GETTY IMAGES

USTECHVETS.ORG CONNECTS EMPLOYERS, VETERANS The most important building material in modern cities isn’t concrete, stone, steel or asphalt. Arguably, it’s silicon — as in computer chips. From smartphones, laptops and home assistants to robot vacuums, fitness trackers and so much more, the world belongs to technology.

Unfortunately, the companies developing the technological infrastructure don’t have enough talent to build it.

“Our industry has an urgent skills gap,” said Jackie Black, director of strategic alliances at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), a U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies. “We have more than 7 million unfilled jobs, but only 6 million Americans are unemployed — and a lot of those Americans don’t have the right skills.”

But many of them do — one

group, in particular: veterans.

“We’re looking for untapped talent resources, and veterans are an obvious untapped talent pool,” said Black, who added that veterans possess leadership, teamwork and problem-solving skills, as well as technical skills acquired in IT- and cyber-related posts during their service. “Both the hard and soft skills they possess are really valuable for our industry, even if some additional training is needed.”

How can organizations like CTA help tech employers and skilled veterans find each other?

The answer: USTechVets.org, an online community launched in 2014 by CTA in partnership with the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) and job search website Monster.com, which has a relationship with millions of service members and veterans via

its subsidiary, Military.com. Jointly powered by both sites, the platform is free to CTA and NVTC member companies, which can post unlimited ads targeting veteran candidates and obtain complimentary access to Monster.com’s database of nearly 1 million veteran résumés.

Veterans, meanwhile, can use the site to search for employers and to access resources like a Military Skills Translator that helps them market their military experience to civilian employers.

“The results are outstanding,” according to Steve Cooker, executive vice president of government solutions for Monster Worldwide; employers over the past five years have used USTechVets.org to hire more than 15,000 vets. “It’s made a significant difference.”

— Matt Alderton

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Red, White and Brews Enterprising veterans find success starting craft breweries

By Jen Rose Smith

W

ITH NO POWER AND no

running water, Infantry Capt. Steve Gagner and Sgt. Matt Kehaya were far from a cold IPA while

stationed at Afghanistan’s Dandar Patrol Base in 2010. Instead, they had a dream, and the friends sketched out an idea for a craft brewery they hoped to open after heading home to Vermont.

“We wrote the business plan in the back of one of my notebooks, and we

used completely fictional numbers because we didn’t have access to the internet,” Gagner said.

In May 2012, Gagner and Kehaya made that dream a reality by opening 14th Star CONTINUED

PROVIDED BY STEVE GAGNER

Matt Kehaya, left, and Steve Gagner came up with a business plan for 14th Star Brewing while deployed in Afghanistan.

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MEET THE BREW MASTERS Chances are, there’s a veteran-run brewery near you. Here are just a few to visit:

TALEA BEER CO.

BLACK FROG BREWERY

SERVICE BREWING CO.

New York City After serving five years in the Navy, LeAnn Darland was ready for a beer.

And during military postings near craft beer hotspots she’d learned to seek out the good stuff. Founded with her friend Tara Hankinson, Talea Beer Co. features prominent fruit flavors and toned-down bitterness, from the Raspberry Crush Gose to a Champagne-inspired BRAVADA Brut IPA. utaleabeer.com

Holland, Ohio Pouring beers with names like Flying Frog American IPA and Frogalicious porter, Army veteran Chris Harris honors his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, also known as Frogtown.

Harris founded Black Frog in his garage before opening a taproom in 2016. Now, he rotates his taps through a long list of beers including ultra-hoppy double IPAs and a summery kölsch. ublackfrogbrewery.com

Savannah, Ga. Steamy Southern nights draw a crowd to this Georgia taproom, where sliding doors open to picnic tables and a patio. That’s just how United States Military Academy graduate and former Army commander Kevin Ryan likes it. Whether it’s yoga sessions or trivia night, his brewery is all about bringing the community together over cold glasses of Rally Point pilsner and Battlewagon double IPA. uservicebrewing.com

DOG TAG BREWING CO.

ALAMEDA ISLAND BREWING CO.

BACKWARD FLAG BREWING CO.

Alameda, Calif.

With a lineup that includes both a hop-packed West Coast IPA and an ultra-drinkable Hef-D hefeweizen, this Bay Area brewery keeps the craft beer flowing in their 1,500-squarefoot tasting room. That includes a crowd from the nearby United States Coast Guard base, where co-founder Matthew Fox was stationed from 1998 to 2000. ualamedaislandbrewingcompany. com

Forked River, N.J. Photos of fallen service members fill a wall at this New Jersey brewery, which Army and National Guard veteran Torie Fisher founded in 2014. The flagship Oak Armored Ale — named for the 1st Armored Division that Fisher deployed to Iraq with — is a thirst-quenching blonde perfect for relaxing after work. ubackwardflagbrewing.com

PROVIDED BY 14TH STAR BREWING

Brewing in St. Albans, Vt. “We made 60 gallons of beer that month,” Gagner said.

“Now we make 6,000 gallons a week.”

Brewing beers with names like Tribute, Valor and Recruit, 14th Star Brewing is among dozens of veteran-owned breweries making waves around the country.

They include New York’s small-batch, women-run Talea Beer Co. and Alameda Island Brewing Company in California, located near Coast Guard Base Alameda.

And even as they adjust to civilian life, many veteran brewers remain committed to supporting the United States military.

“We wanted to not just do well, we wanted to do good,” said Gagner, whose brewery donates to veteran organizations offering wellness programs and access to outdoor recreation.

In Bozeman, Mont., Dog Tag Brewing Co. honors fallen soldiers with personalized beer cans. And Service Brewing Co. in Savannah, Ga., earmarks some of the profits from every beer in their product line to a different charity. Their taproom’s oversized chalkboard asks visitors, “How CONTINUED

Bozeman, Mont.

A nonprofit brewery surrounded by soaring peaks, Dog Tag Brewing memorializes fallen soldiers on their customized dedication cans, and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Seth Jordan has featured hundreds of service members since founding the brewery in 2014. The profits? They all go to charities chosen by the Gold Star families whose loved ones are being honored. udogtagbrewing.org

PROVIDED BY THE BREWERIES

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BREWERS’ NOTES Dreaming of starting your own brewery?

These founders have advice on tap.

“Just do it. You have everything inside you that it takes to start a business.”

STEVE GAGNER 14th Star Brewing

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are plenty of resources out there to help get you on the way.”

CHRIS HARRIS Black Frog Brewery PROVIDED BY14TH STAR BREWING

do you serve?”

Along with serving plenty of craft beer, some brewers also offer a helping hand for veterans following in their footsteps.

Army and National Guard veteran Torie Fisher, founder of Backward Flag Brewing Co. in New Jersey, established Arms 2 Artisans to help recently discharged vets get a foothold in the world of craft products such as beer and coffee. With a mission to connect veteran brewers, the Veterans Beer Alliance leverages a shared history of service into a powerful networking opportunity. And in 2019, Gagner and Kehaya founded Danger Close

Craft Distilling, whose bourbon sales will support entrepreneurship training for veterans.

That’s essential, Gagner said, because making the first steps from military life into the business world can be intimidating. “They’re being told at job interviews and job fairs that they don’t have the skills for corporate America, that corporate America is looking for an analyst or an accountant or whatever.” The reality he sees is different. “If you can run a platoon in the Army or the Marine Corps, you can run a small business,” Gagner said. “You already have those skills.”

“Find your tribe. Talk to as many brewery owners as possible and just immerse yourself in the industry.”

TORIE FISHER Backward Flag Brewing Co. and Arms 2 Artisans

“Network often and unapologetically, especially with other vets. You’d be surprised how many doors are opened.”

LEANN DARLAND Talea Beer Co.

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Feges BBQ, Houston ROBERT JACOB LERMA (2)

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Retired Army Pvt. Patrick Feges and his wife, Erin Smith

Mission to Serve Veterans finding smoking hot success running barbecue businesses

By Jennifer Barger

I

T’S 11:55 A.M. ON a sunny

Friday, and half a dozen customers stand in line at Mission BBQ in Rockville, Md. Across the room, several tables of T-shirtwearing construction workers and suited office types crowd booths and tables underneath a large American flag hung from the ceiling, chattering as they tuck into brisket and beans.

But at noon sharp, a voice booms over the sound system, “Ladies and gentlemen, please join us in honoring our country with the singing of our national anthem,” before a choral version of The Star-Spangled Banner blasts from the speakers. Baseball caps come off, hands go over hearts

and at least one cook in the kitchen line appears to be singing as the crowd looks up at the Stars and Stripes.

It’s a scene repeated every day at more than 80 Mission BBQ restaurants across 16 Southern and Midwestern states. The patriotic digs — corrugated metal accents on the awnings, armed forces patches and photos of military heroes blanketing the walls — further emphasize that this barbecue chain was designed to honor those who served our country.

And it’s one of many fire- and meatobsessed businesses across the U.S. that’s either focused on, or founded by, veterans.

“In the military, you learn so many leadership skills, and they play into

how you run a kitchen,” said Patrick Feges, a Purple Heart recipient and retired Army private. In 2004, while recovering from life-threatening shrapnel wounds sustained during his first tour in Iraq, someone gifted him a second-hand smoker, and he became obsessed with slow-cooking beef and pork.

Feges went on to graduate from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas. He began a catering business, Feges BBQ, in Houston in 2012. Last year, he and his chef wife, Erin Smith, (herself an alumna of acclaimed New York City kitchens like Per Se and Babbo) opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant of the CONTI NUED

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VETERANS Q BARBECUE SAUCE

SECRET’S IN THE SAUCE

Swig & Swine, Charleston, S.C. SWIG & SWINE (2); JONATHAN BONCEK

same name. The couple has traveled widely and lives near Houston’s Koreatown. So it’s no wonder they’ve infused their menu with both Lone Star State standards (brisket, ribs) and internationally influenced meats and sides (Boudin sausage, Moroccan-spiced carrots, Asian cucumber salad).

“Every culture in the world has its own barbecue, and we try to touch on that,” Feges noted.

To honor his fellow vets, they receive a 10 percent discount on their bills and free chow on Veterans Day. The restaurant has also raised thousands of dollars for the Navy Seal Legacy Foundation. In the future, Feges hopes to partner with the Lone Star Veterans Association to hire former military members. “Every kitchen is short-handed, and I also think vets are used to high-stress situations,” he said.

Former Naval Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony DiBernardo certainly dealt with job pressure (and tight quarters) as the cook on the USS Batfish submarine from 1990 to 1994. Working out of an 8-by-10-foot kitchen with four electric burners, a small oven and a fryer, he fed 130 sailors four meals a day, every day, on submersion missions that sometimes lasted as long as four months. “You learned quickly what guys liked,” he said.

“Pan pizza was popular, and we’d often do surf and turf with lobster tails and steak.”

After leaving the military, DiBernardo stayed in Charleston, S.C., where the

Mission BBQ IMAGE TAKERS

Batfish was assigned, cheffing at spots Swine bills. like the Blossom Café and Kiawah Island Back at Mission, they’re devoted to Golf Resort before starting a barbecue former military men and women, too. catering business in 2009. In 2013, he The chain was launched on September opened his Swig & Swine barbecue 11, 2011, in Glen Burnie, Md., by two restaurant. “Those four years on the sub longtime pals, Bill Kraus and Stephen positioned me for what I do today. There Newton. The two aren’t vets, but they isn’t a single problem I can’t solve, and both have many family members who very little stresses me out,” he said. are, and Mission is their way of paying At Swig & Swine, which has three tribute to both military members and locations in and around first responders — police, Charleston, DiBerfirefighters, etc. “We love “In the military, nardo focuses on all-wood barbecue, and we love barbecue techniques, country,” said Kraus. you learn so many our usually burning the area’s The resulting restaurants plentiful red oak. “A lot dish up both all-American leadership skills, of barbecue had gotten chow and patriotic and they play into atmosphere. away from the wood method, since gas is more Mission’s menus read how you run a efficient,” he said. “But like notes from a crossthat’s not what barbecue kitchen.” country culinary road is supposed to do, and trip: St. Louis spareribs, — PATRICK FEGES, it had no appeal for me.” oaky Texas brisket and retired Army private and This means Swig fires vinegary pulled pork à Feges BBQ owner its meats low and slow, la the Carolinas. And, in resulting in super smoky, addition to employing succulent takes on pork belly, brisket more than 100 veterans across the and chicken wings. A craft beer and company, the business has raised more whisky menu adds to the appeal. than $10 million for national and local DiBernardo also believes in giving veterans’ charities including the USO, back to his fellow veterans. The the Special Operations Warrior Foundarestaurants employ seven veterans, tion, the Semper Fi Fund and the Navy participate in multiple fundraisers Seal Foundation. “There are a lot of ways benefitting vet causes annually (often to serve and say ‘thanks,’ and we’re doing via food donations) and offer current it through barbecue,” Kraus said. “We’d and former members of the armed forces like to believe that every day is Veterans a 10 percent discount on their Swig & Day here.”

After he got out of the Army in 2010, combat engineer veteran Steve Lulofs found himself longing for the kind of teamwork he’d experienced during eight years of service and one deployment to Iraq. “I wanted to be a part of something bigger than myself, like I’d done in the military,” said the Chicago-based vet.

That, and a lifelong love of cooking, led him, his wife Robin and his brother Scott to begin entering barbecue competitions in and around Illinois.

Several wins and lots of compliments later, Lulofs decided to start bottling and selling his signature Veterans Q Barbecue Sauce in 2017, donating 100 percent of the proceeds to veterans’ charities.

To date, he’s raised about $15,000, and his sauces and rubs are available at nearly 300 stores across 15 states as well as online. “I can’t believe how this took off,” Lulofs said.

“But I was using a lot of the technique and discipline I learned in the military, which I guess shows up in my barbecue.”

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HELP OUR HEROES SPREAD THEIR MESSAGE

Individuals faced with exceptional circumstances can change fate.

True heroes exist.

The Medal of Honor, America’s highest military award for valor, has been bestowed upon 3,506* individuals in military service since the Civil War. Today, there are only 71* living Recipients of the Medal of Honor.

The Medal of Honor has reinforced the great lessons of human experience: that character is destiny; that the individual, not impersonal forces beyond his control, makes history. And whether awarded for an action at Little Round Top during the Civil War or in the Kunar Province in Northeast Afghanistan, the medal of honor has extracted moral lessons from the chaos of war, teaching us about “daring heroism and great tenacity” and about the indomitability of the human spirit.

There is a hero in all of us. The question is, how do you find it?

The Recipients of the Medal of Honor know that within all of us is the power to make positive impacts on our community and Nation. We ask for your support in preserving the legacy of our nation’s heroes.

To receive information on how to support the Medal of Honor programs, contact the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation VP for Development Leslie Baron at lbaron@themedalofhonor.com or call (319) 499-2865.

Moving America Forward

www.themedalofhonor.com * At the time of printing. 19CFVET-14-143767-1

www.ameristrong.com

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From the beginning of our Great Nation

To the dense jungles in Vietnam

To the Shipyard in Pearl Harbor

The desert & terrain of the Middle East

From the battlegrounds of Europe

And everything in between

To the Asia Pacific seas

We humbly Thank Our Country’s Heroes

From the freezing cold of Korea

Our Veterans

Thanks For Your Service

mission-bbq.com

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JOBS & EDUCATION

Back in Action National Guard gives veterans a way to keep serving GETTY IMAGES

By Adam Stone

A

RMY SPC. DYLAN HOLMES

left active duty in 2018 to devote more time to his family and his civilian career.

But he didn’t want to leave the military behind entirely.

“My platoon had really turned into my second family, and I didn’t want to lose that sense of camaraderie,” said Holmes.

A social worker for the state of Pennsyl-

vania, he still spends two weekends a month and two weeks a year in uniform, drilling with the 3rd Squadron, 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

He’s not alone. Some 20 percent of Army National Guard members and 31 percent of Air National Guard members have some prior military service, according to the National Guard Bureau, and CONTINUED

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FROM ACTIVE DUTY TO NATIONAL GUARD Veterans seeking to transition from active-duty service to the National Guard must meet a number of key requirements: Age: Must qualify for nonregular retired pay by age 60.

Physical: Must meet height, weight and current medical requirements.

Education: Must meet academic standards for the occupational specialty for which you enlist.

Army veteran James “JJ” Armentrout drills with the Virginia National Guard.

Paperwork: Must have most current DD 214, NGB22 or discharge order and have an approved DD Form 368 Conditional Release.

COTTON PURYEAR/ U.S. NATIONAL GUARD

the Guard is always looking to recruit more members from the veteran pool.

For veterans, Guard duty can be a way to continue the mission of national service that first attracted them to the military.

For the Guard, prior-service soldiers come ready-trained and fit to fight.

“They have their basic training out of the way; they have the initial experience out of the way so they can walk right into something that they are used to being around,” said Lt. Col. Stephen Warren, branch chief of marketing for the National Guard Bureau’s Strength Maintenance Division. For any job that a soldier held while on active duty, there’s usually a corollary position waiting in the National Guard.

“The Army National Guard offers jobs from combat arms to plumbers to air traffic controllers. We have a myriad of positions that these folks can fall into,” said Warren.

Officials at the Air National Guard say they are equally eager to recruit veterans into their ranks, regardless of where they

initially served. In fact, only 19 percent Army Sgt. James “JJ” Armentrout of Air Guard veterans are prior Air Force. served in the 173rd Airborne Infantry The rest come from the other military in Italy and the 101st Infantry at Fort branches, said Col. Katherine Linton, Campbell before leaving active duty to atherself a Navy veteran who tend Shenandoah University now serves as chief, Air in Winchester, Va., where “My platoon National Guard Recruiting & he’s studying to be a gym Retention Division. teacher. had really “A lot of our job descrip“I still wanted to be turned into my involved. tions are consistent across I still wanted to the services,” she said. “If second family, serve,” he said. “I enjoy the you are a vehicle maintainer structure the Army provides and I didn’t in the Navy, you can be a and the sense of pride that vehicle maintainer in the you get from sacrificing a want to lose Air National Guard. The portion of your life to protect work may not be identical, and serve. You can look back that sense of but a lot of the job skills will and say, ‘Hey, I am that 1 camaraderie.” percent.’ ” transfer over.”

The Guard can give To keep that sense of be— DYLAN HOLMES, veterans a chance to conlonging, Armentrout jumped Army specialist tinue using and developing right from active duty into their specific skill sets. More the Virginia National Guard: than this, those drills offer military vets He transitioned out in December 2018 a chance to remain embedded within a and was drilling by February. While he’s culture they have come to know glad to still be part of the team, he added and respect. that it can be difficult to achieve that

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same sense of camaraderie with folks you don’t see often.

“A major difference for me is that, when you are active duty, you are constantly with your squad, your platoon. You see these guys day in and day out, and it’s almost impossible not to form a bond,” he said. “When you only see your team once a month, it is harder to form that super-hard connection.”

Holmes, too, has found it challenging to rekindle that sense of unity. “Even the guys I am close with live a couple hours away, so it is hard to maintain contact,” he said. “But the level of trust is still there, even though I don’t see them as often. The longtime Guard members respect my abilities and experience because of my prior service, and that feeling goes both ways.”

While a continuing sense of service and community are intangible benefits for veterans who serve in the Guard, there are more concrete advantages CONTI NUED

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North Dakota National Guard

Delaware National Guard

New York National Guard

D.C. National Guard

Massachusetts National Guard

DAVID H. LIPP/ U.S. AIR NATIONAL GUARD; SGT. MATTHEW GUNTHER/N.Y. ARMY NATIONAL GUARD; ALFRED TRIPOLONE III; EDWIN WRISTO/U.S. ARMY NATIONAL GUARD; DELAWARE NATIONAL GUARD

as well. Veterans who join the Guard continue to accrue toward their military retirement pay, and nearly all states have education benefits for Guard members to supplement the G.I. Bill. Guard members also have access to TriCare Reserve Select, the military health care plan.

Veterans in the Guard also get to continue enjoying the perks that come with carrying a military ID. “They have access to the military bases, including the commissary, the exchanges, the fitness centers, the child care — anything that is on base,” Linton said. That

“I still wanted to be involved.

I still wanted to serve. I enjoy the structure the Army provides and the sense of pride that you get from sacrificing a portion of your life to protect and serve.”

— JAMES “JJ” ARMENTROUT, U.S. Army sergeant

includes family support initiatives. “We have programs to help children with education, programs to help spouses with their careers. All of that is available to them as well.”

A prior-service enlistment can also draw a signing bonus of between $5,000 and $15,000 depending on skill set and the needs of the service.

For those looking to make the transition, both the Army and Air Guard have recruiting officers located on military bases and in hundreds of National Guard offices in communities across the nation.

Those who’ve made the leap say that some of their best support has come from other prior-service Guard members.

“I actually looked into who I knew in the Virginia Guard before I transitioned, so I would have some familiar faces when I got there,” Armentrout said. “I talked to a friend in the Guard about the daily life. I told him about my active-duty experience and compared it to what they did in their drills, all the plusses and the negatives.

For anyone who is even considering it, I’d recommend they find someone who is in and really pick their brain.”

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Fighting for Change Black Veterans Project advocates for racial equity, historical preservation

By Quinisha Jackson-Wright

G

ROWING UP WITH PARENTS

who had both completed military service, Richard Brookshire enlisted in 2009 after losing a college scholarship, and viewed the Army as an opportunity to learn discipline and receive education benefits post-service.

He served four years on active duty, including a tour in Afghanistan, then joined the New York State National Guard, where he completed undergraduate and graduate degrees. All seemed to be going according to plan until Brookshire went into what he described as a downward spiral.

Brookshire’s service ended in 2016.

He has cited former President Barack Obama’s election as a reason for his decision to enlist in the military, and he said he felt an emotional and mental toll from the political shift — and the countrywide tension that came along with it.

“Part of it coincided with a national discourse around racial justice, (along with) the changing landscape of politics in the country,” Brookshire said. “I quit my (civilian) job, and had it not been for the support of my family, I would have been homeless.”

Richard Brookshire, left, and Kyle Bibby started the Black Veterans Project.

A DISHEARTENING REFLECTION Brookshire’s experiences are not atypical for black veterans in the United States. The 2017 Minority Veterans Report, prepared by the Office of Data Governance and Analytics, took the first comprehensive look at ethnic and racial minorities in the military. According to the report, minorities represent 22 percent of all veterans, with black veterans making up 52 percent of the minority veteran population — the largest minority represented in the military.

(Hispanic follows with 46 percent.)

Minority veterans were almost twice as likely to live in poverty than nonminority veterans, and black veterans were more

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than three times as likely to utilize homeless shelter programs than veterans overall (36.2 percent versus 11.1 percent).

The same report noted that minority veterans had higher rates of PTSD than nonminority veterans. Furthermore, a 2017 report conducted by human rights organization Protect Our Defenders found that black military service members were more likely to face disciplinary action than their white counterparts under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

‘A DEARTH OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE’ After Brookshire’s transition from the military in 2016, he attended events for veterans around New York City and saw

representation of some of these troubling statistics in real life.

“I attended a Department of Labor event in downtown Brooklyn and it struck me that the majority of the people in the room — all of whom were unemployed — were black,” Brookshire recalled. “There were also a number of (individuals) who had been incarcerated, and these were all veterans.”

This prompted him to create the Black Veterans Project (BVP) in November 2018 with his colleague and fellow veteran Kyle Bibby. “I had been active in the racial justice space for four or five years in different capacities, (such as) organizing, (and promoting) diversity and inclusion

Minority veterans were almost twice as likely to live in poverty than nonminority veterans, and black veterans were more than three times as likely to utilize homeless shelter programs than veterans overall (36 percent versus 11 percent).

in corporate America, but I recognized there was a dearth of public discourse around racial justice in the military specifically,” Brookshire said.

As co-founder and chief content officer, Brookshire is dedicated to BVP’s mission to preserve the historical legacy of America’s black veterans and advocate against inequalities black military personnel face during and after service.

Today, the team is rounded out by Asha Castleberry, chief spokesperson, and James Vanie, archive UX lead.

“We want to build a digital archive to recount black veteran history,” BrookCONTI NUED

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

There are a number of organizations that offer support to minority veterans as they transition from active duty, including:

HOW TO GET INVOLVED To learn more about the Black Veterans Project, visit blackveterans project.org.

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National Association for Black Veterans NABVETS is a nationally certified veterans service organization that advocates for youth and families and helps to create positive lifestyles for veterans. unabvets.weebly.com

Top, left to right: James Vanié, Seth Washington, Richard Brookshire and Kyle Bibby along with Hawoly Diop and Asha Castleberry.

shire said. “There are monuments in real life you can visit and there are resources spread across different libraries, but we want to consolidate those resources into a (central location).”

The group also hopes to produce a documentary film that chronicles the lives of black veterans from the Vietnam War to the present. In February, BVP ran an Indigogo fundraising campaign and raised $2,175 for the project.

ADVOCATING FOR THE UNDERREPRESENTED While BVP’s efforts are just getting off the ground, long-established organizations like the VA’s Center for Minority Veterans (CMV) are also working to better support veterans from underrepresented communities.

Stephen Dillard, the executive director of CMV, said Minority Veteran Program Coordinators (MVPCs) are at the forefront of engaging this community and educating them on available assistance.

MVPCs are responsible for promoting VA benefits and programs to minority veterans and initiating outreach efforts through community networking, as well as advocating on behalf of minority veterans who receive benefits and services through VA facilities. MVPCs work in each VA regional office, health care facility and national cemetery.

The CMV held its 2019 Minority

Veterans Summit in Dallas in September BVP is to ensure black veterans get the to provide information about VA benefits benefits they are entitled to and bridge and services to veterans and to connect the gap in availability of important them with community partners. resources.

“We enlisted program analysts, experts “The CMV was established 25 years and VA leadership to ensure minority ago to improve minority veterans’ veterans get information utilization of VA health “We are an firsthand about what’s care benefits and going on,” Dillard said. services,” Dillard said. organization that’s “The VA is (working to) “While those utilization modernize its services, rates have improved unapologetically including things like over time, there are still advocating for the community care and a lot of veterans who electronic health don’t know about VA interest of black records, so we want to programs. That’s why make sure this helps to veterans. ... The work I we’re here: to make sure get veterans on the road we inform, educate and feel compelled to self-sufficiency.” engage them.”

Brookshire has plans Likewise, Brookshire to do is build a to host similar forums emphasizes his passion in 2020 to continue for the work he does, strong platform outreach. Through both in his role at IAVA that truly speaks to partnerships with orgaand with BVP, because nizations like Common he believes the black this (community).”

Defense and Iraq and veteran population has — RICHARD BROOKSHIRE, a powerful story to tell.

Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) — where Black Veterans Project co-founder “What I want people Brookshire works as to know is that we are director of digital strategy — BVP will an organization that’s unapologetihold workshops for veterans to learn cally advocating for the interest of black their stories and collect information for veterans. It’s in the name, right?” its archives, as well as develop mentorBrookshire said with a laugh. “The ship programs for those who seek to work I feel compelled to do is build a pursue military careers. strong platform that truly speaks to this The overall goal for both CMV and (community).”

Minority Veterans of America Founded in 2017 by two military veterans, Minority Vets advocates for community belonging and advances equity for underrepresented veterans, including those of color, female, LGBTQ and non-religious minority veterans. uminorityvets.org Minority Women Veterans Organization MWVO’s mission is to assist minority female veterans in successfully transitioning from military to civilian life through support groups, membership benefits and collaborative projects. uminoritywomenveterans.org League of United Latin American Citizens This civil rights organization advocates for the rights of individuals in the Latin American community and also includes educational programs and services for Latino veterans. ululac.org

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At Your Service Iranian American veteran uses her nonprofit to honor those who served

By Alex Mohajer

W

HEN THE NEWS HIT in July that

a crowd at a North Carolina campaign rally for President Donald Trump had chanted “send her back” referring to Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born American citizen and freshman member of Congress, Army veteran Assal Ravandi was working on recruiting presenters for the fourth annual Veterans Awards, an event hosted by the Academy of United States Veterans (AUSV) — the nonprofit advocacy organization she founded in 2016.

That incident added to a string of recent controversies in which elected officials were criticized for perpetuating anti-immigrant tropes.

These were particularly disquieting for Ravandi, an Iranian American whose family moved to the U.S. in 1993 in pursuit of freedom from an oppressive Iranian regime.

“The recent political climate has been extremely difficult to

digest, which has less to do with politics and more to do with a loss of respect for American values,” Ravandi noted. “I think it is painful for many Americans, but seeing the unfair treatment of a public servant who is also an immigrant was blistering for me.”

Decades after her family found a home in the U.S., Ravandi felt called to serve, inspired by the election of former President Barack Obama. She enlisted in 2011 and served in the Army from 2011 to 2014 as a decorated logistical specialist. “I wanted to be able to say I served my country,” she said. “I wanted to be able to say that President Obama was my commander in chief.”

Col. Gregory Bell was Ravandi’s commander in the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan. Bell said that when he learned of his new recruit’s fluency in Farsi, he asked her to develop a language program for infantry soldiers. She ultimately deployed to the Logar province of Afghanistan, where she taught the language on the ground.

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PROVIDED BY ASSAL RAVANDI

Assal Ravandi turned her quest for community into the Academy of United States Veterans, a nonprofit advocacy organization that hosts the Vettys, an awards events to honor those who served.

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HONORING THOSE WHO SERVED “I am 100 percent sure her ability to transmit information and speak that second language saved lives. We were able to communicate better with the locals when we were there,” Bell said.

By the time Ravandi received her honorable discharge in 2014, she earned the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the NATO Medal, among others. After returning from Afghanistan, however, Ravandi began to experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I was waking up every hour on the hour almost every night, agitated by the smallest sounds and inconsistencies, crying endlessly for no reason,” Ravandi recounted. “It was difficult to admit weakness as a soldier who had just returned from combat.”

Returning to civilian life after PROVIDED BY ASSAL RAVANDI military service left a void for “I took an Ravandi, which oath and she described as an “identity served my crisis,” and she struggled to find country. This the same sense is my country. of mission and community that Where would she had enjoyed I go back to?” in the Army.

Knowing that — ASSAL RAVANDI, other veterans Army veteran felt similarly, and AUSV founder she wanted a way to make them feel honored, and that plight turned into the Veterans Awards, or Vettys, an annual event that gives veterans the star treatment. Now entering its fourth year, the event honors organizations, programs and individuals who serve the veterans community in categories like homelessness, LGBTQ rights, employment, mental health, voter registration and suicide prevention. Anyone can submit a nomination, but winners are selected by paying members of AUSV. With the funds raised from the Vettys, AUSV is able to host a variety of events and projects like galas, film screenings and a Veterans Day celebration that promote an inclusive, diverse and tolerant military community throughout

Members of the Maryland Gold Star Mothers attend the 4th Annual Veterans Awards in January at The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. SHANNON FINNEY/GETTY IMAGES

the year. Founding AUSV was part of Ravandi’s healing process. “I understood that these freedoms had not come without sacrifice,” she said. “People fought and died for these values. I don’t take that for granted.

“I originally just wanted to get a large number of vets together. But getting involved in the community gave me a sense of belonging and purpose. Creating AUSV saved my life,” she said.

Ravandi had no idea her organization would grow to be a force in the veterans’ community and attract an impressive roster of actors, journalists and politicians to host and present.

For Bell, Ravandi’s success in advocating for veterans comes as no surprise.

“When we returned from Afghanistan, she was able to get Tom Cruise and other A-list actors to send our unit a ‘welcome back’ note,” Bell said. “She was a gogetter, even in the Army.”

Notable figures who have participated in the Vetty Awards include CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who said he was “honored” that Ravandi asked him to host the event in 2018.

“In a perfect world, its viewership would be 100 times that of the Oscars,” Tapper noted. “Assal is a very passionate advocate. “Our (armed) forces are from every possible walk of life. Many of those who originally come from somewhere else are the most passionate Americans I know.”

Actor Casey Affleck agreed.

“She works tirelessly for her community. She is an inspiration,” said Affleck, who presented at the fourth Vettys on Jan. 20 at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. “I hope she doesn’t pay attention to the (‘send her back’) chants.

Nobody who meets Assal is surprised to learn she served or that she runs a nonprofit.”

Ultimately, Ravandi hopes that greater empathy, education and exposure serve to squelch anti-immigrant rhetoric and boost understanding and appreciation of the contributions immigrants continue to make. “I took an oath and served my country,” Ravandi said. “This is my country. Where would I go back to?”

FOREIGN-BORN, U.S.-SERVING In 2018, U.S. Census Bureau data showed that the number of veterans from all branches of the U.S. military who were born in foreign countries was approximately 530,000, and nearly 1.9 million veterans are the American children of immigrant parents. All in all, 13 percent of the veteran population are first- or second-generation Americans.

Additionally, foreign-born women tend to enlist at higher rates than those born in the United States, and they represent approximately 11 percent of all veterans of immigrant origin.

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Close to Home As homelessness among vets drops, VA renews mission to eliminate it entirely

By Brian Barth

D

EL SEYMOUR WAS DRAFTED in 1967, after which he spent two years in the 82nd Airborne Division as a paratrooper performing medical evacuations in Vietnam. After leaving

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The Veterans Community Project built a neighborhood of 49 tiny homes in Kansas City, Mo., for homeless veterans.

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HONORING THOSE WHO SERVED Once a homeless veteran himself, Del Seymour helps those who have fallen on hard times through his nonprofit, Code Tenderloin.

the military, he was a firefighter, a construction business owner, a single father and, eventually, an addict living on the streets of San Francisco. He described his battle with drug addiction in stark terms: “I put a crack pipe in my mouth for an 18-second hit, and it took me 18 years to get that pipe out of my mouth.”

Seymour was homeless for those 18 “miserable” years, he said, joining thousands of others in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district — a 16-block area where companies Uber, Twitter and Microsoft have offices overlooking nearly half of the city’s homeless population.

In 1994, Seymour, now 72, walked through the doors of Swords to Plowshares, a Bay Area nonprofit that supports veterans who have fallen on hard times, and asked for help. Along with substance abuse counseling, he received assistance applying for a voucher from VASH (Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing), a collaborative program between the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and VA that today green tent (of the military) for the blue supports more than 85,000 veterans. tarp (of homeless camps) and that’s not But this was only the beginning of right,” Seymour said. “We take our young Seymour’s postrecovery journey. He folks at 18 years of age, who have never soon became an advocate for homeless lived by themselves, right out of mama’s veterans, both locally and house and put them in the nationally. In 2013, thinking service. They get out and that perhaps there was a don’t know how to live on way to create something their own.”

AS OF positive out of the extreme Many veterans need help juxtaposition of wealth and making the transition, he JANUARY 2018 poverty in the neighborhood said, and some end up on he had come to love, he the street if they don’t find founded Code Tenderloin, support. Much of what a nonprofit that provides Code Tenderloin offers is job readiness training to guidance on pragmatic homeless veterans (and life skills, like financial THOUSAND those at risk of homelessliteracy and healthy coping VETERANS ness) in the community, mechanisms. with an emphasis on tech “All of my staff are WERE HOMELESS industry skills. With the formerly homeless, and help of representatives either ex-offenders or SOURCE: Veterans Affairs from local tech companies, ex-military,” he added. “We the organization offers a share our lived experience coding boot camp, as well as in a practical way.” classes in résumé development, interview Seymour, a beloved character in his preparation and other soft skills required trademark fedora and pinstripe suits, has for workforce success.

CO NTINUED “A lot of veterans end up trading in the

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BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL

HOMELESSNESS AMONG VETERANS FELL AS HOUSING VOUCHER PROGRAM EXPANDED 80,000

75,609

73,343

70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000 37,878

30,000 20,000 10,000

1,186

0 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Number of homeless vets

SOURCE: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Number of VASH vouchers used by vets

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HONORING THOSE WHO SERVED become known locally as victory is still a long way the “Mayor of the Tenderoff. As of the last count, in loin.” He is a co-chair of San January 2018, nearly 40,000 Francisco’s Local Homeless veterans were living on the Coordinating Board and street or in shelters. Overall, travels regularly to Washabout one-third of the ington, D.C., to advocate on homeless population in the behalf of homeUnited States less veterans. has served in Several years the military. ago, he was A variety invited for of factors can dinner and precipitate the one-on-one slide toward conversation homelessness, with first lady such as subSSVF CLIENTS stance abuse, Michelle Obama at the White ARE CHILDREN a lack of job House, where he OF VETERANS opportunities or made the case limited access for increased to affordable funding for the housing. In VASH voucher program. addition, veterans suffer “She’s a big supporter of disproportionately from veterans,” he said. post-traumatic stress Today, more than 500 disorder, which can further people have completed the predispose a person to Code Tenderloin program, the social isolation that after which they are assisted underscores chronic with job placement. Nine homelessness. out of 10 graduates are John Kuhn, the national successful, Seymour said; director of the VA’s Support some Code Tenderloin Services for Veteran Families alumni have quickly moved (SSVF) program, cautioned up the ranks at local tech that many veterans expecompanies and now earn riencing, or are at risk of, six-figure salaries. homelessness do not check Seymour said that not the typical boxes. But he every homeless veteran can added that the VA safety net be expected to make such is designed to catch those a dramatic transformation, individuals, too. but given a sturdy stepping “It might be that you’re a stone, he insisted that most single mom and you can’t will eventually lift themget child care, and because selves up. “A lot of people in of that you can’t get to work the tech industry got where and draw an income,” he they are because they had a said. “Simply being able cousin or brother or neighto provide child care for bor in the business. We are that family while they the hookup; we become that can establish some sort of person for them.” consistency with work can make all the difference.”

WINNING THE BATTLE The SSVF program In 2009, the VA launched provides support not just for an ambitious plan to end veterans, but for their family veteran homelessness. A members — in fact, 1 in 5 decade later, the results are of its clients are children of encouraging: The number veterans. “When a veteran of veterans experiencing becomes homeless, it’s often homelessness has been cut not just (the) veteran; it’s nearly in half, with 77 comthe entire family. There is munities and three entire a broad range of intervenstates (Virginia, Delaware tions we have to be able to and Connecticut) having effectively eliminated it. But CONTINUED

1 in 5

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VETERAN HOMELESSNESS 80,000 73,367

Unsheltered Sheltered Total

70,000

60,000

50,000 43,409 37,878

40,000 29,958

30,000 23,312

20,000 14,566

10,000

0 2009

2010

2011

SOURCE: Department of Housing and Urban Development

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

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HONORING THOSE WHO SERVED perform, because every veteran who (see sidebar). Many such groups receive happens to be homeless is going to have financial support from the agency; Kuhn a different set of needs.” said the SSVF recently announced $426 The social services the VA has million in awards to 271 nonprofits. Of developed to combat the issue fall primary concern, he noted, is ensuring into broad buckets: direct housing that every dollar spent is effective. assistance, such as the VASH voucher “For every homeless person who program that Seymour took advantage comes to us, about 75 to 80 percent are of, and wraparound support to address in permanent housing by the time they the underlying personal difficulties that exit the program,” he said, “and we’ve make a person vulnerable to homelessfound that a year later the vast majorness. ity of them are still in housing, which The Health Care for Homeless attests to the staying power of some of Veterans program addresses both these interventions. These folks have physical and mental health needs, had their lives changed.” including substance abuse. Health Care for Re-entry Veterans is aimed GETTING THE WORD OUT at those who have been incarcerated, To connect with those in need, the in an effort to prevent veterans from VA does extensive outreach on the becoming homeless when they leave streets, as well as through its nationwide prison. Homeless Veterans Community network of Community Resource and Employment Services Referral Centers and is intended as a bridge other agencies. Veterans to the job market. The seeking assistance can “We take our Homeless Provider Grant begin the process online young folks at 18 at va.gov/homeless or and Per Diem program provides short-term calling one of several years of age, who by financial support to agency hotlines, such veterans on the path to as the White House VA have never lived recovery. And there is an hotline at 855-948-2311. by themselves ... array of support designed Those opting for the specifically for female latter might find a veteran and put them in veterans experiencing named Joseph Caesar on homelessness. the service. They the other end of the line.

One of the newest spent six years get out and don’t Caesar programs in the VA’s in the Army as a supply anti-homelessness sergeant and later found know how to live arsenal is an initiative to himself struggling with on their own.” reunite broken families alcohol and drug abuse. and heal social networks.

He spent two years on — DEL SEYMOUR, the streets before making Kuhn said that this can Code Tenderloin founder have a very direct effect that call himself. He went on housing options, as through substance abuse friends and family are often able to treatment at the VA and took advantage provide a place for loved ones to stay. of an array of agency programs to help “We try to reconnect veterans with him get back on his feet. Today he has people they may have had a relationa car, a townhouse and a fulfilling job ship with — family members, friends, helping veterans talk through their isold Army buddies — but because of sues and connect with the VA programs whatever situation that happened in best suited to their needs. their lives, they’ve lost contact or they “I talk to plenty of veterans who are feel like they’ve burned bridges and going through the same things that I they can’t go back to them to look for went through,” said Caesar. “I tell them, housing,” he said. “So we do conflict ‘Just go to the VA. There’s plenty of mediation and provide other forms of people there ready to help you, and most support to help those veterans who may of the counselors have also been through be entering homelessness not enter it what you’ve been through. They’re not at all. It’s a research-based initiative going to help you do everything — you that began last year at a number of pilot have to do the footwork yourself. But if sites and is now going to be a national you really want to help yourself, all you program.” have to do is listen to the counselors and The VA’s mission to end homelessness do what they tell you.’ That’s what I did, relies heavily on partners in the nonand I’m proud that I pulled myself up. I profit sector, such as Code Tenderloin try to share my experience so hopefully and the Veterans Community Project others can learn from that.”

VETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT

TINY HOUSES OFFER BIG HOPE At the intersection of East 89th Street and Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Mo., a new community has recently been developed by a local group called the Veterans Community Project. The organization has built 49 homes to house homeless veterans — “tiny homes” around 300 square feet in size, but complete with the physical accoutrements (furniture, appliances, housewares, bedding, etc.) needed to provide a sense of stability and dignity for those seeking a new start, all free of charge.

Currently under construction at the same site is a 4,600-square-foot Village Community Center where residents can come together in support of one another and access health care services. It will also have a commercial kitchen and a computer lab. There will even be a veterinarian on-site to attend to residents’ four-legged companions. The group is working to expand the model to cities across the country.

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By Kelly Tyko

Veterans Day Deals Active, former military can also save throughout the year

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V

ETERANS DAY HONORS THOSE who have given their service

to our country, and loads of retailers, restaurants and online stores have special deals, discounts and freebies for veterans and active-duty military (and in some cases, spouses and immediate family can qualify, too).

Veterans can claim these deals by showing a military identification, and many businesses may also accept discharge papers, Veterans Administration cards and veterans organization membership cards as proof of service.

Online retailers often use third-party verification services, such as SheerID, to confirm eligibility.

“More and more brands are giving back to the military community by providing exclusive offers to those who have served our country,” said Jake Weatherly, SheerID CEO. “We’re privileged to help brands across the country honor the brave women and men of our military, on Veterans Day and throughout the year.”

Here’s a roundup of some establishments offering ongoing military discounts and special Veterans Day perks:

DEALS AND DISCOUNTS

A.C. MOORE Get 15 percent off your total purchase, including regular and sale items, every day.

ADVANCE AUTO PARTS Get 10 percent off regularly priced items for in-store purchases for active-duty, reserve and retired service members, as well as all veterans receiving VA benefits, spouses and dependent children up to age 18.

AT&T Qualified active-duty military, reserves, National Guard, veterans and spouses of active-duty and deceased service personnel can get 15 percent off monthly service charges on eligible plans.

BASS PRO SHOPS Members of the military receive a 5 percent discount every day.

BIG 5 SPORTING GOODS Get 10 percent off entire in-store purchase for active

duty, reserve, retirees, veterans, spouses and dependent children.

CABELA’S Members of the military receive a 5 percent discount every day.

CHAMPION Save 20 percent on most online purchases after verifying military service at champion.com.

FOOT LOCKER Save 20 percent on most online purchases after verifying military service at footlocker.com.

GENERAL MOTORS Through the GM Military Discount program, members of the military receive discounts on new GM vehicles, as well as other cash offers at gmmilitarydiscount.com.

HANES Save 20 percent on most online purchases after verifying military service at hanes.com.

THE HOME DEPOT Active-duty military, veterans, National Guard and reserves, retirees and disabled service members and their spouses get a 10 percent daily discount.

JOANN FABRIC AND CRAFTS Military service members and their families are eligible for a 15 percent year-round discount.

LOWE’S Get 10 percent off eligible purchases every day for active military personnel and veterans.

Enroll at lowes.com/ military.

MICHAELS Every day, military, veterans, spouses and families can get 15 percent off entire purchase and sale items. In-person only.

NIKE Active, veteran, retirees, reservists and spouses and dependents of active personnel get a 10

percent military discount at nike.com as well as in Nike, Converse and Hurley stores.

OLD TIME POTTERY Get a 10 percent discount every day for active duty, retirees and veterans.

O’REILLY AUTO PARTS Get an in-store discount of 10 percent off the retail price of most items for active duty, reservists, retirees and veterans. Immediate family members of active duty or veterans are eligible for discount if they have a governmentissued dependent ID card.

PEP BOYS Get a 10 percent discount every day for active and retired military.

RACK ROOM SHOES Save 10 percent on in-store purchases on Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and every Tuesday throughout the year.

SAM’S CLUB Through Jan. 31, 2020, when active and retired military, veterans and their spouses join the Military Membership club, they get a free $10 gift card. To redeem this offer in-store, print out the offer details from samsclub.com.

SHERWIN-WILLIAMS Active military and veteran reservists, as well as their spouses, receive a yearround 15 percent discount.

T-MOBILE The military plan offers 50 percent off family lines for all military and veterans.

Learn more at t-mobile. com/military.

VERIZON Get $15 off select plans or 15 percent off other eligible plans. Learn more at verizonwireless.com/ military.

— Kelly Tyko is a guest editor for Reviewed.com, a USA TODAY content partner.

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DELICIOUS VETERANS DAY DEALS

54TH STREET GRILL & BAR Free entrée up to $12 on Veterans Day for veterans and active duty who dine on-site.

HOULIHAN’S Receive a free entrée from a select menu with proof of veteran status or active service in the military.

APPLEBEE’S Veterans and active duty can select a free meal from a limited menu.

LUCILLE’S SMOKEHOUSE BAR-B-QUE Active and former military can enjoy a complimentary desBAKER’S SQUARE sert and a 20 percent discount All veterans and active duty with proof of service. Veterans receive a free meal. receive 20 percent off throughout the CHILI’S GRILL month of November & BAR for “Military Family Month.”

All veterans and Military Benefits active duty can keeps an updated choose a compliMANHATTAN list of deals and mentary meal from BAGEL COMPANY discounts througha select menu.

All active and out the year. Since retired military 2011, it has provided THE CHOP HOUSE and veterans can benefits information Veterans with milireceive a free bagel to military active tary ID or in uniform and cream cheese duty, veterans, get 50 percent off at participating spouses and famany dine-in lunch or locations. ily. Learn more at dinner entrée. militarybenefits.info.

MISSION BBQ CONNORS STEAK Active duty and & SEAFOOD veterans will receive Locations in Tennessee, Alabama a free sandwich and slice of and Florida are offering cake (while supplies last).

50 percent off any dine-in lunch or dinner entrée to all O’CHARLEY’S active-duty and retired service Active and retired military members with military ID or in service members are invited uniform. to enjoy a free meal. Veterans can choose from O’Charley’s COTTON PATCH CAFE “Veterans Thank You Menu” all Free chicken-fried steak or day by showing their military chicken-fried chicken for IDs. O’Charley’s also offers a 10 veterans and active duty. percent military discount all yearlong.

GOLDEN CORRAL From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., enjoy a RED ROBIN free dine-in “thank you” dinner All veterans and activefor veterans, retirees and active duty get a free dine-in Red’s duty.

Tavern double burger and bottomless steak fries.

GRUB KITCHEN & BAR Past and present military get a VILLAGE INN complimentary entrée. Grub All veterans and active duty also offers an ongoing yearservice members receive a free round discount for veterans of 10 meal on Veterans Day. Village percent off any purchase with a Inn also offers a 10 percent valid military I.D. or uniform. military discount all yearlong.

MORE DEALS

BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES

Applebee’s is one of many restaurants that offer discounts on Veterans Day. Actor and retired Marine Corps officer Rob Riggle orders at an Applebee’s in Los Angeles.

ALISON BUCK/GETTY IMAGES FOR APPLEBEE’S

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American Legion volunteers serve sailors and Marines during San Francisco Fleet Week in October.

AMERICAN EX-PRISONERS OF WAR Established in 1942 and originally called the Bataan Relief Organization, the group was founded by two mothers from New Mexico whose sons were captured by the Japanese. They wanted to actively advocate for former prisoners of war and their families. The name was changed to the American Ex-Prisoners of War in 1949 so all former prisoners of war (POWs) would know they were welcome. axpow.org

PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS BENJAMIN KITTLESON/U.S. NAVY

Still Serving Diverse array of veteran-specific groups cater to myriad experiences, backgrounds

By Caren Chesler

F

OR DECADES, THE BIGGEST advocates for veterans were known as “the Big Six”: the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, AMVETS, Vietnam Veterans of America, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Disabled American Veterans. These groups lobby for better veteran benefits and today still wield a lot of clout. But after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a new crop of organizations were founded to reflect the increasingly diverse generations of veterans who face a different set of illnesses and challenges as they transition into society.

While this list is far from exhaustive, it highlights the wide variety of these organizations. Finding an appropriate group can have a bevy of benefits; find one or more to connect with today.

THE AMERICAN LEGION Chartered in 1919, the American Legion is America’s largest wartime veterans service organization.

From its American Legion Baseball program, which teaches young people about sportsmanship, citizenship and fitness, to Operation Comfort Warriors, which supports recovering wounded warriors and their families, the organization aims to not just provide veterans with services but to bolster the communities in which they live. Part of the millions of dollars in donations it brings in each year goes toward college scholarships. legion.org

AMVETS The organization, with 250,000 members, bills itself as the most inclusive veterans organization, with membership open to anyone who served or is serving in U.S. armed forces, including the National Guard and reserves.

Its programs include annual scholarships to high school seniors, ROTC students, veterans and service members pursuing higher education, and its Veterans Affairs Voluntary Service provides volunteers to work with vets in VA health care facilities.

Its Military Funeral Honors program provides families of deceased veterans with service members who will fold and present the American flag to surviving family members and play Taps. amvets.org

D DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS (DAV) With chapters throughout the country, DAV transports disabled veterans to medical appointments, offers assistance with filing benefit claims and obtaining a job, reaches out to homeless veterans and provides disaster relief grants. Membership also includes moneysaving advantages for veterans and their families, including discounts from Ford Motor Company,

1-800-Flowers, USAA, T-Mobile, Quicken Loans and Budget and Avis rental cars. dav.org

G GOLD STAR WIVES OF AMERICA In 1945, its founding members wanted an organization that helped surviving spouses fight for the rights of other surviving spouses and their children — in some cases, moving in with each other to provide child care so each spouse could work. Today, the group lobbies for legislation concerning compensation, educational benefits, medical care and other programs pertaining to the welfare of military survivors. goldstarwives.org

I IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA (IAVA) Founded by an Iraq veteran in 2004, the IAVA is a national organization focused on the specific health and employment challenges faced by those who served in those two wars.

The group helped pass the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for America’s Veterans Act and the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, among others. iava.org

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Founded in Los Angeles in 1929, MOAA is the nation’s largest association of military officers. With more than 350,000 members from every branch of service, the association plays an active role in military personnel matters, career transition assistance, educational assistance to officers’ children and lobbying for legislation that affects career and retired military. It also publishes an awardwinning monthly magazine. moaa.org

J JAPANESE AMERICAN VETERANS ASSOCIATION (JAVA) When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, mass hysteria erupted in America against those of Japanese ancestry.

Nisei, the Americanborn children of Japanese immigrants, were viewed as innately disloyal and were barred from enlisting in the armed forces. The 1,432 Nisei already in the U.S. Army in Hawaii were placed in the 100th Infantry Battalion and deployed to Italy, where they performed so well, men in their unit were awarded seven Presidential Unit Citations, 21 Medals of Honor and more than 4,000 Purple Heart Medals. The JAVA mission is to preserve and strengthen the camaraderie among its members, perpetuate the memory of those departed, educate the American public on the experience of Japanese Americans during World War 2 and work to assure the organization’s veterans receive all of the benefits to which they are entitled. java.wildapricot.org

JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (JWV) JWV was created in 1896 to support active-duty military personnel and their families, with a focus on education

PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA

after service. The organization awards more than $5,000 in educational grants each year to veterans or active-duty personnel of any race or religion, as well as grants to high school seniors who are direct descendants of members of the Jewish War Veterans. jwv.org

K KOREAN WAR VETERANS ASSOCIATION (KWVA) KWVA was formed in 1985 to connect veterans who served during the Korean War. The KWVA actively helps to resolve the fate of Korea POWs and MIAs and its Tell America program allows vets to talk to schoolchildren about the Korean War. The KWVA also

coordinates the Revisit Korea Program, a trip sponsored by the Republic of Korea. kwva.org

M MILITARY CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Founded in 1925, the group is dedicated to the religious freedom and spiritual welfare of its Armed Services members, veterans and their families.

The organization presents four annual awards that recognize distinguished ministry advocacy and support.

It also provides scholarships to seminary students. mca-usa.org

MILITARY OFFICERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA (MOAA)

MILITARY ORDER OF THE WORLD WARS (MOWW) MOWW was founded in 1919 by the General of the Armies John J. Pershing, who requested that his officers continue serving America even after their active military service in World War I ended.

The group hosts youth conferences that teach civics issues, like the principles of democracy, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. moww.org

N NATIONAL COALITION FOR HOMELESS VETERANS (NCHV) NCHV puts veterans in touch with community-based agencies that provide emergency and supportive housing, food, health services,

job training and placement assistance, legal aid and case management.

Through its advocacy, it has also obtained increased federal funding for homeless veterans. NCHV was founded in 1990 by a small group of community-based service providers who were troubled by the disproportionately large percentage of homeless people who were veterans and the lack of veteranspecific programs to help them. nchv.org

NATIONAL GULF WAR RESOURCE CENTER (NGWRC) Formed shortly after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the NGWRC advocates for veterans affected by the “invisible” injuries most common in the conflict period from 1989 to the present.

These injuries include Gulf War syndrome, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. It also encouraged members to participate in a study being conducted by the VA, which found that respiratory exposures are highly prevalent and associated with increased odds of respiratory diseases among the Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom populations. ngwrc.org

NATIONAL VETERANS LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM (NVLSP) NVLSP was created in the early 1970s out

of a project meant to help service members who received a less than fully honorable discharge, a status that not only carried a stigma but prevented them from obtaining military benefits. The initiative, known as the National Military Discharge Review Project and funded by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation, resulted in a manual that educates advocates on how to assist veterans who want to appeal their derogatory status and obtain an upgrade from the military discharge review boards. The program has since fought for legislation that created a new court for veteran appeals, and for funding and educating attorneys in veterans law. nvlsp.org

P PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA (PVA) The PVA was originally founded by a band of service members who came home from World War II with spinal cord injuries. They advocate for research and education with respect to spinal cord injury and dysfunction, benefits (such as pensions, survivor benefits, and housing and auto grants) and quality health care, such as prosthetics, home care and mental health treatment. pva.org

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Team Red, White and Blue members at a chapter event in San Diego in April PROVIDED BY TEAM RED, WHITE & BLUE

S STUDENT VETERANS OF AMERICA (SVA) SVA is a 501(c)(3) coalition of studentveteran groups on college campuses across the globe, supporting some 700,000 veterans at 1,500 schools.

It advocates on education and job issues and played a significant role in drafting a new G.I. Bill. studentveterans.org

SWORDS TO PLOWSHARES Founded in 1974 by six Vietnam veterans who were frustrated with the way Vietnam veterans were treated, not just by the public but by groups like Veterans of Foreign

Wars, American Legion and the VA, Swords to Plowshares provides job training, housing and benefits advocacy to low-income and homeless veterans.

Headquartered in San Francisco, it is supported by government and private grants as well as private donations. swords-to-plowshares. org

T TEAM RED, WHITE AND BLUE (RWB) Team RWB promotes connections through physical and social activities.

Headquartered in Alexandria, Va., the chapter-based organization has expanded to five

regions and allows those interested to start their own local chapters. teamrwb.org

V VETERANS FOR PEACE Headquartered in Missouri with more than 120 chapters in the U.S., Ireland, Japan and the United Kingdom, this organization of veterans and their families aims to increase public awareness of the causes and costs of war, restrain governments from intervening (overtly and covertly) in the internal affairs of other nations, end the arms race and

reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons and abolish war as an instrument of national policy. veteransforpeace.org

VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS (VFW) Tracing its roots back to the SpanishAmerican War in 1898 and the Philippine Insurrection (18991902), the VFW was founded to support wounded veterans who arrived home only to find no medical care or pensions. Now with more than 1.6 million members, the organization helped establish the Veterans Administration, develop the national cemetery system, and fight for compensation for

Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange and for veterans diagnosed with Gulf War syndrome. And in 2008, it helped win passage of the GI Bill for the 21st Century, which gave expanded educational benefits to active-duty service members and members of the National Guard and reserves fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was also the driving force behind the Veterans Access and Accountability Act of 2014 and continues to fight for improved VA medical center services for women veterans. vfw.org

VETERANS OF THE VIETNAM WAR Founded in 1978, this group focuses on having the service and special needs of Vietnam War veterans recognized and acknowledged, at a time when traditional veterans organizations were unwilling to accept the service of Vietnam vets.

Today, it has 90 posts worldwide, providing programs such as United Veterans Beacon House, a transitional homeless veterans housing and reintegration program; the Military Support Package Project; support for incarcerated veterans as well as counseling, a 24-hour 800-VIETNAM phone line; education and scholarship programs; and a FIND-A-VET locator program to help reunite Vietnam-

era veterans. vvnw.org

VIETNAM VETERANS OF AMERICA (VVA) Founded in 1978, VVA was created by a group of Vietnam veteran activists who wanted an organization that solely addressed the needs of this specific demographic. The national nonprofit advocates for health and pension benefits and aims to identify the full range of disabling injuries and illnesses incurred in Vietnam, create a positive public perception of Vietnam vets and seeks the fullest possible accounting of American POWs and MIAs. vva.org

W WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT Since its inception in 2003, this group became one of the largest and fastestgrowing charities and veterans service organizations in the country, investing more than $285 million in mental and brain health care to wounded veterans. The group raises funds from outside the veterans community and invests in research and services rather than infrastructure.

It also hosts events, such as pheasant hunts and races. woundedwarrior project.org

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Pensacola Bay in Pensacola, Fla. GETTY IMAGES

Moving on Up Traditional military towns are becoming top places for vets to build next stages of their lives

By Annette Thompson

M CO NTINUED

ILITARY TOWNS ARE ENJOYING a renaissance. In the past, after service members completed their duty, they wanted to start over somewhere new. Nowadays, those folks are looking to stay — or even find another military town — for their next chapter. Check out these three great cities where vets have chosen to serve the community.

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PENSACOLA, FLA.

PENSACOLA

One of the oldest American settlements, this jewel is perched on a glistening bay. Nearby, white sands are rimmed by the emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Called the Cradle of Naval Aviation, Pensacola is home to the Naval Air Station (NAS), established in 1914, and its Blue Angels performance team.

“Pensacola shares the same values and commitment to serve as our active-duty military,” said retired Navy Capt. Keith Hoskins, a former Blue Angel pilot who served as commanding officer of NAS Pensacola before his retirement. “Whether a post-military life is focused on volunteering, (working) in the private sector or starting a new business, there is a level of support and encouragement in Pensacola that you just don’t see everywhere,” he said. Hoskins, now an executive with Navy Federal Credit Union, added: “You never feel like you’re on your own in Pensacola.”

GETTY IMAGES; PROVIDED BY GARY YETTER

BRINGING EVERYONE TOGETHER Navy Lt. Gary Yetter retired in 1996, and he’d drive his RV down to the Gulf Coast to visit one of his sons who served at Eglin Air Force Base.

“This was a real nice spot to be in,” he said. The cost of living around Pensacola attracted his family.

Yetter found a horticultural nursery for sale near NAS Pensacola and decided to open a supply business for home beer brewers called Gary’s.

His daughter, Crystal Yetter-Fouts,

had just left the Air Force, and she ran the nursery operation as well as her dad’s bookkeeping. Soon, the family bought a plot next door and added a brewery and a beer garden.

While the Yetters brew small-scale batches — about 60 gallons at a time — the beer garden has taken off on a large scale. Almost every night the area is full of folks competing in trivia contests, listening to a local band or simply enjoying the breeze under the stars.

He looks out over a beer garden

crowd and notices a sea of shorthaired attendees, likely Marines, Navy or Air Force. He credits the military for following his passion.

“I learned to like beer in the Navy,” he said. “I think, too, if you’re retired military, you have that pension to support you. You can branch out and try things other folks might struggle with.” The beer garden hosts retirement ceremonies from the base and weddings, too. “Most of those people are vets,” he said. “It’s the nature of Pensacola.”

PROVIDED BY MICHELLE CALDWELL

CARVING OUT A PLACE FOR SHEROES Sometimes the journey to find your place is a winding and long one. Former Navy Petty Officer Michelle Caldwell’s path has been rocky. She left the service two decades ago quite angry. “There were no women in charge anywhere then,” she said. “I didn’t see myself moving forward.” Caldwell also experienced sexual assault at NAS Pensacola and the trauma that followed. “I actually burned my uniform,” she said.

These days, her attitude has changed. The turning point came when she volunteered to give wounded warriors bike rides. “One guy was blind,” she said. “I was in a dark place in my mind, too. It gave me a vision.” Now Caldwell donates her military pension and her time to organize Monument & Museum to Women Veterans in Pensacola. “I tell people that Pensacola is the cradle of naval aviation, and women should be near the cradle,” she said. “You look at our USO. It’s one of the top in the nation. Everywhere you turn, you find military. We have one of the largest veteran student organizations at the University of West Florida.”

The monument and museum will be stationed at the old Pensacola Amtrak building.

The plans are still on the drawing board, but she has a vision in mind. “We have to respect and honor sacrifices women have made for years,” Caldwell said.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.

FAYETTEVILLE

This town in the sandy pine hills of eastern North Carolina has a deep history going back to the Revolutionary War. Today, it’s home to Fort Bragg, the 82nd Airborne and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. At the end of the 20th century, Fayetteville didn’t have much to make you want to stick around: People got out of the service and out of town. Times have changed, and a new generation of vets has decided to make Fayetteville home. Those entrepreneurs have invested here, and the community they created gives back, too. There’s a new baseball park downtown, and cafés spill out on the sidewalks near galleries and boutiques.

THE FINE ART OF PIES

PROVIDED BY FAYETTEVILLE PIE COMPANY

Former U.S. Army Spc. Leslie Pearson sees herself as an artist first. She spent her Army time as a photojournalist where she met her husband, Justin, also a photographer and videographer.

After leaving, they settled nearby in Wilmington. When the old Fayetteville Museum of Art building came up for sale, they transformed it into a wedding and event space, called Vizcaya Villa.

After creating a backdrop for special events, they lacked food catering for the venue. They founded Fayetteville Pie Company to fill that need.

Pearson grew up in Missouri’s farmland, where her grandmother always baked pies. “She picked berries, canned and pickled, made cobblers

and put leftovers into savory pies.”

Pearson played around with recipes and soon opened a lunch spot. Fayetteville Pie Company dishes up more than 50 savory and sweet pies, and they fly off the counter as fast as Pearson can bake them. “People coming off the post get a quick bite and head back to work.”

Most recently, the couple purchased a 1914 historic home and plan to open a boutique to sell Pearson’s paintings and sculptures, teach classes and sell handmade goods. Pearson thinks Fayetteville is ready. “In the past, when you put art out, it might be vandalized,” she said. “Now people appreciate (it).

People take selfies in front of public art.

The more that happens, you get used to having more cultural elements.”

LOOKING AFTER THE COMMUNITY

GETTY IMAGES; PROVIDED BY NICOLE WALCOTT

You don’t have to look far in Fayetteville to meet other vets. At Floating Shanti, owner Nicole Walcott has built a wellness retreat that offers hourlong floats in a saltwater serenity tank. Walcott, a service-disabled vet married to a policeman and fellow vet, works with service members and first responders to combat chronic pain, PTSD and stress-related symptoms.

Over at Pressed — a Creative Space, two military wives fashioned a gift shop with locally made T-shirts, bags, wallets and greeting cards. Now one of their husbands has joined the business as well. Brewing beer and veterans go hand in hand at Dirtbag Ales, which features brews by Vernardo “Tito” SimmonsValenzuela, a former Army medic who honors the fellowship of those who’ve been deployed.

PROVIDED BY CORNERSTONE DESIGNS

FAMILY FIRST Retired Army 1st Sgt. Mike Dean met his wife, Tianna, when he was stationed at Fort Bragg, years ago.

The couple married, and through a VA loan, they purchased their first house.

“We needed furniture,” Dean said, so he taught himself to make tables and chairs for their growing family. “The Army was gracious enough to move our stuff,” Dean said, as he laughed about his 16 moves over 21 years.

They chose Fayetteville after Dean’s last post in El Paso, Texas, because his wife’s family lived nearby.

The furniture inspired their new business, Cornerstone Designs, which opened in 2017. Sourcing locally, Dean builds custom dining tables (and has an uncanny ability to duplicate any piece) while Tianna runs the front of the shop, selling furnishings and teaching candle making.

Dean said when he served at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville was different. “There were certain areas that you didn’t go to then.” Now, he noted, “It’s growing and as people approach their final duty station, they are retiring and investing here. They want to make it nice.”

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A REFRESHING PLACE TO CALL HOME

COLORADO SPRINGS

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. It’s no surprise that this front-range city has excellent quality of life. It sits a mile above sea level in the shadow of Pike’s Peak and the southern Rockies. Its military community thrives too, with five institutions: U.S. Air Force Academy, Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Fort Carson Army Post, Peterson Air Force Base and Schriever Air Force Base. According to Visit Colorado Springs, “the military community has a $12 billion annual impact on the regional economy, employs 105,000 residents and boasts an average salary of $52,540.” Plus, more than 53,000 veterans call it home. Recently, WalletHub declared it the second-best place in the U.S. for veterans, and U.S. News and World Report said Colorado Springs is one of the most desirable places to live in the U.S. (tied with Honolulu for No. 1).

Colorado Springs.”

Not surprisingly, many local brewerGiven all that it offers, it’s no surprise ies are veteran-owned. One spot Shaw that you’ll find many veteran-owned brings visitors to is Red Leg Brewing businesses in Colorado Springs. One Company, owned by Todd Baldwin, area where that excels is in the brewing a former captain from the Army’s industry.

101st Airborne Division. Baldwin said Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Red Leg’s mission is to Russell Shaw agreed with “continue our service everyone’s assessment of by serving all those who the quality of life there. His chose a life of service.” wife worked as a school He is also founder of the principal, and he went to Veterans Beer Alliance, work at Schriever AFB. which buys beer supplies “People really embrace in bulk to reduce the the military here,” he said. economies of scales. It “People are genuine. When supports more than 50 they say, ‘thanks for your different veteran-owned service,’ they mean it.” breweries across the U.S. On weekends, Shaw leads Other veteran-owned Russell Shaw Springs Craft Beer Tours spots include Dueces of Manitou Springs.

Wild, a new craft beer Shaw’s tours get brewery; and Cockpit folks walking through town while Craft Distillery, owned by Calder Curhe discusses its history, and they tis, an aircraft metals technologist for typically make three stops to sample the Air Force. Cockpit’s bar is fashioned beer. “I am still employed full time at from the tail of a World War II C-45 the base,” he said, “and I’m thinking cargo plane. There, Curtis (currently about retiring and starting more beer in the reserves) crafts bourbon, rum, tours in Colorado City and downtown moonshine and a banana booze.

Colorado Springs, Colo.

GETTY IMAGES (2); PROVIDED BY RUSSELL SHAW

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J.D. LEIPOLD

Arlington National Cemetery, above, is expanding to encompass land near the Air Force Memorial and part of the former Navy Annex.

Sacred Spaces VA cemeteries offer alternate resting spots as Arlington National Cemetery runs out of room

By Gina Harkins

A

RLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY HAS served as

the final resting site for almost half a million people since the Civil War — but the hallowed grounds are running out of space, and officials are encouraging

veterans to consider other burial options.

The Department of the Army, which manages the country’s most-revered cemetery where U.S. military veterans dating back to the Revolutionary War are interred, is adding space to the highprofile 624-acre site that sits just outside Washington, D.C. But even with a 70-acre southern expansion set to begin in 2021

that will push the cemetery out toward the Air Force Memorial and part of the old Navy Annex by 2025, burial space will run out 30 years later, according to Kerry Meeker, an Arlington National Cemetery spokeswoman.

“Expansion alone will not keep the CONTI NUED

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RESOURCES cemetery open to new interments and inurnments well into the future,” Meeker added.

That could mean many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans won’t have the option of being buried there.

Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy in September proposed changing burial eligibility requirements to keep the cemetery open and active for the next 150 years. The new rules would limit in-ground burial space to those killed or wounded in action, prisoners of war and combat heroes who earn the Medal of Honor, a service cross or the Silver Star.

McCarthy’s proposals were in line with what Arlington National Cemetery’s advisory committee recommended in 2018.

The changes would mean military retirees and troops killed on active duty but not in combat will only be eligible for above-ground inurnment. Members of the public will be given the chance to comment on the proposed new rules once they’re published in the Federal Register, which Army officials said is expected in mid-2020.

Once the rules are implemented, they will not affect previously scheduled services at Arlington National Cemetery, Army officials stressed in a statement announcing the proposed changes. The changes also won’t affect veterans’ burial benefits or eligibility at VA national or state cemeteries, they added.

It’s not the first time that eligibility rules at Arlington have changed. Officials established the current rules in 1967 when burial rates rose sharply after President John F. Kennedy was buried there following his assassination. The mystique of the cemetery was “heightened substantially” after Kennedy’s assassination, a 1999 congressional report states, and “pressure increased for interments in the limited space available.”

That led officials to restrict in-ground burials to military retirees and those killed on active duty.

As space and eligibility at Arlington are limited, the Department of Veterans Affairs, which manages 137 national cemeteries, is “constantly expanding existing cemeteries and building new ones,” said Gina Jackson, a VA spokeswoman.

Those efforts include providing grants to states, territories and tribes to fund the construction, maintenance and operation of veterans cemeteries in those jurisdictions, she said.

Eligibility for in-ground burial at Arlington is already the most stringent of all U.S. national cemeteries since burial is

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The VA’s most utilized national cemeteries include, clockwise, Riverside National Cemetery in California, Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota, Calverton National Cemetery in New York and Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri.

only available to those who die on active duty, retirees or troops who’ve earned some of the highest combat awards.

Their spouses and dependent children also qualify for burial there.

Above-ground inurnment is available to a wider veteran population, including those who served fewer than 20 years and don’t qualify for a full military retirement. Veterans who were honorably discharged and who’ve served at least a day on active service, aside from training, are eligible for above-ground inurnment.

But with space getting tighter, veterans are encouraged to consider other options for their earned burial benefits, Meeker said.

“We often make veterans aware of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ 137 national cemeteries and 115 state veterans’ cemeteries, as these are wonderful options all across the country for our veterans,” she said.

The workload at VA cemeteries has increased over the last several decades, Jackson said, as the agency opens new cemeteries or expands its existing grounds. It has new national cemeteries in areas that include Cape Canaveral and Tallahassee in Florida, San Diego and just outside Yellowstone National Park in Montana.

The VA is also expanding several of its national cemeteries — or has plans to do so. Between Oct. 1, 2017, and Sept.

30, 2018, Jackson said there were more than 135,000 interments in VA national cemeteries.

The VA’s most utilized national cemeteries are: Riverside National Cemetery in California, Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, Calverton National Cemetery in New York, Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis and Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis.

“These five cemeteries combined for over 22 percent of interments in the last fiscal year,” Jackson said.

Between the VA’s national cemeteries and those run by states, territories and tribes, more than 92 percent of veterans have burial options within 75 miles of their homes, she added.

There are also national VA cemeteries in popular tourist areas, such as Honolulu, Denver, Phoenix and outside Hilton Head Island, S.C. Veterans and their families may also qualify for more benefits at VA cemeteries since Jackson said the “eligibility criteria are considerably less strict than those already in place at Arlington National Cemetery.”

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Arlington National Cemetery PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS PATRICK KELLEY/U.S. COAST GUARD

Eligibility rules are the same at all national VA cemeteries. Any veteran who served on active duty who was discharged under any condition except for dishonorable qualifies, including those who received honorable, general and other-than-honorable discharges.

Spouses and any minor children are also eligible to be buried there.

Reservists and National Guard personnel who serve on active duty other than for training or have served long enough to be eligible for a Reserve retirement are also eligible, along with spouses and minor children.

Those veterans and famThe Army should seek ily members are entitled every opportunity to exVeterans can search to a gravesite, headstone pand the sacred grounds, for national, state and opening- and closingthe group added. Beyond and other cemof-the-grave services at no that, “the other option is eteries at va.gov/ cost. to encourage VA to work find-locations.

Even as space at with other state and local Arlington National Cempartners” to increase burial etery dwindles, veterans space at national veteran organizations acknowledge its legacy cemeteries, it wrote. will be difficult to replace. Given the Jackson stressed that all VA cemeteries land shortage around Washington, D.C., are maintained at the highest “national though, there’s no easy answer, Veterans shrine” standards. The VA National Cemof Foreign Wars officials said in testietery Administration’s national shrine mony presented to Congress last year. commitment states that the spots should

be majestic settings.

“Each and every Veteran may find a sense of serenity, historic sacrifice and nobility of purpose,” the shrine states.

“Each visitor should depart feeling that the grounds, the gravesites and the environs of the national cemetery are a beautiful and awe-inspiring tribute to those who gave much to preserve our nation’s freedom and way of life.”

For those interested in being laid to rest near the nation’s capital, Jackson suggested they consider Quantico National Cemetery, a 725-acre facility in northern Virginia.

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RESOURCES BEST FOR

STOCK PICKERS

In the Money

ROBINHOOD COST: Free; $5/month for Robinhood Gold

No matter what kind of investor you are (or want to be), there’s an app for you

ASSETS

STOCKS

FINANCES

INVESTMENTS

EARNINGS

EQUITY IRA

GETTY IMAGES

By Josue Ledesma

S

O YOU’VE SAVED UP

some money, built a bit of a nest egg in savings and now you’re ready to start investing. Fortunately, today’s world of finance and tech offers a variety of mobile apps designed to make investing easier, more accessible and cheaper than

ever before.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the possibilities, so we put together this guide to investment apps for beginners.

Investing is never a guarantee, and there is always a chance you’ll lose money if your investments drop in value. These apps were not selected based on performance; they were chosen based on ease

of use, options offered and how they’re tailored to various personalities or types of investors (we all have a type, even if we don’t know it yet).

While some of these options offer banking features (typically for a higher cost), you have to link a bank account as a funding source — these apps won’t replace your bank. Here’s the list:

If you want to play Wall Street, Robinhood is your app. Released a few years ago, it was one of the first investment platforms to offer commission-free trading, meaning you can buy and sell stocks, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrency (depending on your state of residence) as often as you want, for free. (ETFs are essentially bundles of different stocks and are considered less risky than single stocks because one stock’s poor performance won’t bring down an ETF’s entire value.) It’s also popular among veterans: “The U.S. Armed Forces is the most common employer reported by people who signed up for a Robinhood account,” noted Patrick Keating, business manager at Robinhood and himself a veteran.

Robinhood’s app is packed with helpful guides, so you’re not trading blindly. For any given stock, users can see its analyst ratings, earnings info, price/ earnings ratio, volume, historical price ROBINHOOD information and related news. It also shows whether a stock’s current price is higher or lower than what other users on the app have paid.

You can place different order types on stocks.

For example, one type automates a trade once a stock reaches a specific price. To reduce user risk exposure, Robinhood doesn’t allow more than three day-trades (when you buy and sell a stock in the same day) in a five-day trading period unless you have more than $25,000 in your account.

A paid version called Robinhood Gold allows users to trade outside of normal hours (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.), gives access to Morningstar Research Reports and Nasdaq Level 2 market data and allows margin investing. But for first-time investors, stick to the free version.

“At Robinhood, our goal is to create a financial system that everyone can participate in,” Keating said. “Finances are complex and personal, and we break down the barriers to help more people take control of their financial lives.”

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RESOURCES BEST FOR

BEST FOR

BEST FOR

THE SET IT AND FORGET IT CROWD

THOSE WHO DON’T MIND A LITTLE HOMEWORK

THE CONSCIOUS INVESTOR

ACORNS

STASH

ASPIRATION

COST: $1/month for Acorns Core (invest only); free for college students $2/month for Acorns Core + Later (IRA option) $3/month for Acorns Core + Later + Spend (debit card option)

COST: $1/month for investing

If you want to start investing but don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it, Acorns is an excellent choice.

The app aims to make growing wealth easy by starting with just $5.

Begin by linking any number of bank, credit and debit card accounts. Then, choose an investment portfolio (Acorns guides you through this process), set your round-up preference to the nearest dollar or cent amount and Acorns will ACORNS “round up” any purchase made from your linked accounts and invest the spare change, taking the money from your main funding account.

For example, if you make a $4.75 purchase on a meal, Acorns will round up to $5 and automatically invest the remaining 25 cents in the portfolio you choose.

If you’d like to increase your investing amount, you can also set a recurring deposit or take advantage of Acorns’ Found Money, a partnership program with 350-plus brands across a variety of industries and products that will invest a percentage of eligible purchases into your Acorns account.

EARNINGS For retirement, you can opt for Acorns Later, which invests money in the same way but into an IRA account.

“Acorns is proud to stand behind veterans and hopes to be an ally in ensuring that they have a healthy financial future,” said Babak FarrokhSiar, head of business development and brand partnerships at Acorns.

“Our products are designed to make big financial decisions small and create an easy path for anyone to grow wealth.”

Stash is an app that promotes long-term investing by providing a large number of themed ETFs (exchange trade funds) and investments for you to buy and sell at no additional cost.

For example, Stash offers the “Defending America” ETF, which contains Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin stock.

Stash offers stocks you can purchase, but the app has limited trading windows and STASH fewer selections compared to an app like Robinhood. You can initiate a transaction at any time, but it won’t be complete until that evening or the next morning.

Stash has a robust offering of financial literacy articles and content in-app that breaks down investing terminology, investment strategies and how recent news may affect certain ETFs. If you choose their $2/month plan, you have access to a debit card that gives you rewards in the form of stock. For partner brands, the Stock Back reward can range from 2 percent to 5 percent of your purchase. For all other purchases, it’s 1 percent. If you’re planning to FINANCES raise a family or want to invest for your children, the $9 per month option offers custodial accounts, which are specifically for holding savings and investments for individuals under 18. For these accounts and the retirement accounts, the method of STOCKS investing stays the same.

$2/month for investing, retirement and banking $9/month for investing, retirement, banking, two custodial accounts and 2x Stockback rewards

COST: Pay what you want If you’re interested in impact investing, an investing style that prioritizes investments that have positive effects on social issues, Aspiration is our pick for you.

To facilitate this, Aspiration offers two mutual funds, the Aspiration Redwood Fund and the Aspiration Flagship Fund.

Mutual funds are essentially hands-off investing. Aspiration does the work of picking and balancing stocks, and you invest in the entire fund.

The Redwood Fund is designed for more aggressive growth (but carries higher risk) while the Flagship fund is “designed to ASPIRATION; GETTY IMAGES (2) maintain steady growth by minimizing stock volatility,” noted CEO Andrei Cherny.

Aspiration also offers a Spend & Save account, a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-insured cash management account that accrues 1 percent interest annually and provides benefits such as the Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM), which analyzes users’ sustainability scores to help them spend money at businesses “based on how (they) treat their people and the planet.”

Aspiration allows customers to pay what they think is fair (even $0) and donates 10 percent of all collected fees to charities and organizations working for a variety of causes.

You can select the causes your fees will support.

“Aspiration is the first socially conscious, sustainable financial firm built for every American, dedicated to providing fair, sustainable banking and investment products that help its customers both ‘do well’ and ‘do good,’” said Cherny.

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TECH SLAP THAT KNOW-IT-ALL NEPHEW. Know what’s in, what’s out, and what’s awesome before others even know what it is.

Get your tech going.

Download our free app.

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HEALTH & HEALING

HEALTHY LIVING Learn how to quit smoking, eat healthy, lose weight, start an exercise program and more. uwww.prevention.va.gov

ONLINE HEALTH Refill prescriptions, manage appointments, download medical records and communicate with your doctor online. umyhealth.va.gov

HOMELESSNESS VA connects homeless veterans and those at risk of becoming homeless with housing, health care, employment and other support services. uva.gov/homeless

MENTAL HEALTH For help with depression, anxiety, substance abuse or other issues, VA offers in-person appointments at local VA facilities, telehealth sessions and online resources. uwww.mentalhealth.va.gov

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Road to Well-Being VA’s best health resources

By Sara Schwartz

N

AVIGATING THE LARGE DEPARTMENT of

Veterans Affairs health care system can be difficult without a guide. VA suggests these websites for an overview of health care benefits and services available for veterans:

PTSD Veterans who have developed PTSD after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event can chat online with a counselor, find local resources and much more. uwww.ptsd.va.gov

WOMEN VETERANS HEALTH CARE Women are the fastestgrowing group of veterans. VA offers specific health services for women, including mammography, reproductive health, and military sexual trauma and menopause support. uwww.womenshealth.va.gov

VETERANS CRISIS LINE Suicide prevention is VA’s No. 1 clinical priority. If you are a veteran or service member in crisis, or you’re concerned about one, trained responders are ready to help 24/7/365.

Call 800-273-8255 and press 1, or send a text to 838255. uveteranscrisisline.net

VET CENTERS — READJUSTMENT COUNSELING Vet Centers help veterans and their families make successful transitions from military to civilian life or adjust after traumatic events.

Many of the counselors are veterans themselves, prepared to discuss the tragedies of war, loss, grief and transition after trauma. uwww.vetcenter.va.gov

HEALTH CARE BENEFITS Apply for VA health care benefits you’ve earned. VA health care covers regular primary care visits and appointments with specialists such as cardiologists, gynecologists and mental health providers. VA offers health care services at more than 1,200 sites across the U.S. and its territories. uva.gov/health-care

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HEALTH & HEALING

Variations of The Fin

PROVIDED BY NORTHWELL HEALTH

Liberating Limbs 3D-printed prosthetics give veteran amputees more independence, increased comfort

By Matt Alderton

U

.S. MARINE CORPS VETERAN

Dan Lasko had been in Afghanistan for less than 30 days when two roadside bombs struck the convoy in which he was riding. He still remembers the blast — and the sight of his mangled leg afterwards.

“That’s how I became an amputee,” said Lasko, 36, who lost his left leg below the knee in April 2004 and received his first prosthetic limb later that year.

Today, Lasko is an athlete of the highest order, competing in marathons and triathlons all over the world. He’s the kind

of person who can do anything. And yet, some things remained a struggle. Like swimming with his boys, 9-year-old Luke and 5-year-old Ben. Because his prosthesis was not designed for swimming, Lasko for years had to remove it before joining. Then he had to either scoot into the water while seated, which was cumbersome, or hop to it on wet pavement, which was dangerous.

In the water, he had to continue hopping on one leg or lean against the side of the pool for balance. During triathlons, his prosthesis was an anchor. His habit, therefore, was leaving it with his wife while he swam.

In 2017, swimming became easier for Lasko thanks to an amphibious device developed by Dr. Todd Goldstein, director of 3D design and innovation at New Yorkbased health care system Northwell Health.

Called The Fin, it’s a V-shaped component with conical holes in it that attaches to a waterproof prosthesis. When worn by amputees, they can go seamlessly from land to sea, and can swim in a manner that physically propels them through the water.

“I have two feet on the ground now,” Lasko said. “I can get in and out of the CONTI NUED

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HEALTH & HEALING water safely. I can throw my kids up in the air and catch them. I just have a lot more options now.”

It’s not just what it does that makes The Fin special, it’s also how it was made: with 3D printing.

CUSTOM CREATIONS 3D printing is a machine-based process for turning digital models into physical objects. Machines “print” items by depositing filaments — thermoplastic materials that melt when they’re heated and solidify when they’re cooled — in layers according to the digital blueprints they receive. The process has been used to manufacture a wide range of items — smartphone cases, shoes, musical instruments and houses.

Its cost, speed and flexibility make 3D printing especially “With 3D attractive for prosthetics, printing, orthotics and assistive you can devices. crowdsource “The problem with this field ideas from is that one size people from all doesn’t fit all, so prosthewalks of life. ... and tists handcarve custom Within hours, prosthetics they may have and orthotics designs, a potential which is a highly timesolution.” consuming — JEN OWEN, and manual co-founder, e-NABLE process,” explained U.S. Air Force veteran David Cullen, director of applications engineering at 3D Systems, a maker of 3D printers. “3D printing has a unique digital differentiator from traditional manufacturing, especially when it comes to freedom of design,” said Cullen. “Digital patient-specific designs allow for custom orthotics and prosthetics to rapidly fit each patient with better fit and functionality at a much lower cost.”

Rapid customization is what attracts practitioners like Brent Wright. The prosthetist at EastPoint Prosthetics & Orthotics in Raleigh, N.C., uses a 3D Systems printer to manufacture prostheses that help limbless patients participate in activities they could not otherwise.

One veteran patient, for example, is an equestrian who’s missing an arm.

“He’s a super technical horseback rider, and he was having trouble

PROVIDED BY NORTHWELL HEALTH

Veteran Dan Lasko dives using The Fin, a V-shaped component that attaches to a waterproof prosthesis and allows him to swim.

finding something lightweight to attach to his arm so he could hold the reins and give his horses the commands he needed to give. So we came up with something fairly wild and printed it,” Wright said. “Even two years ago we wouldn’t have been able to do that, and that’s what excites me about 3D printing. … We can dream up new tools to get veterans back to their preamputative function, and then we can actually draw them up and print them.”

3D printing has democratized prosthetic manufacturing, according to Jen Owen, co-founder of e-NABLE, a global volunteer network whose members create and share open-source designs for 3D-printed assistive devices. The community, whose focus is upper-limb devices, has generated designs for body-powered arms and hands, as well as task-specific tools like hand grips for carrying grocery bags and tweezers for grasping credit cards.

“With 3D printing, you can crowdsource ideas from people from all walks of life,” Owen noted. “In the ecosystem of the maker community, someone can put out a request for help in designing

RANEE STOLLENWERK

Shea Stollenwerk’s “Cyborg Beast” hand was created using a 3D printer in 2014.

something that is specific to them but may also help someone else with the same struggle. Within hours, they may have a potential solution created in a 3D printable file that they can then download and print out right at home.

Or they can find their nearest library, school or makerspace where they can get it printed out in a matter of hours

for a few dollars worth of plastic.”

Along with visionary prosthetists and makers, the 3D printing revolution belongs to the U.S. Departments of Defense (DOD) and Veterans Affairs (VA). Since 2013, for example, Walter Reed National Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., has been pioneering 3D-printed prostheses from its 3D Medical Applications Center (3DMAC), which every year receives more than 300 requests for various 3D-printed items, including prosthetic attachments for wounded veterans.

“We’re dealing with patients in their 20s and 30s who don’t just need care now, but for the next 30 to 40 years,” said 3DMAC Director of Services Peter Liacouras, who has designed and printed devices for holding fishing rods, hockey sticks, toothbrushes, deodorant and smartphones, as well as devices to help wounded veterans rock climb, drive, weld, snowboard and lift weights. “It’s the goal of the DOD and the VA to provide the best possible care for those who sacrifice for their CONTI NUED

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835-B JOHNS HOPKINS DR. GREENVILLE, NC 27834 OFFICE: 252-752-7422 Fax: 252-752-5424 2708 N WOOTEN BLVD. WILSON, NC 27893 OFFICE: 252-296-0001 Fax: 252-752-5424

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HEALTH & HEALING

Two hand orthoses printed on a 3D printer at the Albuquerque VA.

Staff at the San Antonio VA are actively exploring opportunities for 3D printing to contribute to the creation of prostheses.

Stratasys J750 3D printer

PROVIDED BY STRATASYS

country, so they can participate in any activity they did prior to being injured, or any activity they would like to try in the future.”

VA: 3D-PRINTING PIONEER Attachments and accessories are low-hanging fruit. The next frontier in 3D-printed prosthetics is sockets — the component of a prosthesis that interfaces directly with an amputee’s residual limb.

For example, Wright recently designed and manufactured a 3Dprinted socket for 34-year-old Marine Corps veteran Brad Lang, who lost both legs above the knee to a roadside blast in Afghanistan in 2011. Although he has conventional prostheses, he rarely uses them.

“It takes an incredible amount of energy to operate two above-the-knee prosthetics,” said Lang, who was so easily fatigued and pained by his prostheses that he elected to live fulltime in a wheelchair. He decided to give prostheses another try, however, when he met Wright, who designed a 3D-printed socket tailored to Lang’s situation.

“My goal of having prostheses is to be able to use them as a tool when I want to use them, but to not have to

be in them all the time,” said Lang, 3D printers; now, at least 25 have them. who explained that residual limbs Currently, only one printer produces constantly expand and contract, such sockets for amputees: Audie L. Murphy that custom-fitted sockets will no Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in San longer fit him if he doesn’t wear them Antonio, where Chief Prosthetist/ consistently.

Orthotist Gordon Bosker is developing Wright solved that best practices that problem by designing a eventually will allow Initially, just socket that is made of rigid 3D-printed prosthetics carbon fiber in the front scale across the entire three VA medical to and soft, adjustable nylon VHA system. centers were in the back. “Traditional “If you walk hundreds ways of manufacturing use and thousands and tens equipped with resins and carbon fiber of thousands of steps on that are stiff all around. something that doesn’t 3D printers; With 3D printing, you can fit quite right, it can be now 25 have make a socket that’s both uncomfortable,” explained stiff and flexible,” Wright Beth Ripley, chair them. Currently, Dr. explained. “There’s ways of the VHA 3D Printing to do that in traditional Advisory Committee, who only one printer fabrication, but the sockets likens having an ill-fitting produces sockets socket to having a pebble often end up bulkier and heavier. And the reason in one’s shoe. for amputees.

3D-printed prostheses are The only way to fix a attractive (to someone like flawed socket is to make Lang) is that they tend to be lighter and a new one, she said, which could take more comfortable.” days or weeks with a conventional Comfort also is a principal objective prosthesis compared with mere hours at the VA, where the Veterans Health with 3D printing. “If you find a pebbleAdministration (VHA) has been equivalent in a socket, you can just building and scaling its 3D-printing digitally fix that on the computer and operation since 2017. Initially, just three reprint it,” Ripley added.

VA medical centers were equipped with And to amputees who rely on

prostheses to execute the tasks of daily living, speed is everything. “We can … give the veteran what he needs at a much faster rate,” Bosker said.

That the VA moves so quickly does as much to advance the technology as it does to help individual patients, argued Rich Garrity, president of the Americas at Stratasys, a maker of 3D printers whose machines are currently deployed inside 12 VA hospitals. “The VA from our standpoint is really pioneering 3D printing,” he said. “Because they’re federally funded and don’t have the same constraints as a private institution, they can be really quick and nimble.”

The VA promises that everything it learns about 3D printing it ultimately will share with the health care community at large.

“This is not just for the VA,” Bosker said. “This is for the country.”

If there’s one positive thing to come out of Iraq and Afghanistan, that might be it, Lang said. “Until recently, there weren’t a lot of veterans who survived with injuries like mine,” he said. “Now we’ve got a lot of 18-, 19- and 20-yearold kids with traumatic amputations who have their whole lives ahead of them still, and that’s really pushed the envelope with technology. Prosthetics have come a long way.”

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HEALTH & HEALING

Hive-minded Michigan program started by veteran ямБnds sweet success

ALEANNA SIACON/DETROIT FREE PRESS; GETTY IMAGES

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By Aleanna Siacon

P

EERING THROUGH HIS BEEKEEPING hat and veil during a

workshop at Ford Motor Co.’s Cherry Hill Farm in Michigan, an Army veteran spoke to the crowd about mindfulness.

The Heroes to Hives founder, Adam Ingrao, moved panels coated in honeybees to a new hive while he addressed his fellow veterans and budding beekeepers.

“Keeping bees in a calm state — you included — is a really important part about what we do,” Ingrao said. “It’s the idea about us being able to slow down and be mindful about what we’re doing. So, be with your bees when you’re with your bees. Don’t be thinking about something else.”

The Heroes to Hives program, which offers workshops across the state and an annual course March to November, is run through Michigan State University (MSU) Extension. It’s geared toward empowering veterans with therapeutic beekeeping skills, and helping to protect and cultivate the pollinating insects that face decline across the world.

Through a partnership with Ford, the program expanded in the spring into southeast Michigan, where about 640,000 veterans live, a Ford spokeswoman wrote in an email. About 5 acres were donated for hives at the farm.

Ingrao founded Heroes to Hives in 2015 and ran sessions for its first group of students — five veterans whose service ranged from Vietnam through post-9/11 — in 2016, using the farm he and his wife, Lacey Ingrao, own on the east side of Lansing, Mich.

Ingrao, who co-owns Bee Wise Farms with Lacey, came to Michigan State as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Entomology after a beekeeping class sparked his interest during undergraduate studies at California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo.

In addition to serving as the Heroes to Hives instructor, he’s the veterans liaison for MSU Extension. At the crux of it all, Ingrao said beekeeping helped

him find a purpose after transitioning project, Ingrao was invited to speak out of the military in 2004 following a to Ford employees about Heroes to medical injury.Ê Hives and mentioned to Wright the “When I first got out, I really large number of veterans in southeast struggled to find a mission,” he said.

Michigan. Ingrao’s program did not yet “(The beekeeping course) was really have a physical presence in the area. the first time I felt like there was a new “It just struck me,” Wright said. mission I could get behind, and it was “The right thing to do was to be able to protecting the most important manprovide a location for them.” aged pollinator on the planet.”

Wright said 5 acres of the Cherry Hill Thereafter, Ingrao said it was Farm was donated for Ingrao’s program Lacey who suggested his journey to install hives, and there are also plans with beekeeping could be used to to start placing pollinator-friendly inspire and help other plants in the space over veterans. “My wife the next few years via had mentioned during a partnership with the conversations just how Bee & Butterfly Habitat HONEYBEES beekeeping has totally Fund. revitalized my life and Ingrao said that PROVIDE given me a purpose, he’s stunned that his and she really felt like program has grown so maybe other veterans dramatically, from five could take something students on his farm in like that from it. So, we 2016 to 208 veterans, 72 started the program.” dependents and more OF AGRICULTURAL than 400 Ford employAUTOMAKER CROPS IN THE U.S. ees in 2019.

ASSISTANCE Additionally, with WITH POLLINATION Cherry The program moved Hill Farm now to MSU Extension in serving as the program’s SOURCE: Heroes To Hives 2017, and its reach has flagship location, Ingrao expanded with support said Heroes to Hives has from corporations, seven locations for their such as Ford, which provided its participants to get hands-on experience first location in southeast Michigan: with honeybees — including Michigan Henry Ford’s old farmÊin Ypsilanti. It’s sites in Hickory Corners, Saginaw, an offshoot of Ford’s companywide Traverse City, Escanaba and Newberry. beekeeping program, which came “Not in my wildest dreams would I about from a proposal pitched by have ever imagined that we would be Cormac Wright, an IT project manager at this point,” he said. “It was just a guy, at the company, about two years ago. just a beekeeper, trying to share his joy “The proposal I made was to put in of bees and veterans and boy, it’s just honeybee hives at our Ford locations taken off like wildfire.” globally as a way of educating our employees, and by extension, their NEW MISSION It’s the notion of community and a families and the community. Just because the plight of the honeybee is shared mission that makes Heroes to so devastating, and it’s so critical to Hives so resonant, Ingrao said, adding our food chain,” Wright said. “About a that for veterans, it’s “an opportunity to third of the food chain is dependent on continue to serve.” the pollination from bees.”

“We are in a crisis stage when it Thus, plans were made to install comes to honeybees, like we have honeybee hives at Ford headquarters been falling off a cliff since the 1950s as far as a pollination population,” he across the world, and hive shells were placed at Ford headquarters in said. “These veterans, these are the Dearborn, Mich., in 2018.

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HEALTH & HEALING individuals who are used to facing it to be a hobby. … Also, at the same those big challenges, like security time, down the road, I can help other challenges and making sure that the veterans. That’s the coolest thing impossible becomes possible when about being with most veterans, is it comes to missions, and that’s kind that we help each other out.” of the situation we’re in right now.”

Over the years, Ingrao said he’s The MSU Extension website watched several veterans go from reports that honeybees provide polstudents to beekeeping instructors lination for 35 percent of agricultural and entrepreneurs. “Beehives are crops, a service worth almost $20 an investment, but it’s oftentimes a billion in the U.S. each year. gateway to break into the agricultural In the last decade, beekeepers industry at kind of a low end, and have reported losses at unprecthe return can be pretty big if you edented rates, down 30 percent start getting your bees to survive,” to 40 percent of their colonies Ingrao said. “(You can) do pretty well each year. Beekeepers face more making honey and selling bees.” challenges than ever before, with Nicholas Kaminski, who came pests, pathogens, to Heroes to Hives poor nutrition during its second and pesticides cohort and is now making beekeeping an instructor and more difficult, a member of the “When I first got out, and expensive, program’s board of I really struggled to according to MSU advisers, said he Extension. took up beekeeping find a mission. (The In addition after serving in the to supporting Marine Corps for beekeeping course) honeybee colonies, nearly 12 years. was really the first Ingrao said he’s noToday, he owns ticed how Heroes Hickory Tree Farm time I felt like there to HivesÊhas helped Apiaries in Kent retired veterans City, Mich. was a new mission I struggling with “I wanted to be could get behind.” the transition to a farmer. I wasn’t civilian life. sure what kind of — ADAM INGRAO, “Oftentimes Heroes to Hives founder livestock or crop when you come I wanted, and back home, we somehow I stumbled don’t connect with people the same upon bees,” he said. “To care for a way we used to, so we often feel hive is a very important task, and alone,” he said. “Now, we’ve got it’s a difficult task, and service this new mission to protect this members exiting the armed forces, pollinator and we’re all trying our what they’re looking for is that damnÊhardest to do it, and there’s sense of purpose and belonging and something to be said about that. A being. And being veterans together, community of like-minded individutaking care of an important task, like als with a common mission, that’s preserving our nation’s pollinators, exactly the format that we’re all that’s something they can all work used to, so it really resonates toward together, just like they did with us.” when they were in service.”

David Rife of Traverse City said Ingrao said his long-term goal is to he served in the Air Force for eight have a Heroes to Hives chapter with years before retiring in 1991, but 2,000 beekeepers in each state. has struggled with post-traumatic “If we can get 2,000 veterans or stress disorder (PTSD) in the years dependents trained in every single following his service. state to manage 20 beehives, we “I’m a disabled vet, and I want to have the opportunity to increase plan for my future. I want to have an our population of bee colonies by income later on. I don’t work, and a million in this country, and that plusÊ— honestly, I really am thinking would be the largest single increase it’s going to be helpful with PTSD,” that we’ve ever seen since pre-World Rife said, adding that he hoped War II — that’s my really lofty goal.” the program would change the Aleanna Siacon writes for The Detroit trajectory of his future. “I want to Free Press turn it into a business. I don’t want

GETTY IMAGES; FORD MOTOR CO.

Hives are split at Ford headquarters in Dearborn. Mich., in preparation for transfer to Ford’s Cherry Hill Farm in Ypsilanti.

ALEANNA SIACON/DETROIT FREE PRESS

Adam Ingrao installs a new hive May 18 at Ford’s Cherry Hill Farm in Ypsilanti, Mich.

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On a flight to his assignment in Fort Richardson, Alaska, he met the woman who would become his wife. They spent much of the eight-hour flight between Atlanta and Anchorage laughing, Jenn Donoho recalled. They married nine months later in March 2006.

“We had so much fun in our early relationship and marriage, and whenever things were tough, he always had the right amount of humor to lighten those moments,” she said.

They had less than a year together before Donoho was deployed in October.

Jenn was 28 weeks pregnant with their first child, a son they would name David.

“We said goodbye at base,” Jenn said, “and that night, I dreamed that David died.” A Red Cross notification upon landing in Kuwait had Donoho back on a flight to Alaska. There was trouble with the pregnancy. He arrived just in time for his son’s stillbirth. David was buried at Fort Richardson National Cemetery before Donoho redeployed to catch up with his platoon in Iraq.

“That was horrible for everybody,” Jenn said.

From Despair to Hope KELLY WILKINSON/THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR

Veteran survives personal, professional challenges and finds healing in helping others

By Holly V. Hays

T

HE GLOCK WAS LOADED with a round in the chamber.

U.S. Army veteran Eric Donoho sat in the kitchen of his Carmel, Ind., home, trying to decide where he was going to die. Not here, he thought. My family’s gonna have

to live in the house I just killed myself in.

Donoho had been to war. Survived three bomb blasts. Lost children and friends. Was on the verge of losing his marriage. Would the yard be better?

Should I get in the car?

The minutes ticked by as he deliberated. Something made him check the clock: 2:15 p.m. Time to pick up the kids

from school. He walked away from the fateful decision that day but remained committed to following through with it.

BLISS AND HEARTBREAK A native of South Bend, Ind., Donoho enlisted in 2004, when he was 26. He trained at Fort Benning, Ga., completing infantry, airborne and shoulder-fired

‘WAITING TO WAKE UP AND DIE’ His first night back in Iraq, Donoho was rattled by an explosion. While driving with several others in a Humvee, the vehicle rolled over an improvised explosive device. “There was so much I was learning. It was my first mission out, and then all of a sudden, boom, like that.

And that was it,” he said. “Luckily for me, whoever buried it or dug the hole dug real deep, and they covered it up. So the earth took a lot of that shock.”

He realized quickly that death was no longer hypothetical. He wrote letters to his parents and to Jenn, just in case. He and a fellow soldier began a morbid daily exchange: Are you ready? Because today’s the day we’re gonna die.

“That was just the way that life was. It became a joke,” Donoho said. “Because, literally, you never knew when your last minute might be.”

The second explosion occurred three months later, on Valentine’s Day 2007, along a road outside Fallujah called Route Chicago. Donoho was again in the driver’s seat. The force of the blast from the roadside bomb bowed the Humvee’s armor under his feet. “I truthfully don’t remember much of that,” he said. “The door had gotten blown open. So what I’ve been told by my friend who was in the back is that I was hunched over the steerCONTI NUED

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IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW IS STRUGGLING WITH SUICIDAL THOUGHTS: uCall the SUICIDE PREVENTION HOTLINE at 800-273-8255.

ing wheel and for a brief few seconds he thought I was dead. And then I popped to, grabbed the door and hit the gas.”

Donoho had enlisted because he thought American soldiers could make a difference. He wanted to help the Iraqi people, not hurt them. But his expectations were far from the reality of war.

“I naively thought that if we could go over there and show the younger generation that we’re not evil, that we’re not people that want to try to control them or tell them what they can or cannot do, that maybe the future in the Middle East would be better than what it is,” he said.

The third explosion occurred about eight months later. An explosively formed penetrator, a device that launches an armor-piercing projectile, sent his vehicle momentarily airborne. The Humvee’s gunner might have been killed if he had not leaned into the vehicle to tease their lieutenant.

Donoho started vomiting after that one. Had debilitating migraines.

Struggled to put sentences together. He was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress and a mild traumatic brain injury.

He spent a year and a half completing cognitive and speech therapy before the Army gave him an ultimatum: retire or take a new assignment.

He left the Army in February 2009, unknowingly leaving the chaos of the battlefield for troubles at home in Alaska.

Jenn sustained a severe Achilles injury.

Then she lost another pregnancy. A cancer diagnosis for her followed. Then surgeries. Tackling those obstacles gave Donoho a new mission.

“During those things and those times, I was a rock,” he said. “But when all the crises would end, I realized in my own life, like, I just didn’t care,” he said. “Like, I was still waiting to wake up and die.”

Army veteran Eric Donoho is opening up about his struggles with PTSD and mental health and developing a program to help other veterans find healing.

PUSHED TO THE EDGE Donoho was different when he came home, Jenn said. It wasn’t unexpected.

He was hyper vigilant, constantly on the lookout for potential danger. He kept the house impeccably neat, exerting PROVIDED BY ERIC DONOHO

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PROVIDED BY ERIC DONOHO

Donoho ran the Disney Marathon Weekend 5K to represent the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

what control he had over his domain by maintaining a perfect lawn and lining up canned goods in the pantry. He was irritable, picking arguments in situations when other people would just walk away.

Life went on that way. Jenn had more miscarriages, but in 2011 she gave birth to a healthy girl, Kayleigh; a son, Byron, followed a few years later. The family moved to Carmel in 2015 to be closer to Donoho’s family and Jenn’s job. But the

move only exacerbated their troubles.

Eventually, the two were yelling at each other more than they were talking.

“The love that we had, that was always there,” Jenn said, “but the ways that we communicated and the ways that we dealt with things were totally different.”

She wanted a divorce. A clause in Indiana law required the couple to be residents for six months before she could petition.

In hindsight, Donoho said, a divorce the nonveteran population, according to made sense. “I had hit rock bottom, and I the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. knew that something needed to change.”

Up to 20 percent of post-9/11 veterans But instead of seeing that six-month will experience post-traumatic stress period as an opportunity to try to save disorder. his marriage, Donoho viewed the delay as In an effort to reverse the trend, just another setback. Maybe, he thought, President Donald Trump on March 5 he needed to remove himself. So, on Dec. signed an executive order creating a 13, 2015, he sat at his kitchen table and Cabinet-level task force to coordinate put the Glock in his mouth. efforts across governmental agencies to “I can still smell and address the issue more taste it,” he said, “the effectively. The order was By helping others, prompted by a Governmetal and the smell of gunpowder.” ment Accountability Eric Donoho is But the kids needed to Office report that showed be picked up from school.

VA suicide-prevention helping himself.

And the bills needed to outreach decreased after He may still have be paid. And the family Trump took office, spenddidn’t deserve to live in a ing only thousands of bad days, but house that had seen such dollars out of its $6 million tragedy. If he was going that is part of the advertising budget. to take his own life, he For Donoho, it was process. Instead of important thought, he needed to do that he do the it the right way. So he put work to change his own letting life’s chaldown the gun and picked mindset. He returned to lenges knock him up his kids. Two days the things he loved before later, while he was still war: photography and the down, he fights contemplating how best outdoors. During a veterto kill himself, Donoho ans retreat and expedition back. It’s what received a phone call. to New Mexico, he took a saved his relation- photo he now calls “The One of his former platoon sergeants, a close friend, Canyon of Hope” along the ships. It’s what had killed himself.

Gila Fork River.

Donoho was in disbe“On my first expedition saved him. He lief. The two had known that I went with, we wants to empower walked along this river for each other for years. The sergeant was at their seven days, basically, and veterans to take wedding — his gift a set at the end of the canyon of towels the couple still that same journey. was always light, but I was used. Over time the two in darkness,” he said. “And had drifted apart. But that it wasn’t lost on me that’s didn’t mean his death hurt any less. A the metaphor that I was living my life in realization struck Donoho as hard as the this dark place, and I was being reminded news of his friend’s death. while I was out there that there’s always “The irony that I was in that same light at the end of the tunnel.” situation and that I was upset with him That transformation takes time: when I was about to do that to my family Conscious, everyday efforts to be more and my friends two days earlier wasn’t involved with his wife and kids and less lost on me,” he said. “From that point on, argumentative, to be more considerate of I decided that I needed to start moving others’ feelings, to stay in the light rather forward.” than dwell in the darkness.

“It’s re-evaluating,” he said. “It’s ‘THERE’S ALWAYS LIGHT AT THE learning to be able to take five minutes at END OF THE TUNNEL’ the end of each day and look at your day Wartime wounds are not always and say, ‘Where can I improve? Where obvious. can I do this?’” His efforts have made all “I spent many years feeling like my the difference. He saved his marriage. He injuries didn’t matter because I still had saved his life. all my fingers and toes and legs and sight “The steps that he has taken and the and … for the most part, my hearing,” things that he’s chosen to do in this Donoho said. “So to the rest of the world, journey towards wellness, it makes me I’m visibly OK. But in my head, I wasn’t.” fall a little bit more in love with him,” Jenn The suicide rate among veterans said. “It’s more of the man that I married.” in 2017, the latest data available, was CONTI NUED one-and-a-half times higher than that of

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KELLY WILKINSON/THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR

Eric Donoho poses in front of a photo he took of New Mexico’s Gila Fork River, which he calls The Canyon of Hope.

PAYING IT FORWARD His is not an easy story to share, but Donoho realizes that in doing so, he is empowering others to open up. He is showing others that they are not alone.

“It’s also amazing to watch them on their journey and see them start to open up and to see the kind of life that starts happening for them once they’ve decided that, you know, ‘I’m not gonna let this keep me down anymore,’” he said.

In spring 2018, he took part in the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) Storm the Hill leadership program.

He spent a week on Capitol Hill, sitting in meetings with elected officials and advocating for better benefits, treatment and mental health awareness on behalf

of his peers. “(Donoho) is incredibly resilient, generous and really embodies that leadership role and the mission of making the world a better place for the post-9/11 generation,” said Stephanie Mullen, IAVA research director.

In January, he represented IAVA at the Disney Marathon Weekend 5K. He plans to return next year and compete in all four of the weekend’s races. He wants to show his kids, now ages 7 and 4, what it means to work toward a goal and complete it.

Donoho is using the experience he gained with IAVA and other veteran service organizations to develop a program of his own with Montana-based nonprofit

Reach Out and Care (ROC) Wheels, which develops and delivers wheelchairs to children in developing countries.

ROC Warriors is a six-month program for veterans that combines team-building activities, accountability, goal-setting and humanitarian aid. It culminates in a trip to Nepal to assemble and deliver wheelchairs. The organization is piloting the program now with the hope of delivering 50 wheelchairs to the Center for Disabled Children Assistance in Kathmandu, Nepal, in June 2020. The program requires a significant investment with the end goal of making lasting life changes.

“We’re always quick to hand out money to veterans groups and this sort of thing,

but that’s a hand out,” Donoho said. “And what we don’t do enough of is a hand up.”

By helping others, Donoho is helping himself. He may still have bad days, but that is part of the process. Instead of letting life’s challenges knock him down, he is fighting back. It’s what saved his relationship with his wife and kids. It’s what saved him. He wants to empower more veterans to take that same journey.

“It’s easy to get stuck on the darkness,” he said. “It’s a lot harder to focus on that light. And when you are able to focus on that light, that’s when you’re able to start moving forward.”

Holly V. Hays writes for The Indianapolis Star.

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Gerofit for Life VA exercise program helps seniors reduce medications while increasing mobility, healthy living

PROVIDED BY DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Veterans from the Durham VA Health Care System in North Carolina participate in a Gerofit balance training class.

By Rina Rapuano

W

HEN ASKED WHY HE

decided to sign up for Gerofit — a senior exercise initiative run by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs — Sandy Carlin joked: “The VA made me.” But even though the 73-year-old Army veteran who served combat duty in Vietnam professes to “hate the gym,” he’s been exercising three times a week with his local program in Durham, N.C., for the past five years. He credits the initiative with his ability to stop taking cholesterol and blood pressure medications, as well as inspiring him to eat better and ultimately

lose about 50 pounds — and he credits his fellow veterans with keeping him motivated.

“I would never go if the VA didn’t have this program with other vets,” the former U.S. Military Academy accountant said, adding that it’s a tight-knit community that talks about everything — but also sometimes just listens. “The social is just as important as the physical.”

Joan Mathis-Njie, a 74-year-old retired Army broadcaster who also hails from Durham, has attended Gerofit off and on for about 20 years and agrees that the camaraderie is an essential part of the experience.

“That’s probably the high point,” she said, adding that there are social gather-

ings a few times a year, and the group sends cards to members who aren’t well.

“It’s meaningful to know that people care. If people aren’t there, they miss you.

They follow up and let you know that they’re thinking of you and appreciate you and things like that.”

Mathis-Njie said she joined the program to get more fit and has successfully maintained her weight and good health, but she’s seen firsthand how the program has worked miracles for those who came in with health issues or impaired mobility.

“It’s amazing to see how they bounce back with the exercise and recover very CONTINUED

TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR GEROFIT: uYou must be a veteran enrolled with the Veterans Health Administration. uYour overall health should be stable and sufficient for you to participate without needing continuous assistance. uTalk to your primary care provider before starting.

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AT HOME WORKOUT For those who can’t make it to a Gerofit class or don’t live near one of the facilities, the program offers a 30-minute online exercise video. It can be done standing or seated, and there are plans to add videos demonstrating seated yoga, exercise band workouts and routines for those with mobility issues. Find it at va.gov/ geriatrics/ pages/ gerofit_home. asp.

well,” she said. “They might have walkers — and the next thing you know, they’re not using the walker. There’s one woman who has been there since the beginning, and she’s 102.”

Durham is where Gerofit made its debut in 1986, when Dr. Miriam Morey, the associate director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at Durham VA Health Care System, was hired to develop the groundbreaking program for the VA medical center there. Gerofit now operates in VA medical facilities in 15 cities nationwide, and Morey has conducted numerous studies to back up what everyone in the program already knows: It really works.

For instance, among one group of Durham participants who attended the program for at least a year, the veterans experienced “a 47 percent reduction in opioid medications, a 36 percent reduction in mental health medications, a 32 percent reduction in cardiovascular medications, a 22 percent reduction in diabetes medications and a 22 percent reduction in lipid-lowering medications,” Morey noted.

charts, which helps them tweak exercise programs based on how participants are doing.

Vietnam War Air Force veteran Roland Bunton, 74, signed up for the Los Angeles program a little more than a year ago to get strong before a hernia operation and to help him recover after. He said the synergy between Gerofit staff and the VA doctors is a huge benefit. He recalled a time when he was told by one doctor to stop taking a medication that he was fairly certain he still needed. He talked to his Gerofit physician, who pulled up his chart right away and ultimately cleared up the confusion.

“It helps as a backup,” added Bunton, who worked his way up the Northrop Grumman corporate ladder after retiring from the military. “I didn’t expect him to do all that, but he did. They seem to care.”

He noted that they administer a heart rate test each week, adjust the training based on their evaluations and also regularly check in on the emotional well-being of patients. The program has helped reduce his high blood pressure and stabilize his heart rate, according to Bunton who quickly noticed a difference in everyday activities, such as having less trouble walking up hills.

“Everything started to really improve,” said Bunton. “It feels like they’re always part of the solution rather than part of PROVIDED BY DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS the problem.”

Anecdotes and statistics both suggest that the camaraderie veterans experiShe added that Gerofit works particuence is a key to their participation, their larly well for veterans who use assistive wellness and, ultimately, their happiness. devices and points out that exercise “That is what I call the magic,” said does much more for seniors than what Morey. “When you walk into the gym, it is can be seen with the naked palpable, and we did start eye. With the exception of surveying that scientifical“I would never degenerative conditions, ly. They all have a common Morey says it provides so as soon as they go if the VA didn’t bond, health benefits pretty much walk in they are welcome, across the board. have this program accepted and acceptable.

“Most people tend to They can talk about things with other vets. think of exercise in terms that they cannot tell other of weight management, people, so they have these The social is just but it’s also beneficial for opportunities to share bone health, tissue health, things, and it really does as important as brain health — it just helps help their well-being and everything,” she said, adding the physical.” psychological state.” that they’ve noted improveBesides, she points out — SANDY CARLIN, ment in mental health that enrolling seniors in Army veteran and among patients, as well.

Gerofit attendee a wellness program as “It’s easy and free with no opposed to a sick program side effects. It’s just the best is a great model. “That’s medication out there.” why the office of geriatrics keeps funding Gerofit staff also organizes monthly us, because they say it’s a good model to health lectures to address such topics keep people out of institutions.” as nutrition, medication management, Army vet Carlin agreed: “It is, to me, a pain and sleep apnea. Staff geriatricians great program — maybe the best program have access to patients’ VA health the VA runs.”

GEROFIT LOCATIONS & CONTACTS: ANN ARBOR, MICH. uelderk@ med.umich.edu BALTIMORE uJamie.Giffuni @va.gov BOSTON uRebekah.Harris @va.gov CANANDAIGUA AND ROCHESTER, N.Y. uTeresa.Kopp@ va.gov CINCINNATI uCourtney.

Kindler2@va.gov DENVER uLauren.Abbate @va.gov DURHAM, N.C. uKenneth.

Maning@va.gov LOS ANGELES uCathy.Lee2 @va.gov HONOLULU uMichelle.

McDonald@va.gov LITTLE ROCK, ARK. uKalpana.

Padala@va.gov MIAMI uWilly.ValenciaRodrigo@va.gov MURFREESBORO, TENN. uStephen.

Graham@va.gov PITTSBURGH uRebecca.

Smith14@va.gov PUGET SOUND, WASH. uArti.Tayade @va.gov SALEM, VA. uKrisAnn.Oursler @va.gov

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Moving Mountains Nonprofit encourages veterans to work together outdoors

By Joe Purtell

O

N SEPT. 11, 2010, Nick Watson led a group through the soft predawn darkness of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

He’d been guiding for 20 years, but this group was different. Everyone working

to reach the summit of Longs Peak that day was a veteran.

Watson, who served in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, was used to clients stepping over each other to reach the summit and getting back to camp as quickly as possible. After the veterans CONTI NUED

Nick Watson leads a 2018 climb up Mount Logan in Canada.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY NICK WATSON

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From left, Rich Salas, Austin Riker and Nick Watson atop Crestone Peak in Colorado

Just being outdoors has its own benefits. When people spend time in nature, they often have a physical reaction.

Heart rates calm and bring stress down with them. Nature doesn’t require active attention most of the time, which allows the mind to wander.

summited Longs, the faster hikers rushed back down to camp. But instead of staying, they grabbed food and water and hiked it back uphill to the slower members of the team, finishing the day together.

“Right away I saw the power of what we were doing. I saw people talking with one another about their experiences. I saw information changing hands. ‘This is what I do for my mental health or this is what I do for my injuries,’ ” Watson recalled.

Veterans Expeditions, the Salida, Colo.-based nonprofit Watson started nine years ago with that trip up Longs Peak, has expanded, running 50 trips per year for about 700 veterans in 13 states. The mission, however, remains the same. Through donations and brand

partnerships, Veterans Expeditions organizes trips for all skill levels in outdoor adventures, including mountain biking, hot air balloon flights and more.

Watson hopes to help other veterans find passion and community in civilian life like he did. He thinks providing veterans the opportunity to connect and spend time outdoors together may create a safe space for them to work through mental health struggles and the sometimes difficult transition into civilian life. A growing body of research supports him.

“Our basic things we’re talking about are community, the outdoors and health,” Watson said. “The community being the biggest piece.”

Watson had dabbled in outdoor sports as a kid, racing mountain bikes and rock climbing in his teens. When he got out of

the Army in 1995, however, the outdoors took on a new significance.

“I got off active duty, and I was a little bit lost. I was dealing with some injuries.

I needed to get back on my feet, and the outdoors was my (outlet for) doing that,” Watson said. “It was the space I needed to recover from all that experience on active duty and all that I had done, and I needed to go past that and find some passion in my civilian life.”

He met friends through the outdoors and always had something to look forward to on his calendar. Watson noted that sometimes veterans “get stuck,” and climbing mountains is a great way to get them moving again. At Veterans Expeditions, people are part of a team CONTI NUED

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HEALTH & HEALING

From left, Amy Crew, Shanna Bordner, Harmony McCoy, Candice Creecy and Stephanie Espinoza pose at the 14,000-foot camp in Denali, Alaska, in June.

Rich Salas, left, and Austin Riker make their way up Crestone Peak Colorado on the Crestone Traverse climb in August.

and have goals they can work together to achieve. He hopes the community can help guide people in their transition back into the civilian world, no matter how long it takes.

Amy Crew was 31 when she started getting into outdoor sports, after leaving the Air Force in 2010 where she served for four years as a maintenance technician. She started taking classes with Veterans Expeditions right away.

“You missed the brotherhood and sisterhood of being in the military. It’s just a bond through hard work and difficult circumstances that you can’t get any other way,” Crew said. “It’s

really nice to be able to speak a similar language regardless of what your military experience was. It just gives you kind of a similar perspective in some senses.”

Jason Duvall is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, and he’s studied the benefits of outdoor recreation for veterans. He said community is a common theme in programs getting veterans outdoors. Being able to help each other out, and having a comfortable space to bring up issues someone may be facing without having to explain can help people work through problems.

Duvall noted that just being outdoors has its own benefits. When people spend

time in nature, they often have a physical more frequently experiencing issues that reaction. Heart rates calm and bring interfered with their daily life showed stress down with them. Nature doesn’t significant improvements in their wellrequire active attention most of the being from before to after the outdoor time, which allows the mind to wander recreation program.” to things you might not normally have Overcoming challenges in the outdoors time to think about. Duvall said spending makes Crew feel strong enough to deal time outdoors allows for conscious and with other difficulties in her life. She’s subconscious reflection and processing, experienced trauma unrelated to her which translates to a military service, and healthier mental state. learning to climb For one study, Duvall mountains has helped To learn more about worked with veterans her work through Veterans Expeditions, attending four different its repercussions. In visit vetexpeditions.com. outdoor programs June, only two years similar to Veterans after she first climbed Expeditions. “A lot of a Colorado mountain the people that went on the programs that with Veterans Expeditions, she attempted we ended up sampling from had some to climb North America’s highest peak — pretty significant mental health issues.

Denali — with a group of women from the A large portion of them were suffering program. from PTSD, traumatic brain injury, severe They turned around at 20,000 feet, clinical depression and anxiety issues,” shut out from the summit by storms and Duvall said. “What we found is the group high winds. Descending to base camp, that had the biggest improvement in together with other women veterans, some of these measures of well-being was Crew remembers the surprised faces that group that had the most frequently of men they passed. On the last day, experienced mental health issues.” they spent 13 consecutive hours hiking He went on to explain that these through blizzards and thunderstorms. findings were surprising given the serious “It does flip a switch in your brain and prolonged issues facing this group and makes you feel strong like nothing else the relatively nonclinical aspect of the really can,” Crew said. “I think it’s crucial program. “This subgroup who reported for me to be reminded of my strengths.”

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