VAnguard Fall/Winter 2015

VANGUARD Fall/Winter 2015

INSIDE • VSO Spotlight:

A look at Team RWB

• Honor Flight: First all-female flight

• Summer of Service:

NASCAR partners with VA

VA Nurse Applies ACLS Training in Life or Death Event at State Fair

By Gary J. Kunich Melinda Thompson went to the State Fair as an extra birthday present for her 3-year-old daughter’s birthday, but rainstorms almost made her turn around and go home more than once.

“But we already spent about $70 for the family (to get in and for ride tickets), and they wouldn’t refund my money,” she said.

Thompson, a Milwaukee VA Medical Center nurse, jumped into action Aug. 10 when a man at the fair collapsed with a massive heart attack. Although he had no pulse, she and another nurse saved his life and he was rushed by ambulance to nearby Froedtert Medical Center, where officials said Thompson’s quick work saved his life. The man was treated and released.

Thompson has worked at Milwaukee VA since 2008. She went to the fair with her daughter’s: Meliyah, 8; Lailah, 3; and Lailah’s father, Will. Each time it poured, they ran into different buildings, leading them closer to the scene where a crowd of people were gathering. They came back outside as the rain stopped and Will pointed to the commotion.

“He saw it first and said, ‘You need to go over and help those people.’ At first, I said, ‘I don’t need to go over there,’ just to argue with him. Then I took a second to see what was going on.”

She found several people standing around a man in his late 60s who was having trouble breathing.

Melinda Thompson “He was sweating and beading and had a really bad color.

He was gasping for breath and started foaming at the mouth, and then everything just transformed in a couple of seconds and I don’t know what happened,” she said.

What happened, according to onlookers, is Thompson took control. She yelled at one person to call 911, then got a security guard and police officer to join her in CPR, switching out every two minutes to keep a steady rhythm.

“If we didn’t get him down on the ground, I knew it wouldn’t end well. I start asking questions about what he ate or if he had allergies, and when I saw he didn’t have a pulse, started doing compressions as hard as I could,” she said.

Christi Engelberg, a rapid response flight nurse visiting from Las Vegas, Nevada, also ran over to help. Engelberg, who has asthma,

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had two epinephrine pens for herself in case of an emergency.

That’s the first line of medication for a heart attack.

“I carry those with me all the time, and I saw this guy was in a lot of trouble,” said Engelberg. “He looked bad – no color, no pulse.

There wasn’t time so I gave them to him one after another right through his jeans. That got his pulse back, but we lost him again, then got him back.”

She kept barking orders and keeping time, using skills from Advanced Cardiac Life Support training at the VA. “Melinda really took charge,” Engelberg said. “She did everything perfectly. It was almost like someone was videotaping this for teaching purposes. She was that perfect. I want to recruit her to come to Vegas and join my rapid response team.”

VANGUARD

VA’s Employee Magazine Fall/Winter 2015

Inside

Editor: Gary Hicks

Features

Staff Writers: Jennifer Sardam

4 VSO Spotlight

Photo Editor: Robert Turtil

5 Social Media Roundup

Intern writer: Andre Parker

8 Alabama Homeless Vet Home at Last 12 Rising Stars in VA Research

Published by the Office of Public Affairs (80D)

16 Navy Vet Overcomes Adversity to win Gold

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 810 Vermont Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20420

28 VA Partners with NASCAR for Outreach

www.va.gov/opa/publications/vanguard.asp

COVER PHOTO: By Crystal Ettridge On June 8, 2009, Marion Gray assisted in the flag lowering ceremony at Normandy American Cemetery, the close of the 65th anniversary of D-Day weekend.

24 From Victim to Survivor: Overcoming MST 37 The Secretary's I CARE Award 39 Remembering Marion Gray

VSO Spotlight Team Red, White, and Blue (Team RWB) is changing the way America engages with Veterans and strengthening communities across our Nation.

Through community and leadership we are enriching the lives of America’s Veterans.

Our mission is to enrich the lives of America’s Veterans by connecting them to their communities through physical and social activities. We believe a rich life consists of: P Health – physical, mental, emotional P People – quality relationships, support, connection to community P Purpose – leadership, service, identity, accountability We meet Veterans where they are at—the community level—and enable genuine community interactions that grow sustaining, positive relationships through physical and social activities.

We truly break down the civilianmilitary divide by including civilian members in our team and enlisting them in perhaps the greatest mission our nation can undertake today: successfully reintegrating our Veterans back into their home communities.

At Team RWB, we also offer the unique opportunity for Veterans to continue to lead. We know that Veterans are assets to our country, who seek further opportunities to serve their community; they are ready for new challenges.

There are several opportunities for Veterans to lead within their

Veterans who serve Veterans

communities as our chapters consist of multiple leadership positions. Our volunteer leaders receive leadership training as part of our Eagle Leadership Development Program (ELDP) along with consistent coaching and mentoring by the Regional Directors, Director of Operations, and Executive Director.

The Team RWB model is resonating with Veterans and members of

their communities. " We currently have over 82,000 members and facilitate over 3,000 Quality Veteran Interactions per week, in which a veteran actually directly engages with other Veterans and community members in his or her city " We have an average of 110 new members joining our team everyday " Team RWB is currently organized in over 150 communities across America, growing at an average of three new communities per month

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" Over 700 volunteer Eagle leaders invested 135,000 hours of service in their communities in 2014 and will invest more in 2015 We also empower Veterans to address acute needs and strengthen our community of Veteran Serving Non Profits (VSNPs). Team RWB is inclusive by design, we engage Veterans multiple times a week and provide a safe environment to “self identify” challenges they encounter in the reintegration process.

Upon identification, we leverage partnerships with other VSNPs and benevolent care organizations to support the successful reintegration of our members. Our primary means of collaboration with other VSNPs is providing a reliable, bidirectional Veteran referral source.

We refer Veterans to acute service providers and return value by offering our partners a local and consistent support structure for their members.

Some of our collaborators include Team Rubicon, Hire Our Heroes USA, Give An Hour, The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and The Mission Continues (amongst many others).

Ultimately, Veterans are stronger when they are involved in their communities … and communities are stronger for having Veterans involved.

Team RWB provides this opportunity, on a consistent basis, in cities all over the country.

If you’re a Veteran, service member, family member, or simply a citizen that would like to get involved, please join us at www.TeamRWB.org.

ON THE LINE

VA's Social Media Roundup

VETERAN OF THE DAY:

Every day we honor a Veteran through VA's official Facebook and Twitter accounts. Below are two of the most popular Veteran of the Day submissions from Facebook this Fall. Join us at fb.com/VeteransAffairs

On Twitter Follow us @DeptVetAffairs

#VeteranOfTheDay: Leigh Ann Hester of the U.S. Army. In 2005, Sgt. Hester led a counterattack against insurgents who had ambushed her convoy while serving in Iraq. She became the first of two woman to earn a Silver Star since WWII.

#VeteranOfTheDay: Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of 18. He trained in Norfolk, Va., and was assigned to the USS Bayfield, which had orders to support the Utah Beach landings during the invasion at Normandy. Yogi, a gunner’s mate, was detached to a landing craft rocket boat, which provided fire support during the beach landings. Later in the war, Yogi served in North Africa and Italy before being sent stateside to a Connecticut Submarine Base. There he played on a Navy baseball team whose coach designated Yogi as a catcher and provided him an incredible opportunity, to play exhibition games against big-league teams such as the Senators, Browns and Giants. Soon after leaving the service, Yogi was called up to the big leagues.

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 5

BACK WHERE HE BELONGS

By Ozzie Garza It’s been an incredible and unpredictable journey for Fernando Oscar Rivera, 54, the new director and chief executive officer of the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System.

His journey has had peaks and valleys, triumphs and tribulations, exultations and heartbreaks. Now that journey has brought Rivera back to his adopted hometown of New Orleans where he will oversee the new $1 billion VA medical center currently under construction on Canal Street.

For Rivera, his life journey began in 1960, in Havana, Cuba, where he was born. The son of a Cuban military officer and a government public relations professional, Rivera vividly recalls his early childhood days that included long walks along the Malecon in Old Havana with his grandfather, Domingo Bello, a captain in the Cuban Navy, and visiting with family members in the countryside.

His childhood days, however, were scarred by the assassination of his father Fernando Rivera, Sr. by the communist regime when Fernando, Jr. was one-year-old and the imprisonment of his mother, Ester, during the communist revolution.

At the age of eight, the young Fernando and his mother were able to leave the communist island to come to the United States to seek better lives.

It was difficult for him leaving family and friends behind and adjusting to a new country, a new culture and having to learn a new language.

To make the transition easier for her young son, Fernando’s mom decided to move to the Crescent City because of the similarities between Havana and New Orleans. Both are port cities that share rich Spanish history and both cities are part of the cultural system that exists on the edges of the

Fernando Rivera(left) tours new construction. The former VA engineer now serves as z director and CEO.

Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

In addition, New Orleans offered the young lad the warm climate he was used to as well as waterfronts where he could once again take long walks. He also found the French Quarter similar to Old Havana.

With the help of family, friends and the Catholic Church he quickly adjusted to his new environment. He not only learned a new language but also learned how to meet challenges head on and to persevere. The lesson of perseverance and hard work came from his mother who worked three jobs to ensure her son got a college education and give him the best opportunity to achieve “The American Dream.”

He enrolled at the University of New Orleans where he earned an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and his master’s in business administration in finance.

Wanting to remain in the Crescent City, he began his Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) career in 1984 as a project engineer at the VA Medical Center in New Orleans. In 1993 he was named VA Engineer of the Year and for two consecutive years he was named VA’s Communicator of the Year.

While at the New Orleans facility, he held numerous leadership positions – each with increasing responsibilities – and ultimately became the facility’s associate director and chief operating officer.

While sitting at his desk one fall morning in 2004, Rivera quietly re-

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flected on his past and pondered his future. After three years as the medical center’s associate director he now eyed the possibility of becoming a medical center director in the vast VA health care system. He certainly felt qualified having graduated from the Health Care Leadership Institute in addition to being a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.

There was something else he needed to ponder. To become a medical center director he would most certainly have to move and leave his beloved New Orleans, the city where he had grown up, where he had met his wife, Stacie Pierce, a fellow New Orleans VA Medical Center employee, and where his three children Fernando, III, 15, Mateo, 13, and Dulce, 12, were born.

He knew he would have a difficult decision to make should that opportunity come.

That opportunity came sooner than he expected.

In December 2004, he received a call from VA headquarters informing him that he had been selected as the director of the VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and to report there January 2005.

For the Rivera family, it was bitter sweet. For him it was the career path he had chosen. He was finally becoming a medical center director.

For his wife and children it was a new adventure, a new place but they were also leaving family and friends and co-

workers behind.

It would mark a significant change in their lives as they went from an urban area with a population of more than 378,000 to a rural area with a population of less than 20,000. He was moving from a 275-bed urban hospital to a 312-bed rural hospital.

With the encouragement and guidance of his mentor and good friend John Church, then director of the New Orleans VAMC, Rivera prepared for his next VA assignment, an assignment that would take him outside his comfort zone to a different part of the country with different kinds of challenges.

While packing his office and reflecting on the more than 20 years he had been in the New Orleans medical facility, he remained hopeful that he would one day return to the place where his VA career began. He never envisioned that in eight months that facility would be destroyed in the flooding caused by a storm named Katrina.

The thought of the damage Hurricane Katrina did to the New Orleans area and the VA medical center still tugs at Rivera’s heartstrings. He kept close watch from afar as to all that was happening to his adopted hometown and his fellow VA employees in the region. He thought about them, prayed for them and applauded them for their heroic effort in putting the patients first and ensuring that no lives be lost or left behind.

When Rivera visited the New Orleans VA administrative offices he was pleasantly surprised to find a customframed quilt in the lobby area. The quilt was the result of him and his staff at the Martinsburg VA facility. The staff there helped raise money by selling cloth squares and then sending the funds to support their fellow VA employees who were displaced as a result of Katrina. They then had the quilt made from those cloth squares they sold and sent it to the New Orleans VA facility.

While in Martinsburg Rivera quickly established himself as an ef-

fective and efficient leader guiding the facility in exceptional safety, quality of care, and patient satisfaction scores.

He was also instrumental in the opening of the VA Outpatient Clinic in Frederick, Maryland.

His leadership abilities did not go unnoticed by his VA superiors in Washington, D.C. and in 2007 then VA Secretary R. James Nicholson appointed Rivera director of the Washington, D.C. VA Medical Center, one of the most visible VA hospitals in the country.

“Serving at the flagship hospital of the Veterans Health Administration in our nation’s capital represents the highest honor for this public servant,” Rivera said at the time.

It was there that he hosted a visit

by President Bush and several members of congress. Under his leadership at the Washington VA Medical Center, the facility underwent a cultural transformation to performance excellence and a broad range of physical plant improvements. The facility was also recognized with numerous quality service awards.

Again, his leadership skills and the hard work ethic instilled by his mother years earlier paid off as he was appointed director of the VA’s Capital Healthcare Veterans Integrated Service Network. There he oversaw the operations of four VA medical centers and 18 community based outpatient clinics in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Northern Virginia, and parts of West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

He briefly served in VA Central Office as acting Deputy Under Secretary for Health & Operations Management and greatly values the experienced he gained while in that role.

Perhaps what makes him adaptable and flexible to any given role is that he takes comfort in one of his favorite Bible verses which reads in part, “…all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose…”

And it certainly worked together for good for him as he has now been called to return to the “the place where I belong” as Rivera stated when got the

news of his appointment. It will be exactly 10 years from the day he left New Orleans.

He feels his experience in Washington will be an asset in his new role.

“Working in the national capital region has provided me first-hand knowledge of operations at the local hospital, regional and national level,” Rivera said. “These experiences will serve to address the unique responsibilities in starting up a new facility and improving services to Veterans in Southern Louisiana.”

He admits that one of his biggest challenges will be recruiting and retaining a health care work force to open the new facility.

Retaining co-workers may be less of a challenge though as evidenced by the numerous positive comments made by some of his former co-workers who are anxiously waiting to welcome him home again.

“It is wonderful to have a fellow New Orleanian leading us into the next stage of providing health care and restoring services to Veterans in southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region at our new medical center complex, said Project Legacy Chief Liz Failla. “When Mr. Rivera started as a project engineer and throughout his tenure in New Orleans, he always had tremendous enthusiasm and was passionate about providing the best environment for Veterans. He comes back to us to be part of the biggest project undertaken here and I look forward to this unique opportunity to “I was excited to learn of Mr. Rivera’s return to New Orleans,” said Gwendolyn Janis Lemaire, a longtime nurse at the facility. “I remember his proven leadership over many years of experience, but more than anything, I remember that he loves the Veterans in New Orleans and wants the best service that we can possibly provide, both now and in the future.”

Rivera’s return to New Orleans is best summed up by acting chief nurse executive Donna Collins who calls him the “MIND, HEART & SOUL of the New Orleans VA.”

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 7

HOMELESS ALABAMA VETERAN HOME AT L AST

By Tom Cramer Thirty-eight-year-old April Rencher, who spent eight years in the Army, didn’t plan on becoming homeless. She didn’t plan on ending up in rehab, either.

“I lost my employment late last year,” she said in a tired voice.

“I’ve been working since I was 14, so it was frustrating, losing my job. On top of that I had a crisis in my family, so everything sort of snowballed from there. Things got unmanageable for me. I guess I just got tired. My whole world came screeching to a halt, and I ended up homeless…

“I had become a very dark person,” she continued. “But then I

life.

“When I first got here my mindset was scattered,” she said.

“But I’m working with the health care professionals here. They’re helping me answer the ‘why’ of things.

They’re helping me clarify why I’m having some of the problems I’m having; why I was doing what I was doing. That was the main thing for me. That’s what made a big difference —understanding the ‘why.’

“I learned that I’d been neglecting myself. I was always focused on other things, this person or that person, and I never once looked at myself. But now I can actually look in the mirror

did when we were on active duty,” she explained. “Going through this transition with other Veterans makes it easier for me. They understand what I’m going through. They get it. I’ve met some really wonderful people here that I want to stay in contact with them.”

Rencher said the next step in her journey is finding a place to live after she leaves rehab.

“They have apartments right here on the grounds at VA!” she beamed. “I’ve filled out an application for one. I’m waiting to see if I get it. The place is called Valor Grove. If I could live there that would be good, because it would be easier to keep my appointments here at the

“They saved my life, to be honest with you. They turned me around and helped me walk in the right direction.”

- April Rencher

finally got to a point where I could ask for help. It’s hard for us Veterans to ask for help, but I went to the VA here in Tuscaloosa and got into their residential rehab program. I knew I was going to get the care I needed.

They’re helping me get well. They’re very supportive of me.”

Rencher paused for a moment, then added: “They saved my life, to be honest with you. They turned me around and helped me walk in the right direction. I still have good days and bad days, but I know I’m better today than I was yesterday.”

Rencher said learning about herself is playing a big role in her fight to recover her health, and her

and see the transformation that’s happening…

“For me to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and like who I see…that’s very big for me,” she continued. “I can look at the sunshine now and appreciate it. I can look out the window and see the cats playing out there in the yard and that makes me laugh. It’s cool seeing them playing and not having a care in the world.”

The Army Veteran said one of the most beneficial aspects of residential rehab is the comradery she discovered there.

“The Veterans here support each other, pretty much the way we

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hospital, easier to keep my treatment going.”

“We’re hopeful she’ll be able to get in there because it’s right here on our campus,” said Dave Gay Jr., Tuscaloosa’s homeless program coordinator. “We hope it works out for her, because all the support she needs is right here. This is what we’re here for…to help people put their lives back together. That’s why we come to work every day.”

“I still need some fine tuning, but so far so good,” Rencher said with a smile. “I’m working on building a new me.”

'Bridgers' Helping Sober Vets Stay That Way

Peer Support Specialist and Bridger Redger Hennah (right) and Marine Corps Veteran Thaddeus Burnett enjoy a quiet game of chess at Santoro’s Pizza in Lowell, Massachusetts.

By Tom Cramer Buzz Aldrin, former fighter pilot and the second astronaut to walk on the moon, had this to say about trying to stay sober: “It’s been one of the greatest challenges that ever came along in my life; it was one of the more difficult things to do.”

Tony Russo understands. Which is why he helped come up with a novel program at the Bedford VA for helping Veterans struggling with alcoholism, drug abuse and mental health issues.

“We want these Veterans to successfully integrate back into the community after receiving treatment here at Bedford, and we just weren’t addressing it,” explained the certified peer specialist.

“Once they left us they were going back out there and isolating instead of integrating. Next thing you know they’re drinking again and they’re back here with us, back in treatment.”

Thus was born the concept of VA ‘bridgers,’ people who actually accompany you back out into the community once you leave rehab at the VA. ‘Guardian

Page 10 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

Angels,’ you might call them.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters “We wanted to make sure our Veterans found healthy things to do, healthy people to hang around with,” Russo said. “At one time your life centered around the bar you hung out at and the people you drank with.

We want you to hang out someplace else, with different people, and that’s what our bridgers help you do.”

Russo, a retired submariner, said he is currently one of three bridgers at the Bedford VA in Massachusetts.

“Your bridger’s job is to help you get immersed in the life of your community,” he explained. “Your bridger might recommend a church to go to on Sunday morning, or where to go to do some volunteer work, or where to look for a job. Or he’ll say, ‘Hey, you want to hit a meeting somewhere?’

“All of our bridgers are Veterans,” he added. “They’re all certified peer specialists, and they’re also in recovery themselves.”

Russo, 50, said a big part of recovery involves cutting

out the bad influences in your life and replacing them with good ones.

“It’s a gradual process,” he said.

“You start hanging out more at the gym instead of the bar, for example.

You’re meeting new people. You’re creating a new network.”

Coffee, Anyone?

“It’s a unique program,” said Dr. Charles Drebing, the mental health services line manager at the Bedford VA. “Our peer bridgers give you a warm hand-off to the community, so to speak. If you don’t know how to integrate, if you don’t know how to find healthy things to do, they’ll help you with that.”

Drebing said it was Tony Russo who introduced one of the program’s most important elements: the coffee social hour, or ‘Coffee’ for short.

“Tony established the first Coffee,” Drebing explained. “It’s an informal meeting of Vets at your local Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks or wherever. You just sit around with a bunch of other Veterans, drinking coffee and talking.

"It happens every week at the same time. It’s an entryway for getting connected to the life of your community. For example, at one Coffee we had a group of Veterans who decided to get together and help rebuild houses for disabled people. They just went over to a local non-profit and asked if they could help them rebuild houses. It was that simple.”

Army Veteran Chuck Delaney, another bridger at Bedford, said some Veterans respond quickly to the program while others take a little longer.

“This one Veteran, Jesse, started donating his time at the Somerville homeless coalition,” Delaney explained. “He was helping them write grants. He used to be a business attorney. Now he’s writing grants full-time for a theater group.”

Then there was Jack, a Veteran who had spent most of his life working construction.

“Jack was struggling a bit after completing rehab,” Delaney said. “He had a couple relapses while he was living in transitional housing. But we finally got him into this training program so he could become a phlebotomist —that’s a person who draws your blood. So now he’s employed and living in his own place, just like Jesse. I’m very proud of both of them.”

Wait ... Your pyramid?

“Your pyramid is all the different facets of your life,” Mike explained.

“Housing, recreation, finances, health, transportation, your spiritual life. If any one of them breaks down, the whole pyramid starts to crumble.

So you’re always working on your pyramid. The Coffees are a good place for that.”

don’t socialize well,” said Redger (Reggie) Hennah, Mike’s bridger. “It’s not something they’re very good at. What they tend to be good at is going home, locking the door, and watching 13 hours of television by themselves. We don’t want them doing that.”

Hennah, a 53-year-old Army Veteran, said his favorite Coffee is the one held at Santoro’s Pizza in Lowell, Massachusetts. “The owner’s a nice guy,” he observed. “He’ll give us free pizza every now and then.”

The seasoned bridger said the weekly Coffee (along with the occasional slice of free pizza) is indispensable for helping Veterans like Mike reintegrate into their community following rehab. “Like I said, a lot of these guys are not good at meeting new people, they’re not good at forming or maintaining intimate relationships. But they can strongly relate to other Veterans. It’s like a separate subculture. They feel comfortable around one another.”

Hennah said Mike has come a long way in his recovery, but still has a long journey ahead of him.

“When I first met Mike he looked like he didn’t have much hope,” Hennah said. “He’s very young. He needed someone to confide in. But he felt comfortable with me after I told him my own story of recovery.

So when I told him I understood his pain, he was able to accept it.

He knew I’d experienced the same things he had.”

He added: “Mike has a lot of strengths. He’s intuitive. He’s very goal-oriented. But like a lot of Veterans in recovery, he wants to fix everything all at once. So I keep telling him to slow down, to organize his thoughts, to tackle one thing at a time. Because you don’t find peace after everything falls into place. First you find peace, then everything falls into place.”

Locking the Door “The Coffees are excellent because a lot of our Veterans just

Editor’s note: The names of some former rehab patients quoted in this article have been changed, at their request, to protect their privacy.

The Guy “Reggie’s my bridger; he’s the guy,” said Mike, a 24-year-old Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “He took me bowling. He took me to a Veterans breakfast, which was pretty cool. He drove me to the University of Massachusetts so I could meet with an advisor and register for my two classes.

He wrote a letter of recommendation that helped get me this job I have at the VA. I started here two weeks ago. Reggie’s also helping me work on my HUD-VASH application so I can have a place of my own. Right now I’m living in VA transitional housing.”

Mike said his bridger, Reggie, also brought him to his first Coffee and introduced him to everyone there.

“I go there every week now,” Mike said enthusiastically. “That’s really been the most helpful thing for me, those coffee socials. You sit there with other Veterans and go over your pyramid.”

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 11

Rising Stars in Research

By Mitch Mirkin, VA Research Communications “In research, you need blocks of time,” says Dr. Walter Lee. “You can’t do a little here, a little there.”

That’s exactly what Lee— and other rising stars in medical research—get through VA’s Career Development (CD) program. The highly competitive program offers top-caliber junior scientists salary and research funding, along with mentored training and other scientific and administrative support.

About 20 awardees in the biomedical and clinical fields, all nearing the end of their threeto five-year CD support, met in Washington, DC, in late July. The goal

was to share their accomplishments, network, learn about each other’s work, and receive coaching from VA Office of Research and Development (ORD) staff on how to navigate the next phase of their research career.

“These folks are rising stars in the research world,” says VA’s Dr. Ronald Przygodzki. “A good number of them will likely land leadership positions in and outside the VA system. They are people who are going to be changing how VA research and health care perform.”

Przygodzki is associate director of Genomic Medicine and acting director of Biomedical Research and

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Development for ORD. He and his colleague Dr. Christopher Bever Jr., acting director of Clinical Sciences Research and Development and himself a former CD awardee, helped kick off the two-day meeting.

“You move science forward,” Przygodzki told the awardees. “You move medicine. You change the way health care is done.”

Also offering opening remarks were ORD’s Dr. Terri Gleason, acting deputy chief research and development officer; and Dr. Ken Myrie, a portfolio manager in ORD who helps oversee the biomedical and clinical CD programs.

Myrie, who has a Ph.D. in human genetics, says one aim of the inperson meeting was to “foster a sense of community. We wanted to give them an opportunity to interact with each other in a pretty intensive way, and to hopefully form collaborations across the research spectrum.”

Myrie says the CD program is “extremely competitive,” and that it’s one of VA’s best tools for recruiting, training, and retaining high-quality researchers. He notes that among past biomedical and clinical CD awardees, 7 in 10 have gone on to establish independent VA research careers and successfully compete for Merit Review funding. In VA’s Merit Review process, panels of experts scrutinize research proposals for scientific merit and make recommendations on which ones should be funded.

Currently, there are 124 Career Development awardees receiving funding through VA’s Biomedical Laboratory R&D and Clinical Sciences R&D services. Another 156 CD awardees are supported by the Health Services and Rehabilitation R&D services. All told, VA has more than 3,000 active investigators nationwide.

At the meeting, the awardees all gave brief presentations on their work, and heard from ORD experts about issues they will need to consider as they set out to independently obtain research funding: how to put together a successful proposal, for example, or the fine points of human and animal research subject protection.

They also learned of new opportunities to tap into VA’s landmark Million Veteran Program, which already has rich genetic and health data on more than 390,000 Veteran volunteers.

Lee, a surgeon at the Durham (North Carolina) VA Medical Center and Duke University, studies immunotherapy for head and neck cancers. He says his CD award has meant protected time, away from

the clinic, during which he could explore his scientific ideas—and feed his passion.

“It lets people like me do what our heart is in. Otherwise, we’re pulled in so many different directions—clinical care, teaching, and of course research.”

Lee devotes seven-eighths of his time to VA. Of that, six-eighths is set aside for research, and oneeighth for seeing patients. He calls it a “wonderful opportunity. With the CD award, you have the time, the funds, and the structure at a critical point early in your career to make excellent progress.”

After the awardees gave PowerPoint talks about their work— and thanked VA and their mentors— they fielded questions about their methods and findings. Listening to the flow of the conversation, one could detect buds of potential collaboration. Sometimes the nexus was obvious—for example, between investigators both studying the genetics of PTSD. But there were interesting— and potentially fruitful—exchanges even between those working in very different fields. One investigator described the properties of a mouse model she uses to study kidney disease, and one of her peers—who studies oral cancer—said he could see applications for his work.

The medical conditions discussed ran the gamut from PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and bipolar disorder to arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart and kidney disease, viral infections, and more. One awardee, Dr. Eric Chang from San Diego, shared a new way of imaging tendons—which, unlike other soft tissues, don’t show up well on MRIs. His work, said one ORD expert at the meeting, could easily find application in VA rehabilitation research—for example, studies of wheelchair users and the stress they incur to their arms and shoulders.

Myrie said the two-day meeting would ideally connect scientists not only across different diseases, but

across the divide between lab and clinic.

“We want to have a natural progression from pre-clinical to clinical studies,” says Myrie. “We want the non-clinician to collaborate with the clinician. From the bedside to the lab, and from the lab to the bedside.

It works both ways.”

In fact, overall, more than half of VA researchers are also clinicians who see patients.

CD awardee Dr. Erika Wolf, a psychologist based at VA’s National Center for PTSD, said that while she “loves seeing patients,” the award has allowed her and her group the flexibility to pursue creative research ideas that might have not fit within the box of other funding mechanisms.

“It’s been very fulfilling and productive,” she says. “It’s allowed us to follow up on our discoveries, and also identify new areas to study.

I potentially could have been more constrained. This way, I can say, oh, look what we found here. Let’s follow it up with the next logical step, and do it right away, without having to wait to get a grant approved.”

One of her research goals is to improve PTSD diagnosis by establishing sub-types of the condition and showing which types respond better to certain treatments—for example, prolonged exposure therapy.

Wolf says that by mainly using existing data sets from the NCPTSD, she was able to “hit the ground running and get a lot done over the past four and a half years or so.” She says the transition now to being an independent investigator is challenging, and a bit intimidating— but doable.

“Before I was a psychologist, I had a career as a professional ballet dancer,” she shares. “So it’s been my trajectory to move through very challenging things. You rehearse them, you figure them out, and then you move on from there.”

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 13

Mr. Trinidad Martinez (front row, 3rd from right) in 1942 in the Japanese POW Camp.

Telechaplaincy Bridges the Gap for WWII Hero

By Chaplain Mike A. McGruder When wars were fought under different rules of engagement and before the fourth treaty of the Geneva Convention was signed, brothers Trinidad Martinez and Jesus Martinez lived a life never dreaming the Second World War and time would separate them. In 1942, both brothers served in the United States Army in two separate theatres and experienced two separate realities of war.

As the United States joined the allies in the now famous war, brother Jesus Martinez served in the European Theatre while his younger brother Trinidad Martinez served in the Pacific Asian Theatre. Trinidad Martinez stated, “I joined the army to fight for my county.” Little did he know that the allied forces with which he fought would soon surrender, and he would survive hardships to which others would succumb.

In 1942 during the Second World War, American and Filipino soldiers were engaged in a battle that was being fought in the Pacific Asian Theatre. Pfc. Trinidad Martinez, seen in the attached picture, and approximately 75,000 other Axis soldiers surrendered to the Japanese army on the Bataan Peninsula of the Philippines.

Once captured, they endured physical and mental hardships, some dying by bayonet, as they marched over 60 miles to the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula in what is known as the “Bataan Death March.”

This march took them to San Fernando where they would be held as prisoners of war. Private First Class Martinez would be held as a Japanese prisoner of war for two and a half years before being reunited with his family and county. The two brothers were in contact with each other after the war until 1978. T. Martinez said

Page 14 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

that 1978 was the last time he saw his brother.

On Aug. 13, 2015 an urgent request was sent forward to the Chaplain Service Chief at the Audie L. Murphy VA Hospital in San Antonio, Texas on behalf of Martinez who was a patient at the time. The request was to see his brother whom he had not seen in 37 years.

Now 97 years old, T. Martinez wanted to see his brother, J. Martinez, who is now 103 years old. With both brothers being geographically dislocated, being unable to endure long drives, and with Mr. J. Martinez being on palliative/hospice care … telechaplaincy was the only option.

As the telehealth and home based primary care chaplain, I visited Mr. T. Martinez to share how we intended to make his request a reality. Before I left the room, with a gleam in his eye, T. Martinez asked, “Am I really going

to see my brother?” I replied, “Yes sir, you will.”

With a determined South Texas Chaplain Service, the expertise of clinical video technology, and a supportive front line staff all roadblocks were removed within 36 hours; the concept of the “VA without walls” moved from being a concept to a reality once again. Several phone calls were made, and what seemed like mountains were moved. Both brother’s along with other family members were able to see each other and connect with each other for the first time in 37 years. Chaplaincy and technology was able to come together to meet the spiritual and emotional need of a Veteran by stripping away time and distance.

This story is one of hope fulfilled; the reuniting of two brothers after what may seem like an eternity. I was able to meet with T. Martinez in his home where he is recovering from surgery. As I approached his home,

the pride he has for his service to country is seen hanging high upon the flag pole underneath the American flag; a flag that reads, “You are not forgotten.”

As I sat down and marveled at the wall dedicated to him, he shared many stories about the march, the Japanese guards, and his return home after the war.

“I have a story to tell and I am going to tell it” he said, and so I listened.

I learned a lot about a time thatConnect. manyIt matters.

Friendship. of us will never hear of from one who It matters.

Ask the It matters. was there and lived to tell about it. question.

I felt like Mark, the companion of Peter, as he listened to the wordsCompassion. of one It matters. who had been there. I am grateful Support. It matters. for the experience made possible Listen.by It matters. a supportive team, technology, and Martinez with Telehealth and Home Based Primary Care Chaplain Mike A. McGruder in determination.

Mostly, I am grateful to be a part San Antonio, Texas of the rich legacy of our American Veterans who have greatly sacrificed for the freedoms we cherish.

Family.

It Matters.

© 10/13 VHA

Because you mean so much to them.

Confidential help for Veterans and their families

Confidential chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net or text to 838255

Connect. It matters.

Friendship. It matters.

Ask the question. It matters.

Family.

Compassion. It matters.

Support. It matters.

Listen. It matters.

It Matters. © 10/13 VHA

Because you mean so much to them.

Navy Veteran Overcomes Adversity, Wins Gold at Games

By Eric A. Brown The calm days following Hurricane Andrew were certainly a welcomed sight by most, but for Veteran Arlene Magee Turner, the 1992 catastrophe merely marks the beginning of a series of life-changing events.

Turner joined the Navy in 1985 as an unrestricted line officer spending much of her time in San Diego as a training officer for VS-41, an anti-submarine training squadron, and later as a facilities manager charged with housing and keeping track of hundreds of new sailors at the southern California naval training facility.

“I did everything but cut the checks,” Turner said jokingly referring to the plethora of hats she wore at VS41.

Her final U.S. Navy assignment brought her to New Orleans where she was the administrative officer at the Navy Air Logistics Office there. By the end of August, 1992, Hurricane Andrew had ravaged South Florida and ripped through New Orleans— disrupting much of the region.

Following the storm, Turner was on her way to Baton Rouge to return a car she rented after hers broke down, but unfortunately, an unexpected event prevented her from doing so, and in a literal blink of an eye, changed the course of her life. “It was a 45 minute drive…didn’t make it,” Turner said. “An 18-wheeler crossed into my lane…didn’t see me.”

The accident occurred while she was driving a on a bridge “I went underneath the 18-wheeler of all things,” Turner said. After the 18-wheeler dragged her down the bridge’s roadway for some distance, she wasn’t aware of the damage to her vehicle or her body. “I didn’t even know I had broken my back.”

Twenty years have passed since the tragic accident in Louisiana left Turner in a wheelchair, but a new series of challenges surfaced five years

Arlene Turner was one of 16 adaptive sports athletes representing the Atlanta VAMC, which earned a total of 30 medals during the games.

ago that changed her life…again.

Turner had been seen at the Atlanta VA Medical Center (VAMC) for the past 15 years for issues related to her paralysis, but she and her three children now began to notice her memory fading. “My short-term memory was gone and my long-term memory was nothing to be proud of,” Turner said.

In conjunction with her memory loss, the past several years dealt Turner a series of burdensome health issues and other misfortunes that would test her and her three children.

“When I say everything could go wrong, we had a tsunami,” Turner said of a battle with fresh panic attacks that reached back to the car accident she tried so hard to rid herself of— eventually leading her to the Atlanta VAMC mental health team more than two and a half years ago. “I’d wake up in my sleep and think I was still in that car,” Turner said.

Page 16 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

Five months ago Turner was on her way to her mental health appointment, and, coincidently, cross paths with Chauncy Rozier, the VAMC’s recreational therapist and adaptive sports coordinator, who was building a team of disabled Veteran patients willing to participate in the upcoming National Veteran Wheelchair Games in Dallas June 21-26, 2015.

“Once I get them to stop by my office and I provide them more information, then I know I have a new person to come into the fold,” Rozier explained.

Turner quickly declined Rozier’s offer citing everything from being too old to not possessing any of the right equipment. “I didn’t even own a pair of tennis shoes,” Turner confessed.

“You should go. It will change your life,” Rozier said. Rozier followed her all the way to her appointment on the fourth floor and before she knew it had submitted an application packet

for the games. “The goal of the National Veterans Wheelchair Games is to include novices…so this is my way of bringing them in,” Rozier said.

So it was official—she was heading to Dallas to compete alongside 15 other athletes representing the Atlanta VAMC and nearly 700 other Veterans from across the nation. “I had three months to whip myself into some kind of shape.”

Whip herself into shape she did, but she didn’t do it alone. Fellow wheelchair athlete and team partner Jonathan Tubbs, who also competed in the wheelchair games, along with his wife, were instrumental in her rookie debut at the games. “They called me every single day,” said Turner of both Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs, who provided her with a level of men-

toring and motivation for the three months prior to the games. “And I did it…with God’s help.”

“That was like my Susan Komen 3-Day,” Turner said as she tearfully related her journey to the annual event celebrating breast cancer survivors’ accomplishments. “It marked the beginning of the end of a really horrible time—a time that lasted seven years for me.”

Turner earned a gold medal in air pistol shooting and bowling. “I almost had a bronze in basketball,” Turner added. Turner was especially impressed by the number of Veteran volunteers who were present to support the games who come each year to support the competitors. “That was probably the most awesome thing I’ve done in a long time,” Turner

said.

One would think that air pistol shooting would come natural to a seasoned U.S. Naval officer like herself, but she said that’s a misconception.

“If I was in the Army…yes,” she said. Turner confessed that during her military service, she didn’t have an opportunity to fire individual weapons. “Oh no, we shot stuff to blow up the whole place,” Turner chuckled.

“I had to find new ways to cope with stress,” Turner said. “This is the new normal for me and I’m a lot happier.”

During the games, 16 adaptive sports athletes representing the Atlanta VAMC earned a total of 30 medals collectively during the games.

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 17

VA Career Fair Draws More Than 1,000 Job Seekers

By Tyler Grimes It seemed like a rock concert. People, as far as the eye could see, lined up, waiting and excited to be there.

Members of the media set up lights and cameras as they prepared to go live, and interview various individuals.

Early birds, arriving hours before the event was scheduled, look for some sort of advantage over the competition. But this was no music event, this was the career fair hosted by Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System (SLVHCS) on Aug. 3, 2015 in New Orleans.

The recruitment event was part of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Media Day and gave those seeking employment a chance to learn about the current job opportunities available. Applicants also met with SLVHCS staff members to discuss the different services available to Veterans and what to expect as employees prepare for opening the new medical center by the end of 2016.

“People were really interested to hear about what we do,” said Mark Morgan, Nutrition and Food Service chief. “We are expanding our services and will be going from a staff of 14 to about 90.”

Morgan explained to the people he spoke with the importance of VA’s mission and how much Southeast Louisiana Veterans need the state-ofthe-art, 200-bed tertiary care regional referral center.

Fernando O. Rivera, SLVHCS medical center director, was also on hand to greet attendees and talk about the meaningful work being done at VA.

Rivera recalls one interaction with a Veteran who was eager to serve those who served.

“The Veteran said ‘I was homeless and VA saved my life, it would mean the world to me to come back and serve VA,’” Rivera commented. “That’s outstanding.”

Over the course of the day, more than 400 resumes were collected including almost 70 from doctors and nurses hoping to help fulfill President Abraham Lincoln’s promise “to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.”

Mike Avist, Workforce Development Service training instructor, was at the career fair to inform the potential candidates about the many training and educational benefits of being part of VA. “My overall impression of the event was that it was successful beyond our expectations,” Avist said.

“I believe that the career fair showed the people of the community that we are serious about hiring the best local talent that this city has to offer.”

With approximately 150 Veterans joining the pool of applicants, Avist, a Veteran himself, explained why working for VA is more than just a job for

Page 18 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

those who served.

“I did speak to several Veterans who separated and retired from the military, and they each expressed a deep desire to work with our Veteran patients,” he said.

In New Orleans, a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina 10 years later, residents and Veterans seem excited about the state-of-the-art medical center and what it means to an area hit by the worst natural disaster in the United States in recent history, said Rivera, a New Orleans native.

“We are building a place that our Veterans deserve and our community needs,” Rivera said. “That’s why this career fair is so important; we must have a robust and high-quality staff ready serve the 70,000 enrolled Veterans who may come through our doors.”

The career fair was also a way for SLVHCS to attract candidates in an extremely competitive market with many medical facilities.

“We need to hire the best and brightest,” Rivera said. “We are not the only medical center in town; health care providers have a lot of job options and we need to make them want to join our team.”

In addition to job seekers, mem-

bers of the local media covered the career fair before, during and after the event with interviews of SLVHCS leaders, including Inger Alston, Human Resources Management Service chief.

Human Resources Management Service representatives briefed groups of a couple hundred candidates at a time in the auditorium in the recently remodeled administrative building, which serves as the recruitment center for the health care system. Sitting in the shadow of the ongoing construction of the new medical center, the recruitment center is open Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2400 Canal Street in New Orleans.

While staff members have been

actively engaged in recruitment efforts for several months in preparation of the new 1.6 million square foot medical center, the career fair marks the first recruitment event of such a large scale across the many SLVHCS services.

“This event gave the leaders of our various departments an opportunity to talk to qualified candidates who will help strengthen and complement our current workforce,” Alston said. “It was a great opportunity to tap into the talent in New Orleans and the surrounding communities.”

Alston’s team helped fair-goers search through current vacancies, answer questions about career advancement and employee benefits

and create accounts on USAJOBS.gov.

In addition to excellent job opportunities and the ability to excel, Alston says health care professionals are well aware of the significance of the VA mission.

“There are many opportunities to pursue various career paths with SLVHCS, while simultaneously supporting our Veterans,” she said. “(Health care professionals) want to support our Veterans and be a part of our new medical center.”

The success of the career fair exceeded the expectations and reinforced the importance of strengthening the SLVHCS workforce, according to Rivera.

Fall/Winter Summer 2013 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 19

Army Veteran Gus Allbritton, a volunteer at the Dublin VA in Georgia, shares some coffee and a laugh with fellow Veteran Jesse Pooler. Photo by Frank Jordan Jr., Dublin Va.

Vietnam Vet Helping Fellow Veterans

By Tom Cramer Gus Allbritton was not yet 19 when his life changed forever.

“I graduated from high school on Friday night and got my draft notice on Saturday,” said the 65-year-old.

“I didn’t even know where Vietnam was, but the Army told me to go so I went. But I was scared to death the whole time.”

Not too scared, however, to

earn three Purple Hearts, a Combat Infantry Badge, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry and several other notable ribbons and medals.

Not a Good Day “I got two Purple Hearts in one day!” Allbritton recalled. “It was May 3, 1970 —not a good day. I was driving a jeep loaded with M60s and

Page 20 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

we got hit in the grill with an RPG. It put shrapnel in my feet, legs and groin. I was on the ground for about 30 or 40 minutes before I finally managed to jump up and run for the nearest bunker. Another RPG hit just as I was diving into the bunker and put more shrapnel in me. A piece of metal went through my back and came out my chest.”

After two years of dodging bullets and RPGs in Vietnam, Allbritton was finally discharged.

But like so many who experience war and survive to return home, his real battle was only just beginning.

“I went to college and got a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida,” he said. “I got a job; I became a deputy sheriff. I wanted to get back to the business of living a normal life, but I was having some trouble doing it. A lot of times I couldn’t sleep, and I was having flashbacks. I found myself reliving things that I never wanted to think about again.”

Then one day, somewhat unexpectedly, the dam finally burst.

“I was sitting in my patrol car in Dade City one rainy night,” said the Army Veteran. “A newspaper truck

be alive.”

Allbritton soon learned he was suffering from something called posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. “I had heard of shellshock, and sort of knew what it was,” he said.

“But I hadn’t really understood what it could do to your life.”

After months of counseling and treatment, Allbritton began to feel a bit of hope. Perhaps, in time, he might actually get back to the business of living a normal life –– something he’d been trying to do for two decades.

“Dr. Martineau saved my life,” he said. “He’s the most compassionate doctor I ever had. He’s retired now, but I still call him often just to talk to him. His IQ is like a zip code.

"He’s smart man. He taught me

in this by himself, that he’s not alone.

I’m in my 60s and he’s in his 20s, but we can still relate to each other because we’re Veterans. He fought in the desert and I fought in the jungle, but war is war, and PTSD is PTSD. We’re brothers.”

He added: “He sort of reminds me of me when I was that age.”

Allbritton said encounters like this are the reason he keeps volunteering at the VA. “I came back from Vietnam looking for one life and ended up finding another,” he said. “This is the path I was meant to take. This is what I was meant to do.”

And what about his friend, the young Veteran with the catastrophic case of PTSD? “He’s clean now,” Allbritton reported proudly. “He doesn’t do drugs or alcohol anymore and he’s

“I want these guys to know the VA can help them if they just give it a chance,” - Gus Allbritton

came by and backfired. I rolled out of my car and fired off six shots down Main Street. All I could see was Viet Cong coming at me. That’s when I knew something was really wrong.

I’m just glad it was 2 o’clock in the morning when I fired off all those shots.”

Smart Decision Allbritton decided it might be best if he got out of law enforcement and pursued another career path.

Which he did. For a while he was a court bailiff, then later a bail bondsman. But his symptoms persisted. Despite his pain, it would be a number of years before he finally decided to walk into a VA hospital and ask for help.

“I moved from Florida to Georgia and decided to go to the VA hospital here in Dublin,” he said. “It was one of the smarter decisions I’ve ever made.

If it wasn’t for the VA, I don’t think I’d

to look through the windshield of life and not so much through the rearview mirror. He taught me to focus on the future, not the past…

The Jungle and the Sandbox “Sometimes I still look through the rearview mirror, though,” the Army Veteran admitted. “And when that happens here at work I just get in my truck and go home. PTSD never goes away.”

‘Work,’ for Allbritton, is showing up at the Dublin VA every day to do what he can to help other Veterans suffering from the trauma of war.

“We have a lot of these guys coming here now who served over in the dessert, over in the ‘sandbox,’ as we call it,” he said. “Recently we had one guy here who had a catastrophic case of PTSD. His wife had already left him. I met him at the door and welcomed him.

"I wanted him to know he’s not

making good progress. He and his wife are even talking again. He’s an outpatient now, and when he comes here to the Dublin VA he knows where to find me. We’ll sit down, have some coffee and talk.

“I want these guys to know the VA can help them if they just give it a chance,” he continued. “The VA isn’t perfect; we’re human beings. But I tell them I got excellent care here, and they will too. They just have to stick with it.”

Allbritton understands that he, too, has to stick with it. He knows the ghosts of Vietnam will always be near, waiting for him to glance into the rearview mirror.

“PTSD is one of those things I know I’m not going to outlive,” he said.

To learn more about PTSD and how the VA can help, visit www.ptsd. va.gov

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 21

Leadership Award Raised by a nurse in some of Boston’s poorer neighborhoods, Davis qualified for a prestigious private school, but his mother couldn’t afford it. When she took him to work with her one day, one of the physicians was so impressed with Davis’ dedication that he anonymously agreed to fund his education.

“I’ve never forgotten that magnanimous gesture,” he says.

Davis’ promise to pay it forward led him to this year’s 2015 Alan K. Mattson Leadership Award, the highest honor given to an ISO. Davis, who recently became ISO for the VA Maine Healthcare System after years of service in

VA CIO LaVerne Council (left) congratulates Davis on earning the 2015 Mattson Award.

Massachusetts, started work at the VA Boston Outpatient Clinic as a research assistant after college.

Davis has served as an expert for the safe and secure operation of the Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Informa-

tion Center.

The Alan K. Mattson Leadership Award was created to honor Alan’s memory, his leadership to FSS Information Security Officers, and to recognize outstanding performance.

Veterans Choice Viewer What is the Veterans Choice Viewer?

Where to Get Training and Access

The Veterans Choice (VC) Viewer uses geocoded addresses and appointment wait time information to help VA staff determine whether a Veteran is eligible for non-VA Care under the Veterans Choice Program. The viewer also displays the nearest facility for the Veteran, wait list information, and the status of the Veteran’s Choice Card.

Questions?

Access Forms:

https://csmsp.hec.med.va.gov/vcviewer/ SitePages/Home.aspx

Training Webinar:

Choice Program VC Viewer and Geoburden (TMS Item No. 24021)

Website Link to the VC Viewer:

https://vaww.webapps.best.cbo.med.va.gov/VCViewer

Email questions to: VCViewerAccessGroup@va.gov

Nearest Facility

Veteran Information

John Smith Member ID: 00000 SSN: Enrolled: 9/20/1990 12:00:00 AM Service Connect: N

VC Viewer sample of Veteran eligible based on wait time

Address Status (BAI): Accuracy of Address: BILLINGS MT 59102 Home Phone: 123-456-7890 Work Phone: 555-555-5555

Wait List Information VISN Desired Date

Record Type

Page 22 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

MVIICN: DOB: Combat Vet: N Special Authority: Y

Cell Phone: 555-555-5555

Medical Facility (Station No.) Veteran Choice Yes/No

VISN: 19 Billings (436GH) Billings VA Clinic 1766 Majestic Lane Billings, MT 59102-6759 Distance: 2.05 miles Date Determined: 12/8/2014

Result: Veteran resides less than or equal to 40 miles and does not meet the exceptions

Veterans Choice Outcome Veteran is ELIGIBLE based on Wait-Time

Veterans Choice Card Card Status: No Data Status Date: No Data

Clinic Stop Code Name (Clinic No) Clinic Name

“There are a lot of things at VA and within your community that are out there to help Veterans.”

Learn more at: www.MakeTheConnection.net/WatchTrace

Tracey US Army, US Army National Guard, US Army Reserve 1991-2003

From MST Victim to Survivor

By Tom Cramer Jessie Truitt had finally landed her dream job. She was 23 and working as an Army recruiter in her hometown area of DuBois, Pennsylvania. Diligent, conscientious and hard-working, she was named Top Reserve Recruiter for the Pittsburgh Recruiting Battalion in 2005.

In May of that year, she and her husband celebrated when they learned she was pregnant. Three months later, in August, she was raped by her station commander.

“I had to see that man every day of my life for the next four months, until the Army approved my discharge,” Truitt said. “I felt alone. I felt ashamed.

For the next six years, I didn’t tell a soul what had happened to me.”

During those six years she gave birth to two daughters, earned two bachelor’s degrees and one master’s

degree and held down two jobs -– a full-time position with the VA and a part-time one with the Department of the Army.

“I remember bits and pieces of those years,” she said, “but I don’t have any real memories. I was on autopilot, simply going through the movements of life and not really living it. Then, in 2011, I decided to step up and tell my story. I decided I wanted my life back.”

She told her husband what had happened to her. She told her best friend. She told her dad and the rest of her family. Then she headed for the VA in Butler County to get help.

“My therapist told me that recovery would be a lifelong process and that it was possible for me to get my life back,” Truitt said. “She told me it wasn’t my fault. She told me I shouldn’t be ashamed of what

Page 24 | VANGUARD | Fall/Winter 2015

happened to me.”

“One of the biggest things we offer is hope,” said Dr. Rowan Flamm, Truitt’s therapist at the Butler VA. “I tell my patients that healing is neither fast nor easy. But it can be done. I tell them it’s a process, a learning journey, and to just stick with it. I also tell them that healing doesn’t always have to be painful.”

Flamm, a clinical psychologist, said she decided to form a military sexual trauma therapy group because she felt her patients needed more than just a weekly counseling session.

They needed comradery.

“A lot of the women I was seeing in individual therapy told me they were feeling alone and isolated,” she said. “I realized we just didn’t have any kind of support system outside of the individual therapy, so I thought

a group situation would be helpful. I wanted to offer my patients a place where they felt safe, a group that would support them. So I formed this group about six weeks ago. We meet once a week. We have women in their 20s all the way up to their 60s.

We have women who were assaulted 30 years ago and are just now getting around to actively dealing with it.

Then we have women who were assaulted within the last year.”

“My experience with this group has been amazing,” said Jessie Truitt.

“We have made instant connections with each other. This group of women has given me strength. With them by my side, I truly know I am not alone.”

That’s exactly what Flamm was hoping for.

“The group becomes your support, your connection to other Veterans who ‘get it,’” the psychologist explained. “Just as combat Vets ‘get’ each other, so do survivors of MST. We have six women who attend on a regular basis and two others expected to join. They all support each other.

And if someone doesn’t show up for the group and they don’t call, we call them to make sure they’re okay.

“If you can find a place, even a small space to feel safe in, and people to feel safe with, it’s a start. You can gradually start expanding that safe zone outward, to where you start to feel safe in the outside world. Because if you can make friends in the therapy group, you can make friends outside the group.”

Flamm said MST affects everyone in different ways. “A lot of it depends on who your attacker was,” she observed. “Did a stranger attack you?

Or was it your supervisor — someone you had to see every day? Was there just one attack, or multiple attacks over time? Was it just one attacker, or a gang of them? Everyone’s trauma is different, and everyone deals with the aftermath in different ways.

“For example, I have one woman in our group who’s gone from full blown PTSD to becoming a survivor.

Over the last two years she’s worked really hard. She’s gaining strength, getting back to who she wants to be.

It’s a wonderful thing to see…

“Then I had another patient who, for whatever reason, couldn’t move forward. Like some women who’ve been traumatized, she turned to drugs and alcohol as a way of getting out of her own head. Sadly, these are the ones we’re most likely to lose, and we lost her.

The Sisterhood “To see the women in this group and realize they really do ‘get it’ is the most effective treatment I’ve had,” said Jessie Truitt. “We’re all there to help each other. They have the same struggles I do. We are all parents and sisters-in-arms. We have the same anxiety issues and the same fears, the same trust issues.”

“In the group they can talk about their anxiety, their panic attacks, their depression, their nightmares, and all the other things that happen to victims of sexual assault,” Flamm said.

“But they don’t just talk about their trauma. All sorts of things come up.

Parenting is a big topic. Dating is another, and relationships in general.

One woman in the group is estranged from her kids … she talks about how

she’s trying to reconnect with them, even though they live in another state now.

Discussions can certainly be dark, but there are plenty of lighter moments too.

“Sometimes they have me laughing so hard,” she said with a smile. “I didn’t know there would be laughter in my MST therapy group. I expected occasional light chuckles as we talked about various things, but I didn’t know there would be side-splitting laughter sometimes.

It’s surprising, but it happens. I think it surprises everybody in the group when it happens.”

The psychologist said the best part of her job is when one of her patients tells her they no longer feel the need for therapy.

“It’s a great feeling when that happens. It’s also rewarding when someone first discloses their trauma to me. I’m usually the first or second person they tell, and it’s an incredible privilege to be trusted with that. Once you tell someone about your trauma you’ve created an opportunity; you’ve started a journey. You’ve decided to take that first step toward becoming something other than what you currently are: a victim.”

Jessie Truitt couldn’t agree more.

“I joined the Army, had a career I loved, and then a bad man raped me and took it all away,” she said. “But I still have my husband and my two daughters and the rest of my family who love me for just being me. These are the things I focus on when life is getting me down.”

She paused, then added: “I’m not a victim any longer. I’m a survivor.”

ExploreVA

Take the first step with one click: #ExploreVA benefits for Veterans and their families.

Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 25

HONOR FLIGHT Several times each week, Honor Flights bring Veterans from across the country to Washington, D.C., to visit their memorials. On Sept. 22, for the first time, an all women’s Honor Flight landed in the nation’s capital bringing 140 women Veterans from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana to visit.

Honor Flight Tri-State organized the flight, which departed the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International and arrived shortly there after at Ronald Reagan National Airport. The trip to D.C. included stops at a number of sites: a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the U.S. Air Force Memorial, and the memorials for the WWII, Korea and more.

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Summer of Service

NASCAR Champion Kurt Busch (left) visited and spent time talking with inpatients at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center.

VA and NASCAR Partner to Increase Veterans Outreach After recently returning from a ship deployment in the Mediterranean, Marine Staff Sgt. Robert Rayburn realized he needed to learn more about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) benefits and services; after 18 years in the military, he was thinking about retiring. As he spent some much needed time with his wife Carrie, also a Marine, and their three kids, Jacob, Robbie and Tyler, he wondered how VA could help him and his family during this life-changing transition.

Thanks to the VA’s NASCAR Season of Service, Rayburn found the information he needed while also enjoying one of his favorite sports.

As he attended NASCAR’s “Last Race to Make the Chase,” at Richmond International Raceway (RIR) in Richmond, Virginia, Rayburn had the opportunity to spend

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more quality time with his family, and talk with VA health and benefits experts about the VA benefits for which he and his family are eligible.

While the overall Department of Veterans Affairs has promoted a Summer of Service, the Veterans Benefits Administration’s (VBA’s) Benefits Assistance Service (BAS) has led a collaborative effort—involving VBA, the Veterans Health Administration and VA’s Readjustment Counseling Service—through its NASCAR Season of Service, to advance Secretary Robert McDonald’s message of improving the Veteran experience and increasing customer service access points in communities one step further.

Under this effort, VA has brought together health and benefits teams, with the assistance of its Mobile Vet Centers, at 11 NASCAR race events across the country

NASCAR driver Chase Elliot (left) toured the Spinal Cord Injury wing of the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in September as part of VA’s outreach weekend in Richmond, Virginia.

throughout the 2015 race season. The partnership between VA, NASCAR and racetrack owners allows VA to not only reach new Veterans where they live, work and socialize, but to also deepen ties with those already connected to VA. “Building new strategic partnerships that can directly improve how we serve and reach more Veterans is what this is all about,” said Robert Reynolds, director of BAS. “We’re meeting Veterans, transitioning Servicemembers and their families at these race weekends that have never accessed VA previously, or who don’t know how to fully access VA information, resources and services. We’re bringing VA directly to Veterans in the community and giving them the superior customer experience they expect and deserve.”

NASCAR is the number one spectator sport in the country, with a fan base of about 75 million, one-third of whom are Servicemembers or Veterans. To promote VA’s NASCAR outreach efforts at RIR, VBA reached out to more than 340,000 eBenefits users in the surrounding Virginia region.

Rayburn heard about the event through an email promoting VA’s presence at RIR during the Sept. 11 race weekend, and was able to access Veteran and military discounted tickets from RIR for himself and his whole family.

While there, he visited VA’s Mobile Vet Center and spent a half hour speaking with VBA outreach staff Jason Miller and Allison Calabro about the benefits he could receive during and after his transition.

“You often hear a lot of negative things about VA, but I wanted to find out for myself,” said Rayburn. “They took their time to answer all of my questions from what schools I may be able to attend, to health care when I leave, to what I can expect related to my pay. I’m most definitely going to use my VA benefits to go back to school and to get a loan to buy a new home when we relocate. My experience with VA has been very positive!”

The Sept. 11 race weekend at RIR featured VA’s involvement in the Sprint Cup Pole Qualifying and Federated Auto Parts 400. It was the highlight of VA’s NASCAR Season of Service

outreach activities to promote greater access and awareness to VA benefits and services. For this particular race, VA and RIR teamed up to honor past and present military members and their families throughout the race weekend.

RIR also provided several Veterans with special opportunities at the racetrack, such as waving the green flag to start the pole qualifying; pace car rides; cold garage and pre-race ceremony access; and pictures with the Sprint Cup Pole winner.

In addition to VA outreach at the racetracks, this year Veterans have been given the unique opportunity to participate in NASCAR’s Troops to the Track program, which gives Servicemembers and Veterans a once-in-a-lifetime, NASCAR experience. Each season, NASCAR activates this special program at more than 20 races around the United States.

Troops from local military installations across the country and Veterans are treated to customized VIP experiences which include garage tours, driver meet-and-greets and recognition during the drivers' meeting, among

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VBA Outreach Liaison Jeremy Simms(left)speaks with a Veteran about his VA benefits at the VA Mobile Vet Center during the Sept. 11 Outreach Event at Richmond International Raceway.

many other special-access activities. For the 2015 race season, VA was invited to participate in three race events at Darlington Raceway (Darlington, South Carolina), New Hampshire Motor Speedway (Loudon, New Hampshire), and Chicagoland Speedway (Joliet, Illinois).

Veteran Tim Madden attended a Troops to the Track event at Darlington Raceway. “This was the best experience I have ever had at a NASCAR race,” he said. “My wife and I were treated like royalty … Going to the drivers’ meeting and meeting the drivers was incredible.”

By implementing direct outreach activities through partnerships like NASCAR, VA is expanding its community outreach footprint and creating unique opportuni-

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ties to honor and support Veterans in ways that resonate with them.

VA’s presence during the 2015 NASCAR race season wrapped up at Dover (Delaware) Speedway’s Monster Mile during the rain-soaked October 3 weekend.

VA’s outreach for the 2015 season to date has resulted in direct engagement with more than 5,500 Veterans and their family members.

Plans are already underway for the 2016 NASCAR season, as VA looks to further expand its community outreach in innovative ways with its NASCAR partners and reach a greater number of Veterans.

NASCAR Season of Service As part of its NASCAR Season of Service, VA kicked off its Sept. 11 Richmond International Raceway (RIR) weekend activities, Sept. 10, at the Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center (VAMC) in Richmond, Virginia.

Five NASCAR Xfinity drivers visited the hospital as part of a VA benefits fair featuring VA benefits experts, Veterans Service Organizations and RIR, which brought out its NASCAR Pace Car and gave away items, including free tickets to the Sept. 12 Sprint Cup race.

The drivers took time out of their busy race-weekend schedules, many of whom had just flown in that morning, to sign autographs and engage directly with inpatient Veterans during VAMC tours. Chase Elliot, Cale Conley, Brian Scott, Brendan Gaughan, and Chris Buescher had the opportunity to tour the Polytrauma and Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) wings of the medical center and spend time

with wounded warriors.

Elliot, who ended up winning the Xfinity race the evening of Sept.

11, spoke about his experience at the VAMC to local reporters. He said in interviews with the local Richmond NBC 12 station and Richmond Times-Dispatch: “The biggest thing is just thanking them for their service … for those guys and girls to give everything they’ve given for our freedom—that goes a long way with me. So I appreciate them and it’s great to have a chance to come visit and spend some time. It puts you in your place really fast. You oftentimes take for granted everything that we have.

It’s definitely been very humbling and I’m just happy to be here.”

Later that evening, NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Kurt Busch visited the hospital and spent nearly three hours personally speaking with Veterans at their bedsides. Although this event was not publicized by

the media, it shows the respect and commitment Busch has for those who have served and sacrificed so much and the genuine support of NASCAR drivers for our Veterans. Busch also previously donated his time to record radio and television public service announcements promoting eBenefits and electronic Fully Developed Claims.

“These types of engagements with NASCAR drivers, who freely donate their time and support, demonstrate the value of partnership-building in reaching our nation’s Veterans,” said Robert Reynolds, director of the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Benefits Assistance Service.

“It reinforces the depth and dedication of VA’s partnership with the NASCAR community, and shows how we can leverage resources effectively and efficiently to have the greatest community impact to honor our Veterans.”

Marine Staff Sergeant Robert Rayburn and his wife, Carrie, a Marine Veteran, traveled to Richmond International Raceway with their sons (from left to right) Robbie, Tyler, and Jacob, to enjoy NASCAR’s “Last Race to Make the Chase” and speak with VA health and benefits experts.

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AROUND VA

Pictured left to right: Christopher Clarke, Aaron Carlson, Meaghan Park, Jeff Scarpiello and Thomas Claflin.

VA Group Leverages Partnerships, Charity to Cover Move-in Costs for Homeless Vets A housing voucher is a godsend for homeless Veterans, but obtaining permanent shelter still leaves many Veterans without the ability to pay start-up costs for utilities or buy furniture and other basic household necessities.

A group of Excellence in Government Fellows from the Department of Veterans Affairs decided to tackle this issue by developing a pilot project in Cleveland that provides move-in assistance and household goods to Veterans who have received housing through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the VA. “This project goes beyond just providing Veterans with a living arrangement. It gives them the resources to make a house a home,” said Felicita Solá-Carter, a coach with the EIG leadership program.

Lisa Pape, the national director of Homeless Programs for the Veterans Health Administration, said HUD provides housing vouchers and VA can help arrange for social and health services for homeless Veterans, but this still leaves a service gap because the government cannot legally pay for furniture or other household items such as dishes, silverware, beds or furniture.

“If you’re a Veteran living on the street with a bag of goods and you get a voucher, you have nothing to fill a home. All your possessions are in a bag,” said Pape.

The solution to this problem came during an EIG session that focused on partnering with not-for-profit organizations. The VA team of Aaron Carlson, Thomas Claflin, Christopher Clarke, Meaghan Park and Jeff Scarpiello discussed creating a public-private partnership to meet this pressing need.

After extensive outreach and negotiations, the team obtained clearance from VA’s leadership and legal counsel, and helped create a partnership between the Louis Strokes Cleveland VA Medical Center and the Cleveland Area Veterans Association to provide the necessary assistance to the Veterans.

A memorandum was signed in July 2013 defining the processes and stakeholder responsibilities. A common list of Veteran move-in assistance needs was developed for use by VA case managers and the team then helped the Veterans association successfully register.

The Combined Federal Campaign, is used as a vehicle to raise money di-

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rectly for the program.

As a result of this project, a second partnership was launched with the Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church, which provides low-cost furniture to Veterans through the Cleveland Furniture Bank.

Now, when Veterans in Cleveland receive a housing voucher, the case manager can work with the individuals to determine their move-in needs, and the Veterans association can immediately provide them with the needed assistance. The framework used in the Cleveland pilot project has been documented and shared throughout the VA for other medical centers to replicate.

While this project is beginning to bear fruit in Cleveland, the team recognized the need for legislative changes that would allow the VA to fund some of these services nationwide without having to rely on outside organizations.

During one of the team’s presentations, a classmate described how the Department of State uses “gift authority” to provide assistance in some mission-related endeavors. The team used this idea to draft a legislative proposal providing the VA with the ability to provide direct monetary assistance to homeless Veterans, including paying for utilities and furnishings. The proposal was approved by the VA’s legislative review board allowing it to move forward for possible debate in Congress this year.

Solá-Carter said the team identified a pressing problem, brought it down to the individual level and overcame numerous obstacles to initiate a program that could be easily replicated and eventually benefit thousands of Veterans.

“The team members were all in different locations organizationally and geographically, and they had to come together as a unified team, convene a large meeting of stakeholders in Cleveland, convince people high up in the food chain at the VA, and coordinate with the legislative team and regional leaders,” said Solá-Carter.

She said there were “a lot of institutional barriers,” but for the team, “it was really about the mission.”

My VA

VA OI&T Creates myVet Series As VA continues to focus on customer service and reminding employees to keep Veterans at the center of everything they do, the Office of Internet and Technology (OI&T) developed the myVet series to highlight the Veterans influential to OI&T staff.

The myVet series personalizes the job by tying what they do at work with a Veteran in their life or a coworker’s life. For some, it is a Veteran in their family or circle of friends that inspires them to work at VA. For others, it is someone that they served with that motivates them to provide exceptional service to their

Tim Cox, acting chief (left) with his father, Brarry Cox who is a retired as a Colonel.

Kai Miller, director of Communication, with her grandfather when she was a little girl.

Brad Owens ,product development, with his mother, Patricia Louise Unger Owens.

Tim Cox’s myVet is his father, Brarry Cox, who served in the Army National Guard for over 30 years, with service spanning the Desert Storm era to working in the Pentagon during 9/11. “Back in 2009 my father gave me a combat boot to serve as a constant reminder of the importance of my work. He wrote a note that said, ‘Keep this as a reminder of those you serve. Sometimes it is hard to keep perspective that what you do supports a better system for Veterans. What you do matters. They gave of themselves so that you could be free. You are repaying that debt through your work.’ That boot sits on my desk as a daily reminder of him, his service, and why I chose to serve Veterans.

Miller is inspired by her grandfather George Miller. He served in the U.S. Naval Reserve for two years, beginning in 1952, before transferring to the U.S. Air Force.

While in the Air Force, he was stationed in locations ranging from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana to RAF Kirknewton AFB in Midlothian, Scotland. He was discharged in 1963 after eight years. “Not only was my grandfather thrilled when I started working at VA, but over the moon that I chose to work for OI&T. He was a computer teacher in the very early days of computers, so he is passionate about technology. I’ve been here almost nine years, and I don’t get to interact with Veterans in my everyday work, so he is my driving force,” she added.

Brad Owen’s inspiration is hi mom. “myVet is my mother who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War from 1952-54. It was there that she met my dad, who was also serving in the Air Force, and was a Veteran of the Korean War,” said Owens. “She instilled in me the values that I live by, pushed me to excel in everything I do, and has always been my best friend and one of the first people I go to when I need to talk and find peace. She taught me to be a gentleman, to help others, and to stand up for what I believe in,” said Owens. At 86 years old, Patricia Owens is still active in her Veterans of Foreign War chapter in Greenville, South Carolina, and helped procure donations for the Veteran’s Memorial along I-85.

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VA's Veterans Day Poster Throughout the Years The Department of Veterans Affairs' mission to fulfill its promise to Veterans exists because of the service and sacrifice of our Nation's heroes. Each year — often through a national Veterans Day poster contest — VA’s National Veterans Outreach publishes a commemorative Veterans Day poster, soliciting and selecting from the numerous creative contributions of U.S. citizens nationwide. Through the years, these posters have illustrated the rich history of our country's protectors, and continue to remind all who see them of the accomplishments and struggles faced by our Veterans, past and present. From Revolutionary War battles, to an Old Guard soldier rendering a salute in a solemn ceremony, vivid images and artwork call on us to pause and reflect in homage to those who paved the way for our freedom. The poster is distributed to VA facilities and military installations around the world, and graces the cover of the official program for the Veterans Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.

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2015 Fall/Winter 2015 | VANGUARD | Page 35

AN

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WAYS I CARE

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VALUES WE LIVE BY

Secretary’s Honor Award for

I CARE

For Individuals and Teams Recognizing VA’s Core Values of I CARE... Making VA a place people want to serve.

For more information visit: http://go.va.gov/b78m

INTEGRITY

I CARE

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

COMMITMENT

ADVOCACY

RESPECT

EXCELLENCE

Introducing the Secretary's Honor Award Every employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs plays a critical role in supporting our commitment to caring for and serving our Nation’s Veterans, their families, and their beneficiaries. In order to acknowledge those who exemplify the Department’s core values of Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect, and Excellence (I CARE), Secretary McDonald recently established the Honor Award for I CARE. The Honor Award for I CARE can be presented at any time, either by the Secretary as an “on-the-spot” award or through administration nomination. Nominations may be made by peers, supervisors, or subordinates, promoting engagement across the board. The nomination must describe sustained performance or

specific act of a noteworthy nature demonstrating all of the I CARE VA values: Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect and Excellence.

Acts potentially warranting recognition include going above and beyond normal practice in serving Veterans or fellow employees through a specific act or sustained performance.

The standard Honor Award process is followed for this award, and complete guidance and criteria for this award can be found on the I CARE intranet site (VA access required). The nominated employee’s servicing human resources office will conduct a technical review of the nomination package to ensure compliance with award policies. It will then be sent to the staff office director to determine whether the nomination warrants

consideration for an award. If the nomination is deemed appropriate for Secretarial recognition, the staff office director will approve and route the form to the organization’s key official for further consideration. If the organization’s key official concurs, the nomination package will be forwarded to the Office of Human Resources Management, Central Office Human Resources Service (COHRS) for processing as an I CARE Honor Award.

Award recipients will receive a medallion (for individuals) or trophy (for teams) with an accompanying certificate and an I CARE lapel pin. Employees will also be able to share I CARE stories through the “Share your I CARE Story” link on the I CARE website (VA access required).

she wore these.

It’s our job to give her the best care anywhere.

learn more at www.womenshealth.va.gov

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Photo by Crystal Ettridge

Remembering Marion Gray, one of the “Greatest Generation”

By Robert Turtil To those who frequent VA’s Facebook page, you might recognize Marion Charles Gray. He’s the World War II Veteran holding an American flag in the center of our cover photo.

As it happened, the photo was captured by chance when the American flag was presented to him, also by chance, on June 8, 2009. He, his son-inlaw and his grandson were leaving the Normandy American Cemetery in France at the very end of a long anniversary weekend celebrated by thousands of Veterans and world leaders.

However, by that evening, most of the participants had gone home and the anniversary was fast becoming a memory.

A real sadness had come over me and producer Crystal Ettridge when we realized the magical weekend bound by heroes, history, ceremony, and a perfect Norman country-side was rapidly ending. We searched for maybe one more connection before it passed us by.

We drove from Paris back to the cemetery and arrived just as it was closing on that second Monday in June. I roamed at a distance, looking for anyone who might be a Veteran, while Crystal found Gray – immaculate and handsome in his uniform, with his family standing near the flag poles flying American flags, which dominate the sky above nearly 9,500 American dead.

Back then, French cemetery officials would survey visitors and recruit Americans, always looking for Veterans first, to participate in the flag lowering ceremony. On that evening, former Tech. Sgt. Marion Gray was the stand-alone choice.

It was a quiet, little ceremony that moves me each time I revisit it, the thought of sacrifice and worlds lost, and courage, pride and friendship, of American youth dying on the beaches just below, and saving the civilized world.

Marion was there that morning on June 6, 1944.

The young Army medic was with the first waves of invasion forces to hit Omaha Beach.

“I came, today, with hopes of finding the man who served on my right, and the man who served on my left”, he told Ettridge after the ceremony.

They and many other comrades had been on this bluff-top cemetery for nearly 65 years – sacrificing their lives to end tyranny and liberate Europe.

Gray saw the most hideous action on D-Day and was wounded twice that morning when his division took the worst punishment of the assault. Few of his comrades survived.

After spending 30 days in hospital back in England, Gray rejoined his company in Normandy, where they liberated St. Lo, then pushed through Cherbourg, Paris and into Belgium, and then Germany at the war’s end.

He was among the soldiers who liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. Gray was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, French Legion of Honor and other medals.

Gray was born April 10, 1919, in Haydenville, Ohio. He left his pharmacy and pre-med studies at Ohio State University to join the Army on December 8, 1941, the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

Following the war, Gray worked as a chemist, a sales manager and a business owner. He was involved in many community organizations including his church and the Masons.

Sadly, Gray passed away July 28, 2015 in Columbus, Ohio, surrounded by his family. He was 96 years-old. He was survived by two daughters and their husbands, four grandchildren and nine greatgrandchildren, several nieces and nephews and many loving friends.

We would like to thank Marion for allowing his photograph to be used to represent and immortalize American sacrifice and service. He received care at the Chalmers P. Wylie VA Ambulatory Care Center in Columbus, Ohio.

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I’m here to help our Veterans because I understand them. As a mother of four sons who served, and one who gave the ultimate…

I know about the price of freedom and the sacrifices Veterans and their families make.

This is personal. This is MyVA.

Diane, Board of Veterans’ Appeals

Learn more: myva.va.gov