8 minute read
Healing connections
from Salute to Veterans
by Echo Press
We are here to help them, to help the veterans make that connection,” she said. “The healing is so worth it.
MICHELLE MILLER Founder, USA Military Directory on Facebook
HEALINGConnections
Facebook group helps veterans reunite with other veterans
By Celeste Edenloff
Michelle Miller of Alexandria is a military brat. Her family moved all the time while she was growing up. She has been to 47 states, lived in many, plus has been in and lived in a few countries. This means she has met hundreds of people, making dear friends along the way, but also losing touch with many.
Because of that, Miller, who has lived in the Alexandria area since 1986 and is a 1990 Alexandria graduate, said she formed the largest military brat group on Facebook. She did this in order to reconnect with people – other military brats – she’s met, friends she’s made but has lost track of.
While doing a search one day a few years back, her father, Lt. Col. Michael Steele, who was a chaplain in the Army Special Forces before passing away two and a half years ago, was intrigued by the fact that she could find people from her past.
He asked her how she could do it so fast and if she could do a search for him. She told him that of course she would help him out.
“He started rattling off all these names of people he wanted me to find,” she said.
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Miller explained that her father suffered from PTSD from being in the military. He wanted to talk with others he served with, and who knew and understood where he was coming from. She said it wasn’t that her father didn’t want to talk with her or other family members, but it was easier and more therapeutic for him to talk with those who had been through the same thing he had been through.
She connected him with people he had served with and she saw what it did for him.
“It was the greatest and biggest healing gift I could’ve given him,” she said.
When she saw the healing that took place within her dad, she wanted to try and do that for other military men and women who could benefit from connecting with others they had served with.
And so, she made the decision to start another Facebook group – the USA Military Directory.
MILLER
Page 26
Michelle Miller formed the USA Military Directory Facebook group and is pictured with the group’s two administrators, Al Alvord (left) and Rog Hamann, who are both veterans.
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MILLER From page 25
She founded the group in May 2013 and within two days she had around 1,000 members. The private Facebook group now boasts more than 30,000 members.
Miller offers her service of connecting people with long-lost military friends and family members for free.
“I will not charge them,” she said. “They’ve already served and gave to their country, they don’t need to be charged.”
The group is only open to service men and women, and before a person is accepted into the group, Miller verifies that they are or were in the military. In essence, Miller’s job she said, is like being a private investigator as she searches for people.
“If you are hiding, I can find you,” she said with laughter.
Because of what she does and the information she receives about people, she does everything using complete confidentiality, she said. Miller will share information she receives with the person looking and within the group. Michelle Miller of Alexandria is pictured with her son, Jared Torgerson, who served in the United States Army.
“We do take the safety of the groups’ security seriously so no one can get into the group to see this information except the military people in the group,” she said, adding that most of the information is public but people have to pay to get it. She does that, but still doesn’t charge her clients.
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To date, she has performed more than 100,000 searches and has two administrators – Al Alvord and Rog Hamann, both veterans – who help her manage the group and work on cases.
The average number of requests, or cases, can be anywhere from 10 to 20 per day, which takes up a lot of their time. And for Miller, who owns and operates a full-time cleaning business, it is a lot of time spent on her computer and/or phone and time away from her own family.
But to her it is all worth it. And she feels it is her calling. She belongs to several groups on Facebook and manages or owns 11 different groups, most are military-based.
Helping other veterans like she helped her father is special to her, especially now that her father is gone, she said.
“I can’t not let a veteran get that kind of healing like my dad got,” she said. “You just can’t put a price on that. I know how important it is. I saw it with my dad. I put a lot of money into this, but it is my way of giving back to the veterans.”
Just this past year, Miller turned her Facebook group into more and it is now a nonprofit organization with a board of directors and she is now accepting donations.
“I broke my own rule and started taking donations after not being able to work when COVID-19 hit,” she said. “But also, I honestly didn’t think it would get this big.”
Founder of the USA Military Directory, Michelle Miller has several ties to the military, including her brother Stephen Steele who served in the United States Navy and her father, Lt. Col. Michael Steele, who was a chaplain in the Army Special Forces.
Miller said even if she “We are here to help them, doesn’t get the donations, she to help the veterans make that will still keep searching and connection,” she said. “The helping veterans get in touch healing is so worth it.” with whoever they need to Miller can be reached via connect with. email at usamilitarydirectory@ gmail.com.
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QWhich is the correct spelling of Veterans Day? a. Veterans Day b. Veteran’s Day c. Veterans’ Day AVeterans Day (choice a, above). Veterans Day does not include an apostrophe but does include an “s” at the end of “veterans” because it is not a day that “belongs” to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.
Mark Hovland of Fergus Falls Monument Company checks the last of the 215 names he added to the Alexandria Veterans Memorial Park in October. He sandblasts the letters through a rubber sheet, which helps keep the edges crisp. Park organizers are continuing to accept new names. For more information, visit alexveteranspark.org.
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