Let’s not forget this group when we say ‘thank you for your service’ on Veterans Day

There I was, in the middle of a prison, with all their eyes on me. I was there for one purpose — to teach incarcerated veterans how to cope with anger and stress. I gave my lesson and then I sat and listened to every inmate. Each veteran shared their story, their struggles and their hopes. And at the end of the lesson, all I could think of was another fellow soldier: my husband.

I joined the military in 1982. Competitive by nature, I’d seen my younger brother sign up and I thought, “If he can do it, then I can definitely do it!” I was so proud to be the first female in my family to join and once I got through basic training, I felt like I could achieve anything.

As a cadet, I met a Black female major who became my mentor. I had never seen women officers of color before — I was completely inspired by her. She encouraged me to make my way out of the housing projects in New York City, and that’s just what I did. I became a strong military officer and leader.

I served during Desert Storm. It was an unusual time to find love, but I did. After we married, he deployed overseas to combat. When I became a mom, I made the tough decision to leave the military, but transitioning to civilian life was hard. Initially, I thought my husband and I would continue to walk in lockstep, but unfortunately, that did not happen. My husband struggled with severe PTSD, but he never sought help, and after two decades of marriage, I lost him — only 52 years old — to a fatal heart attack in 2016. The blow left me widowed and rudderless.

I needed to transition my pain into purpose. So, I moved to South Carolina the following year and linked up with the American Red Cross. When I heard they had a program that supported veterans inside prison, I raised my hand to serve a second time. After background checks and many training sessions, I was ready. I had spent my civilian life as an educator and counselor for youth, but this time, I would use my skills to help my veteran community.

Justice-involved veterans

Prior to my first day, my eyes were opened. I had no idea there were over 180,000 veterans incarcerated and that more than half of these veterans suffer from PTSD. A large percentage had been homeless, or at-risk for homelessness, and faced challenges like unemployment and trouble reintegrating into society. I also learned that this population was diverse — all ages, races and socio-economic backgrounds made up this group known as justice-involved veterans.

Walking into the MacDougall Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, South Carolina, I started off hesitantly. Veterans from different eras were sitting in groups in a room. Each with little in common besides their service to our country. Their faces screamed, “What can she possibly teach me?”

I decided to speak to them as a veteran, a military spouse and a military mom, not as a superior. I shared vulnerable stories of my husband’s tough transition into civilian life. I shared with them how his PTSD manifested itself through unpredictable bouts of anxiety and deep periods of depression. When I opened up about how my husband felt about the civilian workforce and civilian work ethic — that it sometimes wasn’t team or mission-focused like the military — it really resonated with them. And I also walked them through the steps of the Red Cross workshop. My words connected with them.

One by one they shared their name, their branch of service and how they identified with my husband’s experiences.

Resoundingly, I heard that they didn’t know how to navigate life outside of the military either. They had achieved a certain rank and then felt like it didn’t matter — like they had lost it all — when they returned to civilian life. Civilians in the workforce were foreign to them. As one veteran told me, civilians “fought against each other and didn’t work for one mission.” An overwhelming majority of the veterans I worked with told me that they felt like they suffered from PTSD and that it severely hindered them. They repeatedly shared with me that they did not know how to manage outside of the structured military life.

These men were starving for tools to help them cope with their lives. It was clear they didn’t want my pity, but they wanted to know I could see them as veterans and not just simply as inmates.

I continued these courses for seven weeks and our group became a community of learning. Each veteran learned that they had the freedom to be vulnerable and that anger and stress could affect them physically. By the end of the workshop, these men were working together on how to defuse their anger, how to manage stress, how to best communicate with their family members without getting angry and how to set goals for when they are released from prison.

In one session, a former drill sergeant confessed he wanted to take this experience and become better friends with his ex-wife because they had “created a beautiful soul together”– their daughter. He could use these skills to reconnect with his daughter. Although my husband wasn’t a justice-involved veteran, with each session, I kept thinking back and wished that my husband had reached out and taken courses like this. I didn’t want another veteran to suffer from the same things he went through. One by one, each justice-involved veteran completed the courses and received their certificate of completion.

People frequently ask me: “Is it okay to honor incarcerated veterans?” My answer is yes. Incarcerated veterans are our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, who have made a bad choice. My goal is to help them never make that choice again. We should support justice-involved veterans by not dismissing their service. Despite being incarcerated, there was a time when they set aside their own lives to serve this country and it shouldn’t be forgotten. When we say “thank you for your service,” it should, without a doubt, include them.