I Get to Work with Heroes Everyday

I'm Lauri. I'm a United States Army Veteran. I served in Europe, Germany, and in Fort Carson, Colorado. I served six, and then got out and married my husband. And he stayed in for 20. Once I got out, I continued to work for soldiers. I worked in a variety of different jobs for the department of the Army throughout my husband's career. When it was decided that we were going to retire from the military, I worked for the private sector. And my son had been serving for 14 months in Iraq, and had come home after his end of tour. He was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. And three months later, July 4, there was a knock on the door at six o'clock, and there were two soldiers in uniform informing us that our son had been killed. I went to pick up his body and decided almost immediately after I got off the plane and talked with his friends-- and the challenges that they faced with them all surviving Iraq and then coming back and having this happen-- that I was going to quit my job and work with soldiers again. And that's how I became a County Veterans Service Officer. When I took the job, it was cathartic for me to actually work again with the same people that I had such a heart for. They saw in me a couple of different things. They saw a County Veterans Service Officer that was a soldier, the wife of a soldier, the mother of a soldier, and also the mother of a soldier that had been killed. They came in and they saw me, and I could get where they were coming from. I think I have the best job in the world because I get to work with heroes every day. They walk through my door. The only thing that walks through my door is a hero, whether it be the soldier, the Veteran, or the family. I think that they're all heroes, and it's great. My job is to find the best plan for the Veteran that walks in the door. The biggest part is finding the opportunity for them to create their new normal. We can't make anybody who they were even yesterday, so we just need to make sure that we honor everything that they've gone through. There are memories and there's trauma that you go through, but we need to honor that and get them to move forward. And part of that is developing a new normal. And if one option isn't going to work, then we go on to the next one. The first one might not always fit, whether it's the VA, a Vet center, private psychiatric care. But then we go to the next. Katie is a psychiatric assistance dog. In my office, we found that Veterans telling their stories was really difficult. And one way that we found that alleviated some of the pressure was being able to talk to a dog. It's just like a child. A child will tell a dog many things it'll never tell its parents. And so Katie comes in, and she's actually trained to feel or sense the anxiety in someone. Katie keys off of adrenalin. And so if the anxiety level goes up, Katie can sense that and just comes and lays her head on your lap. We find a couple of different-- the retirees. They've been busy, which is one way to deal with PTSD in battle trauma is to keep busy and try not to think about it. Then all of a sudden, you retire. And you're sitting at home, and you start thinking about your life a little bit more when you come to that retirement age. And it really brings back a lot of memories that guys hadn't thought of for years and years, if ever. And they don't know why now. Another big issue is an aunt and uncle or a grandparent that has a grandchild, or a niece or nephew, that all of a sudden will go off to Iraq or Afghanistan, and had been fine all these years. Saying that goodbye or knowing that they're there and having to watch the news will bring it all back. And so you struggle then with why now? And they're the same issues that the younger generation is dealing with. We just take it step by step and say, it's valid. It's a trigger that has happened, and we need to deal with that and find you the best assistance that we can. In my office, I have a saying when a Vet comes in. It doesn't matter if they're 92 or 19. I say in my office, you've come in, let me try to help you, but you're going to get the finger. And this is the finger. There have been a lot of people that have sat there in that chair that have said the same things. It'll never work. I can't get help. And they come back. And we give them five fingers at that point, and shake their hand and say, you did it. We'll continue to work on it. When they find out that they're not the first person that's ever sat there and said, I don't know what to do, well then let's figure it out together. You're not alone.