RETIRING YOUR BOOTS: Caring for America's Heroes

From fighting alongside our nation’s military both mentally and emotionally during their service to being there every step of the journey afterwards, Military Caregivers have earned the right to say “I have served.” Throughout the month of May, many organizations and the general public celebrate the Month of the Military Caregiver as a way to spread awareness on the needs an accomplishments of the 5.5 million military caregivers across the country, 1.1 million of which care for post-9/11 veterans. (RAND study on Military Caregivers)

Who are Military Caregivers?

The “formal” definition would be a family member, friend, or acquaintance who provides a broad range of care and assistance for, or manages the care of, a current or former military servicemember with a disabling physical or mental injury or illness…

Let’s be REAL…

These individuals provide countless and often around the clock care without expectations of their own benefits. Each of them hold multiple job titles, what they do is different case by case but can only be described by those individuals themselves. Here are a few that were mentioned…

Wife, caregiver, mother, taxi-cab, untrained nurse, wheelchair mechanic, wound care attendant, a crutch, a cane, a permanent wheelchair pusher, pharmacist, chef, secretary….. the list goes WAY on, some even too personal to share publicly.

The essential role of the caregiver is becoming more well-known and the care being provided by these heroes is enabling veterans to live a better-quality life with more focus on the rehabilitation and recovery phase. What support is needed? That’s a loaded question and sometimes the answer isn’t determined for quite some time or additional health issues arise that change the prospective situation. Determining the needs is a tedious task often left unresolved in return.

How WE help:

The Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes recognized a need for support while working with Veteran families through the Heroes Thanking Heroes employment program. We are able to get to know these caregivers on a personal level and offer support in their times of emergency needs. To better serve the veterans we help, we created a free membership program called Veteran Circle. The membership makes them eligible for many free gifts and services such as holiday meal checks, educational training through Skillsoft, a dental and vision discount plan, retreats, and more. More importantly, we lend an ear. We call to check in with these families periodically to see if additional support is needed and how we may be able to help.

We work with many caregivers who over time have experienced or are experiencing ‘caregiver burnout’ where they’ve started to feel depression and anxiety and just need something in their lives to make them feel accomplished again. Many leave their full-time jobs at the drop of a time when they receive the dreaded phone call that their spouse has been injured. They sacrifice what they imagined their life would become but they do it out of love and most wouldn’t have it any other way. Selfless. They are so selfless. Through the Heroes Thanking Heroes program, many of them are able to find self-worth again along with develop bonds with others who may not share the same struggles, yet still very well understand the logic and the challenges.

“We are a family and we help each other every chance we get, no judgement when we just need to vent on the bad days and then incredible support when we share about the good days.” -HTH representative/military caregiver

Another rewarding feature of our Veteran Circle program is that we have closed private Facebook groups set up for both the Veterans AND the caregivers registered in the program. This is a safe, supportive place for them to get to know each other, share their journey, and support each other. We have some phenomenal caregivers in our group and with their permission we have highlighted a few of them in our short video above that we hope you will take the time to watch. Each of these incredible people deserve the utmost appreciation for their service. A simple “Thank you” can go a long way so please join us as we show our appreciation throughout the month to some very special Military Caregivers.