No, I'm not a Veteran.

This is usually the first thing I say when people ask me my connection to Veterans Bridge Home. They are, affectionately, the only non-profit I regularly work with. And that’s a conscious decision.

The next question is usually if my dad was in the military (less often I get asked if my parents were in the military. Ladies can be soldiers, y’all).

But, no. Neither were.

In fact, the closest military connection to me would be my Uncle who was stationed in Pensacola in the 1970’s. I attended a few ROTC Military Balls in college, and I wrote letters to a high school friend who joined the Army after graduation (2003) and was stationed in Iraq for a bit. I guess you could say I have always been military-adjacent.

It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that this military-adjacent relationship made much more sense.

I was 16 when 9/11 happened and, like most of my generation, we were sitting in our classrooms watching an event that we did not, could not, understand the gravity of. From this, trauma narratives in the classroom became a field of study in writing, albeit in its infancy.

I had begun to experience this as a professor at a community college - the line between teacher and therapist would sometimes become so blurred, I did not know how best to serve my students. I could not diagnose them with depression or anxiety. I could point them in the direction of the counseling offices on campus, but was that enough? I decided, at the very least, I could provide a safe space for them to write their thoughts on a piece of paper and feel heard.

A segment of the study of trauma narratives focuses on Veterans and providing a safe space for their experience. This can look like writing during active duty, but it can also look like “story-telling” when Veterans are transitioning out of the military. This story-telling helps to make sense of the paths our lives take. It allows us to reflect on what once was and where we might go - even if we’re not sure.

I was an adjunct professor at UNC-Charlotte when a Veteran who was loosely connected with Veterans Bridge Home reached out and asked for teacher volunteers to lead a writing group for Veterans. Two of us raised our hands. Our first meeting had no attendees. Our second meeting… also no attendees. It wasn’t until our third (or possibly fourth) that three female Veterans showed up.

Some months we had more attendees and some months less. But this was the start of a beautiful friendship. By that fourth meeting, I was, personally, going through my own transition - a divorce and uprooting my life without any support system in Charlotte. The same was true of many of the Veterans in our group. With their separation from the military, they felt lost, and Veterans Bridge Home provided the resources and community they needed to find their footing.

Unconsciously, VBH also did this for me. I became close friends with members of that writing group and then with leaders within the organization. In fact, I’m pretty sure I emailed now Executive Director Blake Bourne several times without response. It wasn’t until he actually saw my face in person during one of the writing group meetings that he knew who I was. I introduced myself. He squinted at me. “Oh right,” he said, “You’ve been emailing me.”

Since then, I’ve worked with him and his team on brand messaging, videos, photography and pop-up Tweet-storm/Facebook Live events. He also answers my emails now.

I can’t name all the ways that this organization has supported me, a non-Veteran, and by extension - my family. Community is community. Good people are good people.

Whether you know a Veteran or not, consider donating this Veteran’s Day.