Veterans Serving Veterans
Last month I went to Louisville, KY to teach a group of 19 veterans to serve as doulas for dying veterans in their community. This was one of the pro bono trainings that we do each year. As you may know, INELDA is committed to offering training classes for inmates in prison and veterans at no cost, so they can serve the dying in their communities.
This was our first class of veterans and it was extremely successful on a number of fronts. The veterans were amazingly engaged in the material and even deeply moved by what they learned. On occasion, the sharing in the class brought out some real emotion from a group of mostly men, who usually keep their emotions tightly held inside. “The guys loved the training,” said Lin Kalson, the veteran who initially asked INELDA to bring a training to fellow veterans in Louisville. “When I checked in with the others, they all said they learned a terrific amount and just wanted to know where we go from here.’”
Out of the 19 veterans in the class, 15 were men and 4 were women. There were veterans from the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy. Ten out of the 19 had served in combat; eight of them in Vietnam, two in the Gulf War. So, this group understood well how comforting it can be for a dying veteran to have another veteran at the bedside who shared their experience of military life and the traumas of combat. The dedication to service of brothers and sisters in arms is just a part of their DNA and was palpable throughout the two days of training.
Louisville is located along the Ohio River that separates it from Indiana. Louisville’s city limits fill all of Jefferson County. The population is 741,000, 49, 500 of them veterans. If the surrounding counties to Jefferson—within about an hour’s drive—are included, then the population of veterans increases to 91,600. So, the area has an unusually high concentration of veterans. Besides the beauty of the area and its more laid-back life style, one of the other reasons for the large number of veterans is the proximity to Ft. Knox, just about an hour and a half south west of Louisville. Ft. Knox alone has a population of over 20,000, making it a small city.
If we use the Kentucky state average for the ages of veterans, then 55% of those 91,600 veterans are over 60 years old; 13% are over 80 years old. So, it’s easy to see that a program of veterans serving fellow veterans at the end of life would be incredibly important in the Louisville area. Another reason is the high percentage of veterans served by Hosparus Health, the only hospice in Louisville and the surrounding eight counties. That hospice serves an average of 1,800 patients each day, 10% of whom are veterans.
Based on the activity that followed the class, it looks like the INELDA training will lead to an active program of veterans serving their dying compatriots. Just a week after the training many of those who attended met to discuss how they would move ahead. They agreed that one of the first steps was to become volunteers at Hosparus Health, which already has some programs focused on veterans. Then Lin Kalson and another veteran, Bob Hamilton, who played a major role in recruiting the group of veterans for the training, met with the Volunteer Coordinator and other staff of Hosparus. It was agreed that the group of veterans who had trained with INELDA would be eligible to work as volunteer doulas. They would serve their fellow veterans by working on legacy projects, planning for the last days, and sitting vigil.
Hosparus set up an orientation for the new veterans, and just last week, Bob Hamilton was assigned his first veteran patient. The group from the training have also decided to meet on the fourth Tuesday of every month to support each other as they become more involved in serving as doulas.
Lin and Bob both have extensive experience in helping veterans. Lin trained as a doula with INELDA in Atlanta earlier in the year. She is an Air Force veteran who served as a medical corpsman from 1978-1981. She is currently the Veterans Service Officer for the state of Kentucky with the nonprofit organization Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), serving catastrophic and neurologically disabled veterans. She is a nurse and trained in marriage and family therapy. Bob served as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. Bob is a retired pilot from UPS and has years of leadership experience serving victims of fatal aviation accidents. He is also a Certified Grief Counselor, and a member of VFW Post 1170 in Louisville.
In addition to the nascent veteran doula program at Hosparus, it looks like there will be other opportunities to serve veterans in the Louisville area. There is a long-term care facility in Radcliff, KY that serves veterans and is associated with Ft. Knox. That facility has beds for 60 veterans and is run by the state. Lin Kalson will be reaching out to the facility to see if the veteran doulas might be able to serve there as well. She will also discuss with staff the possibility of starting its own veterans’ doula program.
Lin and Bob have already heard from 6 veterans who missed the class last month and want to be trained. Lin said that she and Bob will soon reach out again to the veterans in the area to see if they can recruit another class of veterans for a 2019 training.
As has been true of other pro bono work conducted by INELDA, this training wouldn’t have happened without people from the selected communities reaching out to us. For this training those people were Lin Kalson and Bob Hamilton. Their efforts also resulted in Hosparus Health becoming interested in the project. In the end Hosparus supported the training by paying for my travel expenses and supplying lunch on both days to the class. We also have to acknowledge Calvin Shaak, Commander of the local VFW Post 1170, who offered us use of the Post’s large hall for free.
INELDA is hoping to do even more pro bono work in 2019 than we were able to do this year. We just recently received an incredibly generous grant from the Gutenstein Family Foundation to support our efforts to create doula programs in prisons, veterans’ groups, and other underserved communities. If you know of such a community that would be interested in building a doula program or enriching an existing hospice program serving such a community, please let us know by sending an email to [email protected].
