FROM A BAND OF BROTHERS TO SERVINGTOGETHER IN THE NATION’S CAPITAL
EveryMind’s CEO, Ann Mazur reflects on the meaning of Memorial Day.
When my dad’s carrier was hit by Kamikazes, they kept fighting. When his Torpedo bomber was shot to pieces and half the tail was gone, they kept flying. When the war was over, like millions of others, they came home, went to work and raised families; they kept doing. A child of the depression, “make do” and “drive on” is what he did. That’s why this Memorial Day I am particularly proud to honor him, Bernard Lewis, not with platitudes or monuments, but with a tale of service of my own, now a generation removed, caring today for those who served in our nation’s armed forces, right here in the nation’s capital, perhaps the last place in this modern age of rhetoric of service anyone would expect to hear powerfully positive things about.
So on this national holiday, the one I think about my dad most on – and while we honor his legacy and the Band of Brothers who have protected us for 240 years – my colleagues and partners at over 70 local human services agencies and nonprofits working here in the shadows of those who send young men and women into war, will introduce a newly imagined network of coordinated services and care for veterans, service members and their families. My dad, once an 18-year old Navy radioman turned belly-turret gunner who went on to a career at the FAA, would be proud to learn that his daughter is helping to lead such an important mission to serve our military connected families best, one connected to a larger movement to transform the way our communities collectively serve people better.