Category CalVet Team
Honoring Legacy: A CalVet Staff Member’s Commitment to Veterans Inspired by Family Military Service
Stories of service that resonate. Stories that inspire. Stories that move us. Many such stories are shared on America’s back porches, in living rooms and, on occasion, around campfires in the woods. Or they are not told at all, which speaks volumes about the impacts of war some veterans experienced. Keith Smothers said the stories […]
CalVet Deputy Secretary’s Native American Military Heritage Spans 138 Years
As California Native American Day (September 27) nears, CalVet salutes the more than 13,200 Native Americans among the state’s 1.5 million military veterans and their families. Add Coby Petersen, CalVet’s deputy secretary for the Veterans Homes Division for the past decade, to the list. Petersen is a retired U.S. Army colonel, is one-quarter Navajo, and […]
Veterans at Your Service: National Hire a Veteran Day Highlights the Benefits They Bring
National Hire a Veteran Day — July 25 — is the day each year we tout the amazing skills, knowledge, and energies our military veterans bring with them into the civilian workplace. It’s not simply a one-day event, though. Employers can and should hire veterans anytime, all the time, and — there’s no time like […]
Yountville’s Chief Doctor Can Attest: Servicemembers’ Fighting Spirit Doesn’t End with Separation from the Armed Forces
Dr. Julie Fields will tell you that once a soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman—always a soldier, sailor, Marine, or airman. “Our veterans, like the active duty sailors and Marines I served, tend to be extremely resilient and sometimes downright stubborn,” said Fields.
CalVet Employee Hollis Had a Say in Creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day
They, too, had a dream. In 1979, after Congress had yet again failed to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a national holiday, a group of students from an Oakland high school refused to take “no” for an answer. To the contrary, the Apollos—members of Oakland Technical High School’s Class of 1981—became students on a […]
Navy Veteran Brings Hot Food, Warm Conversations to Residents at CalVet’s Yountville Home
Joe Raudales decided it was time for a change. His five years in the U.S. Navy included tours of duty in Japan and the Persian Gulf. He served aboard an amphibious ship off the coast of Somalia, and saw duty as an air traffic controller before he separated in 1996. He then spent 23 years […]
Home Is Where the Veteran Is for CalVet’s New West Los Angeles Administrator
As the new administrator, Stephanie Weaver’s goal for the Veterans Home of California-West Los Angeles really is quite simple. “I could end up as a resident here someday,” said Weaver, appointed to the post by Governor Gavin Newsom in September. “I want it to be the best Home in the system. I want for them […]
Securing Embassies, Guarding a President, and Protecting Veterans Education Benefits
Richard Charron spent 30 years in the U.S. Marine Corps protecting everything from classified documents at embassies, to fellow Marines, and even an American president. Today, as an education specialist with CalVet’s California Approving Agency for Veterans Education (CSAAVE), Charron protects veterans by ensuring that the schools who recruit veterans using their Post-9/11 GI Bill […]
From Supporting a U-2 Plane to Supporting Veterans at Yountville Home
In October 2003, the U.S. Air Force sent then-Staff Sgt. Miguel Vargas to the United Arab Emirates in support of a U-2 spy plane hunting down the terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks. “We worked 12-hour shifts, and following one of the reconnaissance missions I participated in, the lead pilot told us we found […]
Helping Veterans Know Their Benefits Is Like A Family Affair for CalTAP Training Coordinator
Jennifer Rudquist recalls her arrival at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas on Thanksgiving Day 1996. Now the recruiting trainer with CalVet’s California Transition Assistance Program (CalTAP), she stepped off a bus that day, into basic training and her brave new world.
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