After Veterans Day the Work of Showing Up Continues

I come from a family filled with military veterans. My grandfather served. My uncles and cousins served. My father and brother served. The conversation about what it means to put on that uniform is not abstract for me. It’s deeply personal, shaped by people I love and by the trauma and triumph I have witnessed in their lives. 

I've experienced moments of enormous pride, and I've identified reasons to wish our country understood more fully what it asks of those who serve. Furthermore, what coming home requires of both families and civilians; because assimilation after war and special operations isn’t as easy as walking back into the office after vacation. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The soldier’s “office” is in the field, in the war room, among brothers and sisters in arms who understand the oath they have taken—and the consequences of fulfilling it, however difficult or horrific they may be.

My personal experience and front row seat to the aftermath of war, and the scars it inevitably leaves, have made me wary of easy narratives and one-size-fits-all solutions to the problems created by the war machine. Here's the truth: veterans are individuals, with different histories, ambitions, injuries, and ways of moving forward. Some need practical assistance. Others need connection, an opportunity to speak, or help securing a future for their children. Most often, those needs overlap.

Every November, we thank our Veterans. And each time we do, I find myself thinking more about what happens afterward.

The government has an obligation to care for those it sends into service, and too often, it falls short. Families live with the distance between what is promised and what is actually available. Public benefits matter enormously. So do the needs that remain beyond them: belonging, independence, a marriage under strain, a story someone has never found the words to tell.

The good news? Across the country, citizens are taking responsibility for that unfinished work. Veterans, military spouses, donors, artists, and public figures are building organizations with specific missions and deeply human approaches.

Four, in particular, offer a compelling picture of what sustained gratitude can accomplish.

Gary Sinise Foundation: Making Gratitude Tangible

Most of us first encountered Gary Sinise as an actor. His portrayal of Lieutenant Dan Taylor in Forrest Gump remains inseparable from our cultural understanding of the wounded veteran—you simply cannot unsee it. His commitment to military communities, however, extends well beyond that role. Established in 2011, his foundation serves veterans, active-duty service members, first responders, and the families who sacrifice alongside them.

Its reach reflects the range of challenges those communities face. Through R.I.S.E.—Restoring Independence, Supporting Empowerment—the foundation builds specially adapted, mortgage-free smart homes for severely wounded heroes. A home designed around someone's physical needs can restore everyday freedoms while easing the demands on a caregiver.

Other programs address grief and connection. Snowball Express is an annual healing experience at Walt Disney World Resort and brings children and surviving spouses of fallen military and first responder heroes together for an incredible series of events. Concerts by Gary Sinise & the Lt. Dan Band create opportunities to gather and celebrate.

What moves me is the attention to ordinary life within this extraordinary effort. Independence at home. Time with people who understand loss. An evening of music. These are tangible expressions of care, delivered through a public figure who has made service a sustained commitment rather than a photo op.

Nightstalker Foundation: Strengthening the Family

The Nightstalker Foundation brings the focus closer, serving the community surrounding the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Its family programming addresses a reality that can disappear behind public admiration for military excellence: relationships require care, especially when service repeatedly asks families to adapt.

In my conversation with family programs director Katie Palenzuela, she described programming built around coping, communication, and connection. Couples and family retreats, workshops, and summer camps provide opportunities to strengthen relationships. Child care helps make participation possible. Strengths-based coaching gives parents, couples, and teenagers tools for understanding themselves and one another.

There is something profoundly practical about that approach. A family can feel proud of its service member and still struggle with separation, uncertainty, and the work of reconnecting. Supporting that family means making room for both truths.

Palenzuela also spoke about a familiar obstacle: the difficulty of asking for help in a community accustomed to figuring things out.

That stayed with me. We admire self-reliance, sometimes without considering how lonely it can become. A workshop or retreat creates an invitation to connect before a family reaches a breaking point.

The foundation's privately funded work reminds us that caring for military communities includes the spouses and children carrying responsibilities that rarely receive public attention. Their well-being deserves deliberate investment, too.

Folds of Honor: Investing in What Comes Next

Folds of Honor concentrates its work on education, providing scholarships to spouses and children of fallen or disabled service members and first responders. Its mission recognizes how a loved one's death or disability can alter a family's financial future alongside its emotional life.

When I spoke with Jenner Kreifels, the organization’s Director of Impact, the clarity of that focus stood out. Education is the organization's central commitment. Through support for qualifying K–12 needs and higher education, it helps families pursue opportunities that might otherwise become more difficult to reach.

Military scholarships are based on unmet educational needs, with awards of up to $5,000 annually. The assistance can help close a consequential gap between other available resources and the actual cost of continuing an education. Behind those guidelines are individual ambitions: a child who needs educational support, a student pursuing a degree, a spouse preparing for a new professional chapter. Each deserves room to imagine a future.

For families whose lives have been reshaped by service, that investment carries a particular meaning. Their loved one's sacrifice remains part of their story, while education creates possibilities for the chapters ahead. It is a powerful way for donors and corporate partners to turn appreciation into opportunity.

CreatiVets: Finding a Language for Experience

As a writer and producer, I am particularly drawn to CreatiVets and its belief in creative expression. The organization helps wounded veterans explore service-related trauma through music and art, offering ways to communicate experiences that can be difficult—sometimes impossible—to discuss directly.

Its songwriting program pairs veterans with accomplished songwriters and artists in Nashville, Tennessee. A veteran who has already completed the program helps welcome the participant into the experience. Together, they create a song rooted in that veteran's story, recorded for the participant to keep and share.

Consider what that can make possible: a family hearing something their loved one has struggled to explain, or a veteran discovering another way to express grief, memory, and love. That is the stuff of real healing.

CreatiVets also offers visual arts programming, including opportunities for disabled veterans to work with instructors, explore studio practices, and share their work. The creative process provides another avenue for expression and connection.

I believe deeply in the power of stories to help us understand one another. Here, that belief has a practical application. Veterans become authors and artists with something to say, and people around them have an opportunity to listen.

After the Thank You

Coming from a military family has taught me that pride and pain can inhabit the same life. Acknowledging one should make us more attentive to the other. These four organizations approach that responsibility differently. Together, they invite the rest of us to participate: through financial support, time, professional skills, or a willingness to learn what a particular community needs.

This Veterans Day, I am grateful for the people doing that work. They give us concrete ways to honor those who have served, and reasons to keep showing up when November 11 has passed.

Please take a moment to learn more about these organizations and consider donating to one of their causes. Furthermore, please check out our “Veteran-Owned Businesses Holiday Gift Guide” and support the great work, craftsmanship, and art of a Veteran this holiday season.