Hero's Bridge Cares for Elderly Veterans


Every Wednesday, Wreaths Across America Radio shares information and insights from other like-minded individuals, groups and organizations that support military veterans and their families. 

In a recent broadcast of Mission Matters, Wreaths Across America’s Executive Director Karen Worcester spoke with Lt. Col. David Benhoff U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) and Molly Brooks, RN-BC, CHPCA with Hero’s Bridge, the Virginia-based nonprofit, which serves the needs of our elderly veterans. 

David joined the USMC in 1986 after graduating from Virginia Military Institute. He was deployed to Panama for Operation Just Cause. After four years of service he resigned from his active commission taking reserve and went into teaching for a period of time. David said after the terror attacks of  9-11-2001 he volunteered once again for active duty as an intelligence officer ultimately being assigned to the Marine Corps History Division. He deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan to document and record the history of what was unfolding.

“As a field historian I traveled around the areas of operations and interviewed soldiers with all services, Iraqis, and Afghan collecting history in the making.” 

David retired in 2012 and found himself attracted to palliative and hospice care specifically for veterans. He and Molly Brooks would go on to establish the nonprofit, Hero’s Bridge to support aging veterans who are falling through the “cracks” in the system. 

Hero’s Bridge has four key principles that drive its mission; always remain centric to the older veteran, no red tape, no passing the buck and never leave a man behind.

As a young girl growing up, Molly watched her father, who served 23 years in the Marine Corps, with his challenges reintegrating to society after more than one tour of duty during the Vietnam War. Later in life as a nurse she saw the medical challenges faced by her father and other veterans as they aged. Those medical problems may have been the direct result of their service and exposure to chemicals decades earlier. 

“As David and I have discovered, many veterans who have tried to suppress war-related issues find they resurface with the stressors of age,” Molly explains. “We started helping veterans informally around 2010 and we found the needs of our older veterans are a lot different than the needs of younger veterans.” 

While Hero’s Bridge serves the metro DC area primarily, Molly says the word spreads quickly when an elderly veteran requires support.

“We assisted an older veteran couple who had a house fire in Arizona, we’ve helped a veteran in New Jersey whose heating system broke down last winter so we’re getting more and more calls from all over the country.” 

Molly says their program offerings include, but are not limited to, a Corps of Engineers for home maintenance chores and modifications, Battle Buddy which pairs an older veteran with a younger veteran companion, and Paw Patrol which provides “friendly visits and unconditional love” from our furry friends.

You can hear more from Molly and David in this archived episodeof Mission Matters. 

A new Mission Matters episode airs at 7:00 AM and again at 7:00 PM eastern time on http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/radio