Windle Jarvis
Executive Director, Miles for Military
When a Marine mom flew her son home from Camp Lejeune for Thanksgiving, the ticket cost $900. It was so expensive that she wondered how all of his friends were affording the flights. His answer: “Mom, no one goes home.” Maureen Byrne decided that this was a problem she could do something about.
She ultimately created a way for junior enlisted troops to earn their way home: they volunteer 25 hours in their new community, and Miles for Military buys their flight home. Executive director Windle Jarvis joins Tell Me What It’s Like to explain why so many young service members can’t afford the trip, why the volunteer component matters for morale, and what it’s like to help bring so many young service members home to their families.
“It’s basically a money problem. If you’ve got the money to buy the tickets, you can get them home. And so that’s what we realized, and we built a simple solution to that.”
Hear Windle talk about:
How a $900 Thanksgiving flight led one mom to start a nonprofit
What most civilians don’t understand about young enlisted service members
How 25 hours of volunteering earns a ticket home, and where service members can volunteer
How volunteering improves morale by getting service members out of the barracks and into the community
What it’s like to be at the airport when a service member comes home to family
Mentioned in this episode:
Do you run a nonprofit near a military base that could use volunteers? Email info@milesformilitary.org
USO, American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, some of the most popular places Miles for Military flyers volunteer
About Windle Jarvis
Windle Jarvis is the Executive Director of Miles for Military, a nonprofit organization that helps fly active-duty junior enlisted service members home to their families. Windle has over 15 years of fundraising and non-profit management experience and is working to help even more service members get home for the moments that matter.
“ They’re building community as they volunteer, which is an important piece of that, and then they get to go home and see their families.”
Episode 51: Transcript
Read the Full Transcript
Stacy Raine: This is Tell Me What It’s Like, a show about uncommon experiences and the perspectives they shape. I’m Stacy Raine. Every year, more than 100,000 young men and women enlist in the United States military. They go through training, and then they get sent to bases all over the world as part of their service to the United States. And then eventually, the holidays come around. Some can afford to fly home and some cannot.
Windle Jarvis is the executive director of Miles for Military, a nonprofit that flies junior service members home for the moments that matter. Windle, welcome to Tell Me What It’s Like.
Windle Jarvis: Stacy, thanks for having me on. It’s a pleasure to be here with you, and I love the title of the show. Tell Me What It’s Like is a great first question.
Stacy: I am so thrilled to have you, so thank you for joining me. Well, it is a great first question, so let’s get right to it. You work at Miles for Military. You’re bringing military members, service members home. Let’s start with how this whole organization got started and then what it’s like for you to be a part of it.
How Miles for Military Got Started
Windle: Well, I appreciate that. It’s a great place to start. Something someone told me early in my career was a great opener in a meeting when you’re first getting to know someone is, “Tell me your story.” And I think the story of Miles for Military is a powerful one, and it’s one that shows that it doesn’t take much to get something off the ground. It takes a good idea, and it takes real commitment and grit.
Our founder is Maureen Byrne, who was the mother of an enlisted Marine. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune, and it’s one of these kind of great American stories because Maureen had never started a nonprofit before. But her son was one of the few guys whose family could afford to bring him back for the holidays.
The way she tells it, there was one Thanksgiving where he came back from Camp Lejeune up to Boston, and the flight was nine hundred dollars. And Maureen asked him, “How on earth are your friends getting home? How do people afford to do this?” And he said, “Mom, no one goes home. They’re eating Thanksgiving dinner in the chow hall.”
And she just thought that was unbelievable and had no idea that there wasn’t a program to help get service members home, for Marines or any branch. And so she set out to do something about it, like the social entrepreneur that she is. She said, “Well, my son’s been volunteering some weekends, and that seems to be getting him out of the barracks. He’s starting to build friendships with others who are volunteering, and we’re able to get him a flight home. So what if I built this organization that didn’t just buy a flight for service members, which would be a nice thing to do, but actually got them out in the community, and there’s a volunteer component?”
So she had this idea that service members could do twenty-five hours of volunteer service, and then Miles for Military would buy them a ticket home, as long as they’re E1 to E4, so junior enlisted and active duty. And she set out to build that model and took a class with actually a former boss of mine at Harvard Business School on nonprofit management, because she wanted to figure out how to start something. Everything from getting your 501(c)(3) status to how to fundraise and build a successful long-term business.
So she got this thing going with basically just blood and sweat and a lot of dedication. The chairman of our board is a fantastic man named Geoff Rehnert. She’s a longtime friend of his, and I am too. She brought this idea to him and said, “This is, I think, a creative idea. What do you think about it?” He said, “Boy, I think that’s a pretty amazing thing. And I had no idea this was an issue, that our service members couldn’t get home.” So he has been our seed investor and then recruited me over to run the organization.
And it’s been incredibly fulfilling. I’ve been here a little over a year, a year and a week this week. The growth that we’ve seen is tremendous. And the lives that we’re touching, it makes a huge difference day to day because we’re all mission-driven here.
From 49 Flights to Thousands
Stacy: Quickly tell me about that growth. It’s a year-old organization. That’s not very old, right? But you guys have already done quite a bit in terms of how many young service members you’re getting home.
Windle: You’re right. If you look back, 2024 was really our first year operating at any sort of scale. We flew 49 service members home. I think two were soldiers from Fort Bragg, and the other 47 were Marines from Camp Lejeune. That was really a couple of donors coming in and helping Maureen, and some volunteers getting the flights and kind of running the program and getting it off the ground.
And then last year, I got hired in October, and our goal for the year was 500 service members flown. We were honestly having some trouble getting a lot of pickup because we had been trying to figure out how to advertise for it. And when you’ve got a free service, right? It’s an earned thing. You assume there’s gonna be this big pickup, but people see a free thing and they go, “Well, that sounds too good to be true.” So we had to overcome that obstacle.
We ended up flying 540 last year, and our stretch goal this year is 5,000. My guess is we’re gonna fly at least 3,000 and potentially hit the 5,000. So we’re scaling quite dramatically, which is a fun thing to be a part of.
Stacy: And every flight that we’re talking about, that’s a service member, that is a whole entire family that is getting to see their child.
Windle: That’s right.
Stacy: We’re talking about kids that are away from home for the first time, for many of them. And if you think about this, we were that age once. It’s hard to be away from home in the beginning, even though it’s exciting sometimes. I think there’s probably many, many emotions that go into it, but it can be really tough, and each of these flights is touching an entire family.
I’m thinking about the founder, Maureen, sitting around the table and realizing how happy she is to see her child, and realizing that a lot of other families aren’t able to do that at the holidays. I don’t think a lot of us think about these service members actually getting home when they’re in service, and reconnecting with your family is important. What is the reality typically? What does it look like?
The Reality for Junior Enlisted Service Members
Windle: Yeah, it’s a really good question. I think part of the reason most Americans don’t understand this is an issue is that we’ve had a big shift since the ’70s in terms of families that have an active duty service member involved. People are many more steps removed from having a direct connection to the military than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and I think that’s part of the issue.
So there’s a disconnect between the broader American public and those who are serving us. And yet everybody in America, if you poll them, would say, “I’m really glad we have people helping to keep us safe and free,” right? It’d be hard to find someone who didn’t agree with that.
What we believe we’re doing is giving back and serving those who are serving us. Again, I’m a civilian, right? I have military service on both sides of the family going back a couple generations, and this is my way to give back, to help lift up those who are serving us.
What I think most Americans don’t understand is that these junior enlisted service members are coming in typically right out of high school. They’re 18 to 24. They’re making $27,000 a year. There’s a lot of folks coming from different backgrounds, but there are huge numbers coming from urban and rural poverty, and they’re trying to stake their claim and live the American dream and provide for their families. There are a lot of first-generation Americans involved.
And they’re dealing with, as you said, the same things you and I were dealing with at that age, and everybody does, right? You’re becoming an adult. I think of myself – what a baby. I was an hour away from my parents, and I remember the first two weeks of college, I didn’t see my mom for two weeks, and it was really hard. And I wasn’t in some high-consequence environment. I was at college.
So I think with our service members, they are making a huge sacrifice to go and work in a sacrificial job, serving this country and our citizens. I just want more Americans to understand that it’s a special calling, and I wanna do everything that we can as an organization to give back to them.
And I think the family connection is the easiest thing in the world. It’s basically a money problem. If you’ve got the money to buy the tickets, you can get them home. So that’s what we realized, and we built a simple solution to that.
They go out, they volunteer 25 hours. They’re building community as they volunteer, which is an important piece of that. And then they get to go home and see their families. They’re reconnecting with their families and loved ones. So we’re actually helping nonprofits at the local and regional level through that volunteer work, and then we’re reconnecting families. It’s got this real virtuous cycle that we’re helping to incentivize.
400 Hours at the USO in Poland
Stacy: Yeah, it’s not only getting them home and making this impact to every single family that’s touched by this, but as you said, it’s also helping the community where they are. They don’t necessarily get a choice on where they land, so that’s another difference from those of us that were 18.
I do remember the first Thanksgiving that I was away from my family. I didn’t really know what to do with myself, right? I was like, “Well, I don’t have anywhere to go.” It was not fun, but I had still chosen where I was and all those things.
But I do love that part of this is asking them to do volunteer work. Through that, it’s building connection where they are, ’cause they’re gonna meet people that way. Obviously they’re meeting their fellow service members, but they’re gonna meet other kids and adults and families and all sorts of things. They’re gonna get involved in their community, which I think is really important for feeling good in a place.
Windle: That’s right. Our thousandth flyer was a gentleman named Augusto Robles. He’s from Boston. He’s a first-generation American. He hadn’t seen his mom in over a year, and I did an interview with him on TikTok Live, of all things. I never thought I’d be on TikTok Live. But he’s a popular guy on there, and we did an interview with him, and he was telling his story. He did 400 hours of volunteer service at the USO in Poland when he was stationed abroad for a year.
And I asked him, “Why’d you do it? What was the attraction? Why’d you end up doing so many hours?” And he said, “Well, I moved to this different country. I didn’t know anybody, and I had to figure out how to build a community. I thought a pretty good way to do that would be serving my brothers and sisters in uniform at the USO and making those connections.”
So he said the volunteer work not only felt good every day, to be helping, but “I built a community out of it in this very transient life,” and that’s a special thing. And then he got to go home and see his mom and his brothers and sisters. That feels awesome to be a part of.
Stacy: That’s a total win. It’s a win-win. Do you hear those same stories from other service members that you guys are connected to?
Ten Minutes of Misty Eyes Every Week
Windle: Oh my gosh. Yeah, you sometimes get sucked into the big numbers because we wanna help as many service members as we can. We look at what we’ve done this year, and we’ve flown almost 1,300 service members this calendar year. We’re about to hit 2,000 total, which we’re really excited about.
But each one of those is a human being with a story and a family and a life. So you start to dig into that, and they’re sharing videos and photos and their story and what they’re most looking forward to when they go home, and it humanizes it in a way that I think not a lot of other nonprofits get to do. I think there are some lucky few of us who get to see the human impact of the work we’re doing, and that’s really what this is all about.
Every story is kind of a tearjerker, I’ll be honest. We have a weekly meeting, our board chair included, and we sort of joke that we spend about the first 10 minutes of the meeting kind of misty-eyed, ’cause we review three stories from the past week of service members who’ve come home. That’s a really special thing.
Stacy: I love that you’re doing that. That’s a really great way to set the tone of what you’re doing. And if we’re just gonna revisit what we’ve helped achieve through all of our hard work here at the organization, it keeps you focused on the right thing and the why behind what you’re doing. And I think when you’re running an organization, or just on staff, you’re constantly trying to do your job so that the organization can have more of an impact.
Windle: And I think remembering the why of why the organization exists, which is our junior enlisted service members, is a centering sort of thing.
Giving Service Members a Choice
Stacy: Absolutely. So let’s go back to where they’re volunteering. You said that your 1,000th flyer, I love that you have that term, was volunteering at the USO, which—
Windle: That’s right.
Stacy: —it’s such a great story from him. But where are some of the other places that they’re getting involved?
Windle: This is one of the unique things about our program too. We give them the opportunity to choose where they volunteer. Now, we’ll help them find places. We’ve built a really robust network at many different bases across the country, and actually around the world, of places they can volunteer. So if they’ve got a question, ’cause it’s intimidating if you’ve never volunteered or you’re on a new base, maybe in a different country, you may need to figure out where you go, so we can help them find that.
But that’s part of the agency of this program. There are really important reasons why, when you join the military, you follow orders and you’re kind of a bit of a cog in the wheel, in a way that is really important when you’re fighting wars and winning wars and those kinds of things. But you also can lose a bit of your personal identity. I think giving our service members the opportunity to have agency outside of their day-to-day job is a really empowering thing for them.
So we allow them to choose whatever community service organization they wanna support. It could be coaching Little League, it could be volunteering at the American Legion, it could be the Red Cross. Our top ones are USO, because international flyers can do that on any base. They could be on an aircraft carrier and have a USO that’s small, but there. Another one is Red Cross. That’s our second most popular, for obvious reasons. They’re an international brand. And then Habitat for Humanity and a lot of community organizations are very popular.
Stacy: What sorts of things are they doing when they volunteer, like when they work for the USO?
Windle: Yeah. With the USO, it’s everything from taking pallets of heavy food and that kind of stuff off and stacking it up and getting it stored, to manning the front desk. It could be kind of anything.
Another popular one is a day in the life of a Marine at different Marine installations. We went down to Quantico, and the E1s to E4s had set up a great thing for the kids on base to get to do a little bit of a test day of what it’s like to be a Marine. It’s really fun. You get to see these kids, and they’re doing the army crawl, and they’re chanting and doing their runs, and it’s awesome. That was all put together and run by junior enlisted. So it really is a very wide array of different things they do.
Stacy: And it can match their interests, which is good. You mentioned Little League, and I love that idea. If someone is great with kids and they love playing soccer, it’s volunteering, but it might also be fun for them as well. I think there’s lots of ways that they can shape that in a way that makes sense for their interests. And then also get to go home.
And you mentioned the international flyers. I think that’s also something that we can forget, that it’s not easy getting home from anywhere, and it’s especially not easy getting home from overseas, especially now. Flights are expensive. That one you mentioned was $900, and that was—
Windle: Yeah, domestic flight.
Stacy: Yeah, it’s wild. So this is a really important thing that you’re doing, and I love that it just started with her having her son home, and now it’s growing so fast in just the couple years that it’s been up and running.
Running a Fast-Growing Nonprofit Startup
Stacy: I’m curious about you in terms of stepping into this organization. What’s that been like for you to come on and help shape and guide it as it grows?
Windle: It’s been terrific. You and I were talking a little bit earlier about my background. I’ve spent almost two decades in the nonprofit world, and I’ve worked for some really large institutions. I’ve worked for some that were smaller and kind of rebuilding. And now I’ve worked for a startup, right? We’re basically an early-stage, fast-growing startup. And I tell you, I’ve never had more fun. I’ve had some fantastic jobs over my career, but this is different because you’re building something basically from the ground up, and it takes a real team.
When I came on, it was Maureen and me and Derek and Jacob, four of us and some volunteers helping to book. I think in November and December last year, we booked about 430 flights. Going from having a whole team and this big architecture to this job has been a lot of fun.
We’re working hard, and that’s part of the fun, ’cause you feel like you’re in this campaign mode where everybody’s just pitching in. We’ve been able to staff it up a little bit in the last 12 months so that we have the ability to handle surges, whereas last year it was just figuring it out as we went. I think that’s part of the fun. You get to try things, and some of it works and some of it doesn’t, and you pivot. So it’s really exciting being a part of something that’s fast growth.
Stacy: Oh my gosh, you just mentioned booking hundreds of flights. That in and of itself just sounds like a large job.
Windle: I wasn’t the most efficient at that, I’ll admit.
Stacy: I mean, booking one is tough. Booking hundreds is next level. Congratulations just on doing that.
Why Volunteering Surprises So Many Flyers
Stacy: Back to the volunteering piece of this. Have you chatted with some of your flyers about when they look back on their volunteer hours? Have they told you anything about those experiences?
Windle: We hear so many great stories. The volunteering is, I think, a surprise to a lot of flyers. Not all of them. There are some who are really focused on volunteering, and they’ve been doing it since high school or whenever. And then there are some who find out about our program and say, “Well, I’m gonna go out and volunteer to earn my ticket home.”
So it starts out as, “I wanna go see my family, and I’d love to not have to spend half my paycheck on that for the month.” But then they go out and they volunteer. We had one guy who had been mentored when he was in high school, and that really affected him and actually helped him decide to go into the military. So he decided to be a mentor for his volunteer work.
It’s incredible. You’ve got a video of him talking about that special experience and getting to give back to the kids in the same way he had been mentored. It’s very special. Each one’s unique.
Stacy: That’s great, ’cause again, they’re looking back at what made a difference to them and being able to find something. And you guys provide the help too, so if they say to you, “Well, I really enjoyed doing this,” or, “Someone made an impact on me in this way,” you can make suggestions to them? They call you up? Or how does that work?
Windle: Oh, yeah. We have info@milesformilitary.org, and that’s our inbox for answering any questions. We’ve got a couple of our team members who monitor that all day and get back to folks quickly. We’ve also got a website that I would say is fairly sophisticated. We’ve rebuilt it in the last six months.
So we’ve got a pretty seamless application portal, and then we’ve got a list of organizations. Eventually we’re gonna have a whole list up on the website. When you click on a map, you’ll see, “At my installation, here are the 15 organizations where other people have volunteered.” But right now, they’ll ask us if they have any questions. It’s part of their application, and we’ll send them a list of great organizations to go look into.
How Local Nonprofits Can Get Involved
Stacy: And if there’s an organization near a military installation and they hear this and think, “Oh man, we would love to have a service member come and volunteer with us. We have something that we think they might really enjoy,” can they reach out to you as well and get on the list?
Windle: Yeah, I would say it’s sort of a two-sided thing. We have the relationships we’re building with those nonprofits, particularly at the community level, and also nationally with places like the USO, where we’ve got a formal partnership now. Those are the other side of the coin, right? And we’re building those relationships, ’cause all those organizations need volunteers.
In many cases, and this is just a trend, the youth of America are not volunteering as much as past generations, and they’re doing it in different ways. Especially when you look at the 18 to 24 crowd, we’re helping to incentivize them to get out and volunteer.
So those organizations are getting, one, qualified volunteers who have some leadership experience, which is critical. And they’re in the military, so they’ve been taught to operate a certain way. You know you’re gonna get a high-quality volunteer through our program, and that makes a big difference to these organizations, especially if they’re smaller. The volunteer capacity is what makes it happen for them.
Stacy: Absolutely. Do you find that the service members end up continuing their volunteering after they’ve gone on their flight? They’ve seen their family, they come back, and they’re like, “Well, I’m going right back, ’cause I have so much fun doing this.”
Windle: Anecdotally, we hear a lot of that, because they found that it helps fulfill them, and they’re proud to be a part of it. You can also fly again the next year, so that incentivizes people to continue volunteering.
But we’re starting to gather much more data, and we’re surveying our flyers more, and one of the first questions that we’re asking is, “Did you volunteer just for this program? Are you gonna continue volunteering?” I think over the next six or eight months, we’ll have a lot more data behind that, and that’s gonna be really helpful. Then we’re gonna be able to tell a story about how our service members are volunteering and the impact they’re having on their community, and whether or not they continue. So it’s fun to hear those anecdotes.
Connecting Service Members and Their Communities
Stacy: We’ve talked about how encouraging these young men and women to volunteer helps root them in a place where they maybe don’t have any roots. But I also think as you’re connecting these service members with people in their communities through this volunteer opportunity, you’re helping the community get more connected to the service members that are around them, which is really important, and I don’t know that it always happens on a large scale. Are you seeing that happen as well?
Windle: We are. If you sort of dig, it’s a little like an onion. There are multiple layers of impact that we’re having. We talk about the family connections. We talk about the community that you’re building through the volunteer work.
That other layer: we have two senior enlisted advisors to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, SEACs. SEAC Ramon “CZ” Colon-Lopez and SEAC Troy Black. A huge part of their mandate when they were advising the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was manpower and the well-being of our service members, the enlisted in particular, obviously. So these were big goals of theirs in that seat, helping to weave the communities around the bases and the bases together.
There could be tension between those communities. There could be just different lives that are lived. So I think what we’re doing is exactly as you said. We’re bringing the service members out into the communities, and they’re volunteering. It connects our service members with the society they serve and vice versa, and I think that’s a really important two-way connection. Over time, if you start to multiply these numbers by 10 or 100 or 1,000, you can make a huge difference on behalf of the US military and the communities around these bases by connecting them in a positive way.
Stacy: Yeah. I think the connection all around is huge because we need these young people who have been sent to places that they don’t really know much about to feel good in their place where they are. We need them to feel connected. But I also think it’s really important that when all families come in through these military installations, they also feel like they can be connected to a community.
Windle: Completely.
A Homecoming at the Airport
Stacy: I know one thing that you told me before is that, as part of your role, you get to be there sometimes for these reunions, when these service members get home to see their families, and what that’s like for you.
Windle: Absolutely. The first time I went to an airport reunion was last spring, and we had Specialist Walker. He was flying to the DC area from Fort Bliss in Texas, and he hadn’t seen his father’s grandfather in two years. He had siblings he hadn’t seen in that same amount of time.
I greeted him at the airport, and then we had a fun news hit the next morning on Fox 5. When we got together at the airport, he was walking to the baggage claim, and I got to talk to him for 15 or 20 minutes. It was incredible, ’cause you could see what the program meant to him.
He was going to see his family, and then he was also doing a first salute for a very close friend of his. So it was this kind of multi-layered trip for him. Just hearing from him what the program meant, and the volunteer work, and then seeing his family again, he’s just incredible.
He’s a guy we have on video in a lot of different ways because it’s just the perfect story for us of reconnection. It’s powerful. I’ll admit I teared up when I got there at the airport and saw him, ’cause you see what this is all about, and it’s very powerful.
Stacy: Yeah. You’re a dad, I’m a mom, and I think about when my children are gonna leave the nest. And not only have they left to go somewhere, but they’ve joined the military, and that can bring a lot of emotions to a parent, both pride and all sorts of other things.
Windle: Sure.
Stacy: To have them come home, I feel like I would probably sob to see that, because I’m thinking about how much they must miss their children and how proud they must be of them, and just that moment when you get to hug your kids must be incredible.
Windle: I know. I can only imagine.
Family Readiness Equals Force Readiness
Stacy: Morale is very important when it comes to our military and to our service members, and making sure that morale is high is really critical. Do you feel like making sure that they’re getting home is contributing to that?
Windle: For sure. For sure. There’s a good line: family readiness equals force readiness. I think the more you have happy, connected service members who are engaged with their family, they don’t feel isolated.
Let’s just do a thought experiment here. You’ve got an 18-year-old at a four-year college who is separated from their family for the first time by a few thousand miles, and they’re not gonna be able to go home for Thanksgiving. They’re spending a lot of time playing video games. This generation in that age band is just more isolated. They feel more isolated than many other generations. They’ve got all sorts of internet connectivity that they can be a part of, but face-to-face interactions occur less frequently. We see all the data on this, right? And we read about it.
And it happens to our service members too. I think it’s really important to realize they are serving our country, but they’re not in a special category when it comes to being impacted by the feelings of isolation, and that hurts your wellbeing and it hurts morale ultimately.
I’ve talked to many base commanders who say, “One of the things I love about your program, I’m glad you’re getting them home to see their families, ’cause that’s gonna make them happier. But I’m also glad they’re getting out on the weekends and not hanging around the barracks playing video games and drinking beers all day.” So it’s just good for morale.
Stacy: Yeah, I was thinking about that. You said they don’t feel so isolated, and like you said, there’s plenty of research that points to this, that being online doesn’t really make up for it, but that is sort of the world we’re in.
Windle: Right.
Stacy: That’s one thing I do love about this, is that it is getting them out and into their communities. When they’re going out to volunteer, they might meet somebody in the community that tells them about something else that’s happening, an event, and things that just—
Windle: Exactly. You’re 100% right. You talk about being out in the marketplace. When you’re out in the marketplace, things happen. Serendipity happens. You run into people, they tell you about something else. That’s exactly what it’s all about. But you gotta be out there to have that happen. And so we help them take that first step.
What He’s Learned About Those Who Serve
Stacy: That’s fantastic. For you in particular, I’m curious, has this taught you anything about these young enlisted service members? What have you learned about them and about their experience?
Windle: Well, it has reinforced certain thoughts that I’ve had my whole life. I think incredibly highly of those who’ve chosen to serve. I mentioned lots of members of my family, uncles, great-uncles, grandparents, who have fought for our country over the decades, and it puts that into perspective for me. It puts into perspective my friends from high school and college who enlisted right out of high school or went in as officers out of college and fought in some really difficult circumstances. So it puts a much more personal perspective on all of those who are serving.
Particularly with the junior enlisted, I’ll admit, I think most civilians do not have any context for what the junior enlisted are going through to serve our country. It’s a big, big sacrifice, and that sounds so cliché to say, but I wish more Americans had an understanding of what happens when you go in and you’re starting from the bottom rung.
If you throw a dart at a board and hit one of the junior enlisted, there’s a pretty good chance they’re coming from a situation where they’re not from a well-to-do family. This is a pathway out of poverty for certain people. It’s an opportunity for them to earn their success and to grow and provide for their families and build a life. And I think that’s incredible.
So I’ve just been blown away by the sacrifice that’s made. Not surprised, but it has given a different level of solemnity to this thing that they’re doing to serve us.
How You Can Support Service Members
Stacy: Absolutely. So besides obviously donating, what would you suggest to people? How would you suggest they support their troops in ways that match this, when we think about community service and getting involved in their communities? Is there any advice that you would give?
Windle: Absolutely. On the one hand, you mentioned financial support. That’s always great. But I think next year we’re gonna have ten thousand plus involved in our program. That’s our goal, and I believe we’ll get there. And they’re all gonna be out in their community serving.
So if you’ve got ways for them to volunteer, if you’ve got organizations that you like that you’d like them to connect with, send them to us at Miles for Military. You can send them to info@milesformilitary.org. If you’re somewhere near a military installation and you’ve got a great group, it doesn’t matter. It could be a church group, it could be a Little League, it could be a local Red Cross. Whatever it is, if you’ve got ideas for volunteer work, please send it our way, ’cause that’s gonna help the organizations, and then it gives our service members more options to go volunteer, and that’s an important piece of the puzzle.
From the Seed of an Idea to an International Organization
Stacy: So Maureen Byrne, who began this organization, started out with an idea. She jumped through a lot of hoops to bring it to fruition. It’s now starting to really grow. You guys have helped over 1,000 service members make their way home. And on top of that, you’ve connected service members to the community and the community to service members. What does she say about it at this point?
Windle: It’s fun. We had our board meeting last week, and so I got to hear directly from her on the spot when our board chairman asked, “How do you feel about things?” I think she’s just blown away, and it’s gotta feel really special to have something go from just the seed of an idea into an international organization that’s growing really fast and changing the lives of service members.
So she’s really, really proud. We’ve built a great team to help take this organization to the next level and have a bigger impact. And I think, similar to me, who’s a year in, and she’s a few years in after starting it, it’s a really good feeling to be doing something that’s making a difference, and you can measure it, and you can see the lives that are impacted. So she just feels extraordinarily proud, and she should.
Stacy: As should you. So congratulations on all you’ve done in such a short amount of time, and thank you for everything you’re doing for our service members and the communities that surround these installations.
Windle: Well, Stacy, you bet, and I appreciate you having me on and helping us tell our story to a new audience. It’s incredible. And I have to say, lastly, thank you for the sacrifices you’ve made, and your husband, your family too. That’s a big deal. We appreciate it.
Stacy: Oh, well, thank you.
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