The community of people who have served in our country’s military is a tight fellowship. So when University of Virginia grads Jim and Gina Mallon (Jim was in the Marines, Gina in the Air Force) got the call for a program called We Honor Veterans, they stepped up.
The call came from Robert Dewberry, whom Gina met while volunteering at Monticello. Dewberry left Monticello to take a staff position as volunteer manager at Hospice of the Piedmont, and knowing both Gina and Jim had served, he thought the couple would be a great addition to the hospice’s efforts to recognize the service of their patients. The We Honor Veterans program is a collaboration between the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (of which Hospice of the Piedmont is a member) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and is designed to help hospice volunteers support veterans and their caregivers. One aspect of the program is a pinning ceremony, during which the patient’s military service and contributions are reviewed and celebrated in an observance that includes their family and loved ones.
“Robert told me about the program and said, ‘We want you,’” recalls Gina, “and this sounded like a great way to give back.”
Jim had some experience with hospice—his sister passed away in hospice a few years ago, and her husband was a hospice volunteer. Both Gina and Jim went through the 16 hours of training for hospice volunteers, plus additional training with one of the current We Honor Veterans volunteers. And then, in true military style, Jim and Gina honed the process of organizing all the logistics needed to pull off the pinning ceremony seamlessly.
Dewberry puts the Mallons in touch with the patient’s hospice care team—the primary caregiver, the family, and their social worker—to determine if the patient is interested in We Honor Veterans. If they are, Jim (a history buff) will get more details about the individual’s service, research those assignments, and develop a presentation that covers the patient’s career and where it fits into our nation’s military history. “I want to flesh out what the family may know, and put the patient’s service into context,” he says.
Sometimes only a few family members know much about the individual’s service—veterans are sometimes reluctant to talk about their experiences. And many of the veterans in hospice are from an era when they were drafted to serve, something their grandchildren may know nothing about in these days of the all-volunteer Army. With one patient, Jim’s research revealed the vet had been stationed in Germany the day the Berlin Wall went up; during the ceremony, one attendee—the vet’s granddaughter’s husband—realized he had been serving in Germany the day the wall came down.
For the pinning ceremony, Gina handles the logistics and the presentation of the “packet.” Each veteran receives a framed certificate with the emblem of their branch of the service and an emblem of the We Honor Veterans program; a flag and a flag pin; a letter from Rep. Rob Bell, whose father served in the U.S. Navy; a coin representing their individual branch of service; and a card with their hospice care team’s names.
Gina and Jim see the pinning ceremony as a joyous time, a review of that individual’s life and contributions, an occasion their family can share. Gina explains, “This is a pat on the back, a ceremony they may not have gotten when they left the service.”
Hospice of the Piedmont has a total of 10 volunteers doing pinning ceremonies—Jim and Gina have conducted eight over the last 18 months. In some cases, the patients may be too sick to participate actively, but Jim remembers one Army veteran, a career Ranger, who didn’t seem lucid during the ceremony until Jim ended with a rousing “Hooah!” and the vet responded “Hooah!” right back.
Many of the families make the pinning ceremony a positive event, Gina says, knowing it may be the last time they are all together. She recalls one family who took photos they had of their loved one’s service and posted them on a table surrounding a cake decorated like the American flag. At one ceremony, held at the patient’s home way out in the country, Gina says 30 cars were parked outside and a huge buffet was spread out for family and friends from Richmond, northern Virginia, and North Carolina.
“These ceremonies are celebratory, and cathartic, and a positive family gathering,” Jim says. “And the people attending all seem grateful, and humbled by their loved one’s service.”
Having served as a nurse in both military and civilian settings, Gina says, “I have great respect for hospice, [which] offer[s] people a way to die more comfortably, with dignity. It’s an honor to serve these people.”