Jeremy Brown

Jeremy volunteers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tuskegee, Alabama in various positions. Some of these positions include Nurse Aide, Engineer Aide, and Office Aide. He have volunteered over 1,000 hours. His father works at the hospital so he know about the needs of the veterans. Jeremy duties were whatever the nurses asked him to do. He ambulanced patients to their appointments, gave them ice water, restocked medical supplies, listened to veterans tell their life stories, worked with computers, copiers, filing, fax machines, and also the cleaning, and changing of air condition vents. I would say that the nurses were impacted because there was a stress relief for them and the veterans could count on him to sit down and listen to their stories.

Jeremy’s activities at the VA Medical Center has the impact of putting smiles on the faces of veterans and also taking some of the stress away from the overworked nurses. I am sure the veterans thought each day he came to work he was doing his for them but he was the one getting the rewards. Nothing could compare to the smiles he would receive. The veterans faces would just light up for such a simple thing as saying good morning. He felt proud to be able to give back to the people who had served our country. He realized the veterans thought they had been forgotten by our younger generation. A majority of the veteran’s families do not come to see them in the hospital. This would make the veterans very sad and lonely. Jeremy knew this was not helping them to get well. The patients would tell him they were lonely. He knew they just wanted someone to talk to and to take a little time with them. They would tell him it made them happy to see some young faces and pretty smiles every day.

Volunteering does make a big difference, even if you just take the time to listen to a veteran when others are too busy to listen. You may think it does not make a difference, but to those veterans who have nothing but time on their hands it means the world to them. No one really understands how others volunteer and his sitting down and listening to a veteran’s life stories impacted them. Jeremy truly know that the impact was pretty strong, but he did not know how strong. He learned there is more to life than making money.

Volunteering makes you value getting an education. The veterans always told him to get his education. The veterans said, “Get your education, so you will have more options in life.” He never knew how destructive was until he worked at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. It makes him say, “I should volunteer to the veterans because of what they did for me and my fellow Americans.” They have all of these wounds and disablements for our freedom and the freedom of all other Americans. Some of the veterans have families that don’t come around to see them or families that don’t live close enough to visit. So Jeremy feel by him volunteering, he can compensate for their lost love of family. There is nothing better than seeing a happy veteran to him. The bad things you really do not see until you volunteer and see how the real world is. It makes him want to do more volunteering and things for the veterans. It feels good to be able to give your time to someone that has given so much to our country. He called it, “Serving Our Fallen Heroes.”