People have called me resilient for 15 years. It is the word our community uses for military families, and though it is important, it should not be an expectation. My husband, Chuck, a Marine, served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. During both tours, Chuck suffered injuries that have affected his health long-term. The most serious came in 2011, when an IED explosion left him with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. At times, he struggled just to be in the house. I kept the days running and tried to handle this on our own as a proud military family.

Caregiving for a wounded, ill or injured service member or veteran is often isolating work. It means navigating a complex health care and benefits system, advocating to make sure a loved one receives the care they deserve, and balancing all of it against your own health and well-being. Most of it happens at home and out of view. Invisible wounds are especially hard for other people to understand, and that makes it hard to find help.

In a life that looks nothing like the one we expected, military and veteran caregivers want to know we are not alone in what we face.

What changed things for me was meeting other military spouses and family members who are also caregivers as my peers. Through the Dole Caregiver Fellows program, I found people who understood what our family was living with, and I stopped trying to carry it by myself.

That is why connection has to be part of how we support caregivers, right alongside the resources and services they rely on. A caregiver who has someone to ask is better equipped to find the right resource, to keep going after a hard week, and to recognize that their own well-being matters too.

It is also why the Foundation launched EDF Connect in 2025, a secure online community built exclusively for military and veteran caregivers, family members, and loved ones. Every member is verified as a caregiver before joining, so people can speak freely in a trusted space. Inside, they ask questions, trade resources, attend events and webinars and, most important, find one another.

One year in, more than 1,500 caregivers have joined. They span ages, locations, caregiving relationships, and life experiences. We have hosted conversations with caregiving advocates and military and veteran community leaders, including Emma Heming Willis, General Mark Graham of Vets4Warriors, Dr. Tim Overton of Cohen Veterans Network, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Rebekah Lovorn of No Greater Sacrifice.

The moments that matter most have happened between caregivers themselves. They tell us EDF Connect has become the place they go to vent after a difficult day, celebrate a hard-won success, laugh, cry, pass along a resource, or talk with someone who understands. The most powerful support is sometimes the simplest: learning that you are not the only one.

We are proud of that first year, and are clear about its scale. There are 14.3 million military and veteran caregivers in America, and reaching them will take more than one organization.

If you work in a clinic, a VA office, a military/veteran service organization, Department of Defense Wounded Warrior Program, or a workplace that employs military families, you almost certainly know a caregiver, whether or not they use that word for themselves. Tell them this community exists.

Military families are raised on pride and strength, and that can make it hard to say we need help. I know, because it was hard for me. If a caregiver is part of your own family or circle of friends, ask how they are doing, and then ask again, “Are you?”

The holiday season is approaching, a time when connection and community matter most and their absence is felt most keenly. In the year ahead, the Foundation will keep working until every military and veteran caregiver knows there is a community ready to stand beside them.

If you are a military or veteran caregiver, you can sign up for EDF Connect. A member of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation team reviews each application to verify caregiver status before accepting new members.

Liz Rotenberry is vice president of Community Engagement at the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, a Dole Caregiver Fellow alumna, and a caregiver to her husband, a Marine Corps veteran.

What We Carry Forward: Hidden Heroes and America’s Next 250 Years

migration — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:00:00 +0000

As America marks 250 years since its founding, the instinct is to look toward the famous names we learned early in our education — the signers, the generals, the architects of independence. But anniversaries like this one ask something different of us. The next 250 years are an invitation to ask who belongs in the story we’re still writing.

Caregiving has been woven into this country’s history since its first winter at war. Behind every soldier across centuries, there was almost always someone unnamed beside them — a spouse, a mother or father, a neighbor — providing care and compassion to support a loved one’s recovery and keep a family intact.

That work is largely missing from our history books. And not a lot had changed until one woman refused to let that be our next chapter.

Senator Elizabeth Dole had already lived several careers worth of public service by the time most people slow down. She was the first woman to be appointed U.S. Secretary of Transportation and later U.S. Secretary of Labor, the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from North Carolina, and the first woman to be president of the American Red Cross since Clara Barton herself founded it a century before. But all of this was simply the starting point for what would come next.

At Walter Reed, her husband, Senator Bob Dole, spent eleven months recovering from surgery and illness. Senator Elizabeth Dole found herself doing what millions of Americans do quietly, without paperwork or recognition. She became a caregiver. In the hallways of that hospital, she met spouses, parents, and children doing the same — managing medications, navigating bureaucracies, holding families together. She noticed something the nation had not. There was no name for what they were doing, and no system in place to see them.

In 2012, she built the Elizabeth Dole Foundation around the idea that 14.3 million Americans caring for wounded, ill, and injured veterans deserved to be counted, supported, and known. And the foundation gave them a name. Hidden Heroes.

Senator Elizabeth Dole did not invent caregiving. She brought it into the light — and then she built something around it. That particular patriotism doesn’t storm a beach or sign a declaration. It is what makes this more than a story about the past.

On July 29, Senator Elizabeth Dole turns 90. I’ve had the privilege of watching her determination and commitment to this community shape the lives of millions of families. That legacy is a model for what American leadership can look like going forward.

The question this anniversary asks of all of us is not only what happened in the last 250 years, but what we choose to build into the next. Founding documents and famous battles will always anchor the story. But so should the people who never asked to be remembered — the caregivers who have stood beside every generation of American service, visible to no one but the person they loved. If we are serious about the next chapter, they belong in it.

On her 90th birthday, the most lasting gift Elizabeth Dole has given this country may be not just an institution, but a name for the heroes history forgot to write down and a call the rest of us are still meant to answer.

Steve Schwab is CEO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, the nation’s leading organization supporting military and veteran caregivers, their veterans, and families. Since 2014, he has grown the foundation into a national force behind programmatic expansion and major reforms, including the 2025 signing of the Dole Act, the largest bipartisan VA reform legislation in decades. He has advised the White House, testified before Congress, and appeared on NBC’s TODAY, 60 Minutes, and NPR as a leading voice for military caregiving families.

Elizabeth-Dole-Foundation Archives - Army Times

Military Caregivers Need One Another. We Should Make That Easier.

Military Caregivers Need One Another. We Should Make That Easier.

By Liz Rotenberry, vice president, Community Engagement, Elizabeth Dole Foundation

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What We Carry Forward: Hidden Heroes and America’s Next 250 Years