The Episcopal Dioceses of Massachusetts and Western Massachusetts have partnered with the Building Bridges program, which works to address veteran social isolation, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicide risk that so often accompany military service.
Building Bridges recently shared the following stories from its ministry with the Armed Forces and Federal Ministries office:
From Capt. Thomas M. Daley, U.S. Coast Guard, Retired:
Ralph John, known to everyone as “Rusty,” a Rhode Island Native, was a retired veteran from three services, Army, Navy, and Coast Guard. He was a mid-grade enlisted person who found the order of a military life served him better than civilian life, so every time his enlistments were up he would re-enlist after a while or join a different service. He retired from the military after about 29 years and lived alone with his two dogs in his own home.
Rusty had no cellphone, no cable or internet, and only a wired phone at home. He received care from the Veterans Administration, and after listening to him, the social worker there was his major source of connection with the outside world. He had an email account but had to go to the library to access his account a few times a year.
One of his friends was a parishioner at Christ Church Swansea, and at her suggestion he started showing up for Building Bridges for Veterans, which she and her husband have spearheaded and worked tirelessly to get running and make a success.
Rusty never spoke of any family. He was disabled using a walker to get around. He made several friends at monthly breakfasts for Building Bridges and slowly he started connecting with the outside world. He lived for the first Saturday each month when Building Bridges met and became a friend to folks at Christ Church.
Sadly, Rusty passed away alone with his two dogs, and it was several days before he was discovered. It was long enough that the dogs had passed as well. He had an estranged sibling who had his remains cremated but was not particularly interested in anything past that. That’s when several folks from the Building Bridges group and Christ Church got together to ensure that Rusty had a proper burial. We quickly determined that Rusty was eligible for inurement in a national cemetery, but Rusty lived and died in Rhode Island, and one of the folks that spearheads Building Bridges at Christ Church happened to be on the cemetery committee in his home town of Warren, R.I. and made arrangements for his burial, with a contingency from Christ Church and Building Bridges present rendering military honors. It took over a year to happen, and we still await his marker (coming from the VA).
From David McCarhthy:
We bumped into him in the cereal aisle at Walmart. He was wearing a surgical mask, as he usually does to protect a family member with an immune issue. He said hello and pulled down the mask briefly so we could see who he was—a regular at the monthly veterans’ breakfasts here at Christ Church. He said our meeting was serendipitous because he had been meaning to speak with us about how important our breakfasts are for him.
With watery eyes, he explained he has suffered from isolation since his military days. He came to his first breakfast a year ago at the urging of his wife who wanted to get him out of his “man cave” or, as veterans put it, his “bunker.”
He hasn’t missed a breakfast since.
A combat veteran of the Vietnam War, he said he now gets to enjoy the twilight of his life with friends he didn’t have before his wife pushed him toward our veterans’ ministry.
He is exactly the veteran our ministry—held under the Building Bridges banner—is trying to reach. Those veterans whose military experiences have led to a life of isolation.
While you read this article, there is a chance a veteran will have taken his own life—22 die each day by suicide.
Studies by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have documented that the typical veteran suicide involves someone over the age of 64 whose combat experiences have resulted in PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Among the chief symptoms of PTSD is long-term isolation.
The VA has found that peer support is one of the best ways to help veterans with their psychological and emotional issues. It’s all about veterans helping veterans by the simplest of ways—veterans talking with veterans about common issues.
In addition, the VA has found that the best way of bringing veterans together is away from the clinical atmosphere of a VA facility.
For example, Vet to Vet/Boston, an all-volunteer group of veterans has a memorandum of understanding with the Boston VA Health Care System to provide peer support services. They do much of their work in VA facilities but also hold coffee-and-doughnut get-togethers at off-campus sites to reach additional veterans.
In 2019, we approached the Rev. Alan Hesse, rector of Christ Church, about holding veteran coffee hours at the church. Father Alan was enthusiastic and suggested we speak with the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, which, he said, was doing similar work with veterans.
Bishop Doug Fisher, who headed the Western Massachusetts diocese at the time, is a veteran who started the Building Bridges program for veterans as a way of serving what he felt was an underserved community.
We subsequently met with the Rev. Christopher Carlisle, the executive director of Building Bridges. At the time, Building Bridges had six meal sites for veterans—all free and all in western Massachusetts.
In 2020, Christ Church became the seventh Building Bridges site—and the very first in the Diocese of Massachusetts (eastern Massachusetts). Building Bridges now has 15 meal sites scattered throughout Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Soon, sites will open in Connecticut and Rhode Island.
We applied for and received a grant from the Bristol – Case Foundation for Episcopal churches in Bristol County, and were off and running with our first free breakfast in March 2020.
No sooner had we started, however, than things came to a screeching halt—thanks to the Covid epidemic.
We started up again in March 2021, only again to have things come to a stop that spring because of a surge in Covid cases. We began again in the fall and have not missed a date since.
The first of our breakfasts brought 44 veterans to Christ Church. We are now serving more than 90 meals each first Saturday of the month.
We also average 16 volunteers for each breakfast. The involvement of so many volunteers each month is two-fold heartening:
One, a direct way of showing how much we appreciate our veterans, rather than the abstract way of checking the box that says, “I thanked a veteran today for their service.” The volunteers love serving the veterans and, more importantly, talking and kidding with the veterans. That banter is another reason for our success. The volunteers have created a friendly and welcoming place.
And two, we have a responsibility for the well-being of veterans for whom we acquiesced—through the political system—to send them off to war. We are fulfilling our responsibility here at Christ Church.
We cannot quantify the success of our Building Bridges program at Christ Church, but we can close with one more bit of anecdotal evidence:
We were approached after our January 2025 breakfast by a man who wanted to give us a monetary donation. We explained we do not accept donations because we want the breakfasts open to all, not just for those who could afford the cost if we charged.
He said he really felt he should do something because of how much his grandfather—a 98-year-old World War II veteran—looks forward to coming to our breakfast each month.
We made a deal.
He now brings new socks and underwear to each breakfast. Christ Church, in turn, donates the socks and underwear to the Veterans Association of Bristol County, which works with homeless veterans.
The free Building Bridges breakfasts for veterans are held in the Parish House at Christ Church the first Saturday of every month from 8:30 to 10 a.m. No reservation is needed. The breakfasts are nonreligious. The church is at 57 Main St., in historic Swansea Village in Massachusetts.