“My favorite memories are of my family sending me toys that I then gave to the local children on combat patrols in Afghanistan. Another memory is when I was helping with Katrina with a fire team to help clear out a basement of a building in downtown New Orleans, it was pitch black, we were waist deep in water, and I shined my flashlight on my rifle in the water to find a baby alligator swimming by my waist!”
In honor of Veteran’s Day, Family & Children’s Services applauds all of those who served in the military – in wartime or peacetime.
Currently, F&CS has one active military staff member, Oklahoma Army National Guard Sergeant 1st Class Robert Kay who also serves as F&CS Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) Team Case Manager. Kay said, “As active military, every time I come back to F&CS I appreciate the great leaders and co-workers. It makes completing the military mission possible when you have great support.”
Kay joined the National Guard when he was 17 and now has 31 years of service. He gives the National Guard full credit for his personal development, serving in Afghanistan in 2003 and all over the world since then. He said that the National Guard has allowed him to make a difference in the world by helping “change the outcome of history for the better.”
He said he joined the military “to fight for what is right.” Today he said his military experience has given him a “broadened state of gratitude and awareness.
- PACT is an approach to care that surrounds a patient with a support team. It is available to clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Services are brought to the client, rather than depending on people making it into an office.
- The Oklahoma National Guard saw its first involvement in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, when Oklahoma troops were called upon to help train the Afghan national army. Oklahoma troops were there for the Iraq war, too.
