By Debbie Gregory.
Working with great non-profits is the best part of what I do. Working with friends who contribute so much to the families of those who serve is the crème de la crème.
I would like to congratulate my very good friend, TAPS founder Bonnie Carroll, who will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her longstanding efforts to provide support to the families of our nation’s fallen service members.
On November 24th, Bonnie will join baseball legends Willie Mays and the late Yogi Berra, conductor Itzhak Perlman, lyricist/composer Stephen Sondheim, director Steven Spielberg, singer/songwriter James Taylor, NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, and Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski as they receive the nation’s highest civilian honor.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is presented to individuals who have made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Bonnie, a retired Air Force Reserve major, founded TAPS after her husband, Army Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll, died in an Army C-12 plane crash in Alaska in 1992, and she found few resources for surviving families.
Since 1994, TAPS has offered support to more than 60,000 surviving family members of our fallen military and their caregivers. TAPS provides peer-based emotional support, grief and trauma resources, grief seminars and retreats for adults, Good Grief Camps for children, case work assistance, connections to community-based care, online and in-person support groups and a 24/7 resource and information helpline for all who have been affected by a death in the Armed Forces. Services are provided free of charge.
I couldn’t be happier for Bonnie, or more proud!
Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, and their families.
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