Coffee Social organized to aid veteran physical, mental, financial well-being

Veterans come home and don’t know where to begin, according to Jeremy Kilpatrick. But now, the Phillips County Veterans Service officer said, they can begin with coffee.

Kilpatrick’s Veteran’s Coffee Social started Feb. 1 and is set to continue every Wednesday onward from 8 a.m. to noon in the Northeast Colorado Health Department conference room, located at 127 E. Denver Street in Holyoke. His first meetup drew four veterans and he intends for it to grow.

“Sometimes it’s not the sharing [of our stories] where we learn the most about ourselves,” he said. “It’s really in the meeting of others and hearing their stories.”

Veterans who arrive “don’t even have to share,” Kilpatrick continued, though if they prefer to write him a letter, he is ready to converse that way, too.

The coffee socials, he said, can function as “a foot in the door” for allowing him to discuss a myriad of health and financial benefits available to veterans of which they may not have been aware. For one veteran, according to Kilpatrick, his entire role is to get the man hearing aid batteries.

“I handle all things relating to veterans and help them understand the world we are in once we come home,” he said. “As a survivor, there are a lot of benefits that we have at our disposal. We just need to know how to access them.”

When he moved on from the Navy logistics in 2015 to become a prison guard, Kilpatrick said, the structural disjunction – over several years – led to “lots of built-up stresses” and ultimately a suicidal episode.

Kilpatrick had joined the military in 2011, almost right out of high school in Akron, Colorado. He had not adjusted to a civilian work environment. 

“We get brought back to a world that’s not based in the same sense of structure,” Kilpatrick said. “Military structure is ship, shipmates, self. That’s the order of possibilities. You take care of your command first, then you take care of your shipmates, then you take care of yourself.

“Whereas, out in the real world, the job is: Take care of yourself, because if you don’t have yourself under control, how are you going to help somebody else? And that’s shell shock.”

From 2015-18, Kilpatrick said, he tried to work out his problems on his own. After the incident, he began what he called his “rebuild” period and focused on improving his mental health, “an extreme piece for a veteran.” He arrived at the Veterans Service in 2020 and decided to help fellow soldiers weather their own problems. He “literally took all the inspiration,” Kilpatrick said, for his new life direction from former Service Officer Steve Firme.

“He basically said, ‘We need your energy’ at the VSO level,” Kilpatrick said, “because they’re changing and the older guys...can’t keep up. He didn’t feel he could adapt to the technology and changes that were happening. I express so much respect for him.”

Through Service officer work, Kilpatrick said, he hopes to create a system that would allow future people in his position to have “a blueprint” for continuing to benefit veterans.

“That’s my goal in my time here, whether it’s five years, 10 years, whatever, I’m building a system the veterans can rely on, [as well as] support each other inside their county,” he said. “I’d like to share with all the new veterans, old veterans who have seen the system before: Try it again, because things change, times change and there are a lot of new efforts that [did not exist] in the past.”

To reach the Health Department by phone, call (970) 854-2717.