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The sun poked out just a bit on a dreary Monday morning as the community gathered at the Troup County Veterans Memorial to celebrate Veterans Day and to recognize the brave men and women who help defend our country.

Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day in honor of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 that signaled the end of the First World War. President Dwight Eisenhower later officially changed the name of the holiday from Armistice Day to Veterans Day in 1954 to recognize all veterans.  

Veterans from all military service periods, wars and conflicts were recognized at the service, going as far back as the Korean War. For only the second time, no WWII vet was in attendance.

Patricia Ross, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Veterans Services (GDVS), served as speaker for the annual service.  The 25-year Air Force veteran retired as a Colonel in October 2014. She served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Veterans Education Career Transition Resource (VECTR) from 2016 to 2021. In November 2021, Ross became the Commissioner of Veterans Services for Georgia.

Ross comes from a military family and joked that it’s the family business with roots back to the American Revolution. Ross met her husband in the Air Force, where they both served. Her father is also an Air Force vet, and her grandfather served in the US Army.

Ross said transitioning out of the military isn’t easy. She and her family members found their sense of self after their military careers by continuing to serve.

“When my father transitioned out of the military, I was about to graduate high school. You would think, after 20-something years in the Air Force as a pilot, his transition was going to be easy. They tell you that when you get out of the military, everybody wants to hire military. They want your soft skills. They want all this experience you bring to the workforce. But he truly struggled. He struggled with a lot of things to include, value, self-worth and kind of brought some things back from the war that, up until recently, he never would talk about,” Ross said.

Ross said her father struggled with depression and loss of purpose after leaving the military. 

“He found his purpose mainly in giving back and in serving. Ge ended up working for Habitat for Humanity. He does a lot with his church group, and he and my mom still do overseas missions to the military through an organization called Cadence International,” Ross said.

She said her husband similarly struggled after leaving the Air Force, and he is now training to try to reintegrate back into the military.

“We all took that oath to do whatever it is our country called us to do, and we did that because we believed in something greater than ourselves,” Ross said. “No matter what’s going on, the one thing that helps keep you sane and keeps you going is serving others.”

Ross said she also survived military retirement by continuing to serve, this time by helping veterans get the services they need.

“I am blessed. I tell people I have the best job in the world. I truly do because I get to serve our veterans here in Georgia. Every day, I get to serve their family members. I get to serve our active duty military. What other job allows me to do something I am so very passionate about that actually pays me? It doesn’t get any better than that,” Ross said.

“Nobody promised us an easy life, but if we start serving others, we see how those efforts that we’re making truly impact others’ lives. Then that gives us a sense of purpose we had in the military, and that allows us to carry that sense of purpose after we transition out of the military,” Ross said.