Rebuilding a foundation of trust can be one of the hardest journey's for anyone to tackle. Today, Suzi talks with two incredibly strong and courageous women who created a safe place of healing and trust so they could live and thrive in a life they knew they truly deserved. Suzi is joined by Luz Helena Thompson, a Marine Corps veteran and Trina McDonald, a Navy veteran, both founders of the Veteran Recovery Project, as they discuss Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and creating a peer to peer safe zone for women struggling with MST.
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Bio
Trina McDonald lives in Puyallup, WA and served in the Navy from 1988-1990. She was one of the subjects of the award-winning documentary The Invisible War, which focused on the crisis of sexual assault in the military. Trina worked as a Chemical Dependency Counselor in high risk communities including the justice system before her PTSD prevented her from continuing her career in Behavioral Science. In 2018 she took on the roll as Senior Outreach Associate with Minority Veterans of America based out of Seattle. MVA outreach will be addressing the underserved veteran population to include LGBTQ, women, people of color and homeless. Trina is also a co-founder of Veterans Recovery Project which aides Veterans improve their mental-health through self-care groups, peer support and recreational therapy.
She is also working on a biography and advocates for Suicide Prevention and Reduction of Sexual Violence in the Veteran population.
Bio
Luz Helena (Stacey) Thompson is a seasoned veteran advocate who holds an impressive record for bridging military and civilian divides to promote awareness of the needs of military sexual trauma survivors. Luz Helena served in the Marines from 1998-2000. In 2016, Luz was featured in “Veterans Coming Home”, a documentary of short films which depict the struggles disabled veterans face after coming home and reintegrating back into society.
As a result of reporting rape while on active duty in the Marines and her continued efforts to seek justice by insisting her attacker be prosecuted, Luz was retaliated against and separated from the military with an Other Than Honorable (OTH) discharge. Although once stripped of her access to mental healthcare and veteran benefits, Luz found the strength to share her story of survival publicly alongside Senator Barbara Boxer and became a national advocate for survivors of Military Sexual Trauma. In 2014, Luz was invited by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to speak in Washington, DC regarding the need for reform of the Military Justice system and the way it handles cases of sexual violence. After years of litigation, Luz received a discharge upgrade from the Department of Defense.
Luz holds a Master’s of Science Degree from the California University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, Luz was one of te
Music credit to Kalvin Love for the podcast’s theme song “Bee Your Best Self”
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