*Author’s note—this story mentions suicide. If you or anybody you know needs help, please call, text or message 988 online to get immediate help from the National Suicide & Crisis Hotline*
MISHICOT, Wis. (WFRV) – After high school, Rebecca Pribyl joined the US Army, serving 10 years as a supply sergeant.
After a decade in the Army, she returned home to Mishicot; however, she said she felt something was missing.
“So many veterans and soldiers miss that when they get out, I know I missed the brother and sisterhood of things,” Pribyl said.
While staying home with her twins, Pribyl found that again, this time through the American Legion.
“With the American Legion, it just felt like home, the camaraderie,” Pribyl said. “The people were just great.”
Now part of St. Nazianz’s Post 477, Pribyl says the Legion is an extension of her family and a new purpose after serving.
“It makes me feel like I have another purpose as well,” Pribyl said.
That purpose includes ‘buddy checks’, simple phone calls and check-ins to make sure veterans are not facing things alone.
“We have lost too many veterans to suicide,” Pribyl said. “Older veterans, especially, to call and talk is so important.”
She says the goal of American Legion Post 477 is to ‘be the one.’
“Be the one to call and do buddy checks, be the one to support the family if someone is deployed,” Pribyl said. “Just be the one.”
Pribyl says she hopes others take the message to heart and check on those around them.
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“One phone call, that one meet up, that one thing can change that veteran’s whole world one day,” Pribyl said.
For Pribyl, her service is continuing to stand by those who stood beside her.
