Frank Minosky spent about half of his 25-year Army career as a first sergeant or command sergeant major and regularly discharged soldiers for drug and alcohol use.
“I bounced a lot of soldiers out of the military, because I was of the opinion at that point that good soldiers don’t do drugs,” Minosky says. “I was of that opinion that good soldiers don’t do alcohol, drink and drive.”
After he retired, he became active in the community of Killeen, Texas, home to Fort Hood, and worked at a Workforce Solutions of Central Texas center helping transitioning soldiers find jobs. Working directly with them made Minosky think again about the soldiers who had struggled.
“As I go back and look now that I’m out, I wonder who took care of those people,” Minosky says. “I booted them knowing they were on drugs. Who cleaned them up? I booted them knowing they had an alcohol problem. Who cleaned them up?”
He became involved with the Fort Hood Veterans Endeavor for Treatment Support (VETS) Court. The first of its kind on an installation, VETS Court helps veterans with service-connected mental health or substance abuse struggles clear their judicial records by seeking treatment and working with a local veteran mentor. Minosky is the VETS Court mentor coordinator.
“I tear up whenever we go up and the judge tears up somebody’s DWI,” he says. “It is no longer in their records, because now they’re clean.”
Minosky recalls how meth nearly derailed the dreams of an ambitious, well-respected Army medic who wanted to become a physician assistant. Fortunately, the VETS Court gave him a second chance.
“When he graduated the course, the future was wide open for him again, which really emotionally got to me, and I said, ‘Yep, this is why I’m here. This is what I should have been doing a long time ago,’” Minosky says.
Minosky retired from his day job at Workforce Solutions last year but still looks for ways to help soldiers realize they have a future.
“I was an infantry guy, rucksack on my back, and I retired as a center administrator for Workforce Solutions of Central Texas. Who’d’ve thunk it? I never dreamed that in a million years,” he says. “But you give that hope and that dream to other soldiers coming out.”
Part of a series honoring ADC’s Defense Community Champions
Photo submitted
