Colleen Steffen, a dual member of both the Legion and American Legion Auxiliary, serves as a Be the One regional coordinator in the Department of Maryland.
Maryland Legionnaire Colleen Steffen dealt with her own trauma during her career in the U.S. Navy. And that is one of the reasons she is driven to promote The American Legion’s Be the One veteran suicide prevention program.
A dual member of Proctor Kildow Post 71 in Oakland, she serves on The American Legion Department of Maryland Executive Committee and is a past American Legion Auxiliary Unit 71 president.
She also serves as the regional Be the One Coordinator for Districts 7 and 8, a position she was appointed to by Maryland Region Commander Bob Ouellette two years ago.
Steffen said she didn’t want to share her trauma while in the military and developed her own coping mechanisms. After retiring from the Navy, she went into psychiatric nursing.
Now, she wants to use what she went through to help others in crisis – and mentor others to be able to do the same.
“My job in the military was mental health,” Steffen said. “I’m an advocate. I have a lot of experience, so I am really vested into this. I want them to feel like I feel: That veterans are important (and) their families, and we need to save lives.”
As a regional Be the One coordinator, Steffen is in charge of Maryland’s Districts 7 and 8. She has a representative in each district who she meets with multiple times to get updates on what posts in their districts are doing with Be the One.
“I inundate them with every bit of information that I have because it is their responsibility to get it out to the posts in their districts,” Steffen said. “And they’re doing a great job. They’re my voice. I send them everything on training. I direct them to everything on Be the One: the resources, the materials. I literally go to the posts, and I bring materials that I have.”
Steffen also has asked her district reps to try to collect numbers on how many Legion Family members have gone through the virtual Be the One training (click here for future sessions).
Steffen also urges posts to reach out to area schools, local health departments and others in the community to collaborate on events that can include Be the One messaging.
“I just capitalize on every event,” she said. “When you’ve got Girl Scouts, when you’ve got the JROTC and the fire department all having displays of Be the One, they’re getting it. So I try to elicit that to the posts in my districts.”
At her own post, Steffen has created a display board that shares what posts across the nation are doing to promote Be the One. “When people walk in that door, they say, ‘What’s Be the One?’” she said. “When I come into the post … I take people on a tour and say, ‘Hey, do you know about Be the One?’ They ask me about it.”
Steffen also has been touched by veteran suicide personally, another driving force behind her passion to promote and implement Be the One.
“I have lost some veteran friends because they didn’t know there was another way. Or they knew and didn’t know how to get from Point A to Point B because of a stigma,” she said. “This is so important. There is an urgency here.”
- Be the One