Heather French Henry is this week’s special guest on the podcast where she shares about her Marine veteran father who served as the catalyst for her national platform.
Heather French Henry’s 20-year commitment to advocating for veterans began when she was just 4 years old, shaped by her father’s struggles with substance abuse and post-traumatic stress after serving in the Vietnam War, and her uncle’s experience as a homeless veteran. Around that same age, Henry imagined herself speaking on stage before millions of people, a vision that later became a national platform to address veteran issues she felt Americans had grown distant from such as mental health, VA benefits and homelessness.
“It's interesting because four years old is a pivotal time for me where I was thrust into a lot of understanding about who I was, but I have very clear memories of me at four.” One being the moment a young girl at church “reached over to me and she said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And I literally out of my mouth said, ‘I'm going to be Miss America.’”
Henry was crowned Miss America in 2000 and used her national platform to bring veteran issues into the halls of Congress, the White House and communities nationwide, and continued that path in her home state of Kentucky after her reign as Miss America.
Henry is this week’s special guest on the Tango Alpha Lima podcast where she shares about her upbringing, advocacy efforts and being recognized by The American Legion for her commitment to veterans.
Henry grew up in the small towns of Augusta and Maysville where she described her childhood filled with church, Girl Scouts, softball and playing GI Joe with her brother. But her upbringing was also filled with financial strain as her father battled the effects of war.
“I think I was four years old when I first recognized that there was something wrong with my father. And that's pretty much what started that whole sort of self-awareness where it moved from me, me, me to what's happening with we.”
When she was crowned Miss America, she declared her father became Mr. America because he “was really on the tail end of about five years of rehabilitation …. So I got a chance to see two men (to include her uncle) in my life turn their lives around through government-assisted programming. It was like the perfect storm for becoming Miss America and taking those stories on the road to shed light on the plight of our veterans.”
Yet, there were some who questioned why she cared about veterans when she did not serve.
“I'm not a veteran, but I'm the daughter of a disabled Vietnam veteran. And the ripple effect of military service doesn't stop at that military servicemember,” Henry said. “So being able to bring in the family dynamic brought in a whole different level that actually made me very relatable to other veteran families out there.”
That relatability was solidified during her year as Miss America when she spoke at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Veterans Day with her dad alongside her. During her remarks, “We love you Heather” was shouted from Vietnam veterans in the crowd.
“I cried throughout the entire speech,” she said. “And I realized for me that yes, I had become the Miss America who was utilizing her platform for this. I realized then that this was the core of who I really was.”
But then she had to think about the after of what next following her reign as Miss America.
“How do you transition that into something meaningful? I tell young ladies today who are competing, I encourage them to pick a community service initiative that they could still be doing in 26 years. It should be at the very core of who you are.”
After the crown came off, Henry married former Kentucky Lt. Gov. Dr. Steve Henry and began her veteran advocacy in Kentucky. She led the Kentucky Department of Veterans Affairs, worked with and supported military families at Fort Knox and Fort Campbell, addressed the needs of veteran nursing homes, cemeteries, disability benefits, homelessness and the specific needs of women veterans. She also established the Heather French Foundation for Veterans to share veteran stories.
“I want every veteran to be heard and to understand that their service, no matter if you were in combat, peacetime, wherever you served, whenever you served, that you played an integral role for America and it's worth celebrating,” she said. “I feel like that that had helped my dad cross that threshold and that's where I really want to move the needle now because we have more and more young people who are becoming more generations separated from military servicemembers.”
The American Legion will recognize Henry for her decades of service to veterans with the American Legion “Good Guy” Award on Aug. 31 during the organization’s 107th National Convention in Louisville, Ky.
“Everyone wants to be remembered. People just don’t want to have their service forgotten. So I was really moved to tears when I read the letter (from The American Legion) because it means a lot.”
Also in this episode, podcast hosts Stacy Pearsall, Adam Marr and Joe Worley discuss:
- The new Robert E. Spiller Veteran Center in Bowling Green, Ky., that will become Kentucky's fifth skilled nursing center dedicated to veterans.
- A new program in northern Kentucky that is helping eligible veterans receive long-term care without even leaving their homes.
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