Alicia Brady had no idea what she was getting into when she enrolled in the biology program at NAU. She wasn’t expecting mountains, forests and a generation of college students who are independent, creative and feel free to be themselves.
After 18.5 years in the military, the culture shock was real, but beautiful.
“The freedom for me to come out here and be the tree-hugging dirty hippie that I am is one of the best feelings in the world,” Brady said. “I was so happy.”
The college junior, who plans to go to physician assistant school when she graduates, found a home not just in Flagstaff but at NAU’s Veterans Success Center. It supports about 1,200 military-connected students, half of whom are veterans, active duty, National Guard and Reserve members both in their virtual and in-person offices. They help with getting questions answered and paperwork completed but also with an on-campus space where students can feel at home.
“What has stood out to me in getting to know Alicia is her concern for others and her continued commitment to serve,” said director Pete Yanka. “She has a wide range of experiences and phenomenal insight into the veteran community. In my conversations with Alicia since I have known her, I’ve come to appreciate her perspective and commitment to the community and her strong commitment to service.”
As NAU prepares for Veterans Day, Brady shares what led her to the military, the global path that brought her to NAU and how she’s turning those experiences into a place for women veterans to rediscover themselves.
Finding her future
Brady enlisted in the U.S. Navy when she was 21 years old. She planned to be an operations specialist. Instead, she became a hospital corpsman, providing medical support to Navy and Marine Corps personnel. Her lengthy career started in critical care at a San Diego hospital and included deployments to Afghanistan, on a U.S. destroyer in the Mediterranean and with Seal Team Four and Seal Team Eight.
She also went to independent duty corpsman school, which is basically physician assistant school condensed from 24 months into 13.
The work was hard, though mixed with travel, exploration, learning and making friends. Brady’s time on the U.S.S. Barry was hard work; she had 11 emergency evacuations in less than a year. She also was on a ship in the Mediterranean and got to explore a variety of countries.
“I don’t think the general civilian population understands how hard people onboard ships work,” she said. “They work 24/7; there is no break. Lots of people don’t sleep for two to three days because the job has to get done and there’s no one else to do it. Supporting all the people on that ship medically was a rough job.”
Becoming a PA
With independent duty corpsman school, Brady was already on a good track for PA school. But while that gave her the skills and knowledge to know she could do the job, she had other, more personal reasons for choosing a career path in healthcare.
One reason popped up when she made the choice to medically retire. During her career, Brady had multiple concussions and combat-related PTSD, then COVID hit, and “COVID was very rough in the military.” The stress of her job, coupled with previous conditions, led to painful, repetitive migraines that kept her from working at the level she wanted to.
“I’m getting this degree because I want to learn about everything that I had to go through,” she said. “Stress compounds the symptoms of both of my diagnoses. It made the symptoms so bad. It’s not that I couldn’t function at my job, but my time functioning was decreased.”
But it wasn’t even her own medical experiences. She had a defining moment that made her realize that medicine was her place.
It started when she was deployed with an infantry unit in rural Afghanistan. She was part of a team doing village medical outreach to the tribes, each run by its own village elder. While doing that work, she had a chance to observe a culture very different from her own and bond with Afghan women.
“No one outside the village is allowed to come in because women are protected. They’re not allowed to be seen by other men, but women could go in,” she said. “I got to go in and do basically one-to-one women’s medicine for women living in a developing country. That was my favorite thing that I ever did on active duty.”
The Flagstaff Women Veterans Collective
Brady got involved with the Veterans Success Center when she started school at NAU. After a couple of years, Yanka approached her with an idea: Would she lead her own outreach effort for student veterans?
Brady said maybe, then went home and thought about it. It’s hard to say what veterans need—they’re a diverse group who had vastly different experiences before, during and after their time in the military.
“One night on a full moon I was meditating—as we do here in Flagstaff—and all of a sudden it came to me,” she said. “I recharge and reset when I’m in the woods. It’s my happy place; it’s what makes me feel calm, and it makes me feel like I can go back and address everything that’s going on in my life. I love to do it, and maybe other people would love to do it. It’s something I’m capable of doing that wouldn’t stress me out or make me feel overwhelmed. I can handle doing it once a month.”
The Flagstaff Women Veterans Collective, born under that full moon, came to fruition quickly. It’s not just for students; Brady wanted it to be open to all women veterans. She wanted a place for mothers who needed some time to themselves and to offer a safe space for women who may have experienced sexual assault or harassment, which is drastically underreported in the military.
“If I put women in a space where they understand that somebody else has had the same experience as them and they feel safe, they can actually let go and calm down,” Brady said. “If I can give that space to them and that time to them once a month, and they know it’s there once a month—you never know who you’re going to save and who you’re going to help with just that consistency.
“Even if it’s one person, that’s fine. That’s one person who’s resetting their central nervous system that month.”
That, in fact, is her measure of success: If she can help one veteran from going over the edge toward suicidality or a complete mental health break, then this is successful. Brady understands just how hard being in the military is and how hard being out of the military is. She wants her fellow veterans to know they can ask for help.
“I’ve met so many veterans who have a stigma against getting mental health help,” she said. “I want the stigma to be erased. There’s no one else in America who’s had the same exposure. There’s no reason to not try to reset your brain.”
Join the Lumberjack community at events this weekend.
Three veterans will speak at the Veterans Flag Tribute on Nov. 10. They are:
Tierre Hazlewood served 11 years in both the U.S. Air Force and the Louisiana Air National Guard. During this time, she completed a hardship tour in Osan, AB Korea, activated for multiple national disasters, along with a combat communication tour in Afghanistan. Today, she is completing her final year in NAU’s Clinical Mental Health Counseling program to fulfill her scholarship obligation at Vet Centers counseling service members/veterans in underserved areas.
Anthony Caniglia is an advocate for veterans and community initiatives, committed to building programs that make a lasting impact. Through his work with organizations like the Nation of Patriots and the Arizona Elks Association, he’s helped create meaningful opportunities for service and support. He believes in leading with integrity, collaboration and purpose.
A former commander of AFROTC Detachment 027 at Northern Arizona University, Col. Tom Waddell’s leadership earned the detachment the 1994 Right of Line Award as the best in the nation. Today, he continues to serve the Flagstaff veteran community as president of the Grand Canyon Chapter, Military Officers Association of America.