00:00:17 Speaker 1: Bushkin. 00:00:25 Speaker 2: Hey everyone, it's j R. Martinez on Medal of Honor. We talk a lot about what our service men and women do overseas, but we spend less time talking about what happens when they come home. Some troops come home wounded. They need a series of surgeries, cancer treatments, long term medical care, and they can spend weeks to months to years in hospitals and cities far from their homes. And during that period they need a place to stay, but that can cost a fortune, making it almost impossible for them to receive the care that they need. That's where Jennifer Duluca comes in. For fifteen years, Jen has been running Fisherhouse Boston, a branch of the Fisher House Foundation. She pioneered a program that works with local hotels to get veterans and their families the housing they need and it doesn't cost a vet a dime. In twenty twenty three, Jen was awarded the Citizen Honors Service Act Award. It's one of the highest honors as civilian can receive, selected by WHO recipients of the Medal of Honor. I sat down with Jen to talk about her incredible work with our nation's veterans and their families. And while I learned she's been a fan of some of my work. More importantly, she learned I'm a huge fan of hers. 00:01:54 Speaker 1: Jin Welcome to the show. 00:01:56 Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. How are you, Jr? 00:01:59 Speaker 1: I'm well, how are you doing? 00:02:00 Speaker 3: Good? Good? I can't believe I'm talking to Jesse's son from General Hospital. All our sun in line from all those years ago. 00:02:11 Speaker 1: Oh that's hilarious. 00:02:13 Speaker 3: That's been my big joke with all my girlfriends. I'm like, you have no idea who I'm talking dude. 00:02:19 Speaker 1: That is hilarious. I've never had anyone say it like that. I love that. Oh my god. 00:02:29 Speaker 2: Now listen. Then we're going to be straight up here. Okay, we're all about being vulnerable with each other and we're friends. Now right, you're a little nervous. Why are you a little nervous? 00:02:37 Speaker 3: I just hate talking about myself, and you know I'm shy. I'm shy. 00:02:44 Speaker 2: Well, the good thing is we are wanting to get to know you, but also the incredible work that you do at the Fisher House and for the listeners, can you describe what the Fisher House is and what it does? 00:02:59 Speaker 3: Sure, the Fisher House is a home away from home for military families when a loved one is ill or injured. There are one hundred Fisher Houses across the country right now. Fisher House Boston provides free lodging to military families that are coming to Boston to receive medical care. 00:03:24 Speaker 2: What's a typical case of someone you've helped, meaning from the moment that they reach out to you to the moment that they finish their treatment. 00:03:33 Speaker 3: So a typical day is a family will be seen at one of the major hospitals. One of the first questions the social workers or medical team will ask is are you military or have you served? The second they say yes, they give them our information and we step in. We have a nurse on staff that will then connect with the social work team. We will find out what their illness is, how long they're going to be here. Then we place them at the hotel or one of our apartments, which is right next to the medical facility that they're utilizing. They check in like a regular hotel, they never see a bill, and we stay in touch with them the entire time of the duration of their stay. 00:04:30 Speaker 1: That's beautiful. I love that. 00:04:31 Speaker 2: Not sure if you know this, I was injured in early of two thousand and three, shortly after the conflict in Iraq began, and my mother had to relocate of course, and was at the hospital by my side for the three months that I was initially in the hospital. And I've actually stayed at a Fisher House. My mother stayed at a Fisher House in San Antonio when I was recovering there. So I have a special place in my heart for the Fisher House Foundation. Like why is this so important for a veteran that's in treatment to have family close by? Like what have you found as far as like the clinical outcome? 00:05:08 Speaker 1: What impact does it have? 00:05:09 Speaker 3: Jr. It's unbelievable. I mean it's life changing. It can change the course of the outcome of someone's illness. Having a family member next to their loved one. It helps the hospital, it helps the healing process, and it helps the morale of the patient. No matter what age you are, they were there for us. We need to be there for them. And I will tell you when I speak about what we do, so many people say, I never thought about what happens when the military gets sick, when they're out. I never thought about them being in the hospital. What the cost could be to get the correct care if they had to travel from Washington State to Boston for the specialized treatment. Then you come here and you face hotels at seven hundred dollars a night and either they're saying we're going to go on hospice or the sleeping in their cars because they can't afford it. So it's very, very important for the community to step in and get together and take care of these military members that were there for us because their families need them. 00:06:26 Speaker 1: Now, what made you get into this work? 00:06:29 Speaker 3: So Jr. I have always done things taking care of people. I was brought up that way. I'm the youngest of five. It's just what we were taught you're supposed to do. So I was working at a behavioral house taking care of children. I left that and decided to do something polar opposite, So I opened a landscape company. Up came the bids to do the yard design for the Fisher House being built in West Roxbury. So we put the design in. We won the bid and I designed the backyard for the Fisher House in West Roxbury. But why it was being built by the crews. I would sit on the patio and talk to all the families, and my father was a marine. When I was little, if we saw someone in uniform, my father would walk me over to them and say, shake his hand and thank him. I was taught from a very young age that somebody in uniform has raised their hand and said they would die for you, show them the respect that they deserve. It was just a natural transition to go from what I feel intrinsically to putting it to motion and helping military families. I never thought I would be where I am today, saving our military thirteen million dollars in the twelve years we've run it chain needed cause. So it's a privilege to be able to work with our military families and carry that name. 00:08:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, now, I love that, and it's it's so true. 00:08:22 Speaker 1: You know. 00:08:22 Speaker 2: I often challenge people. You know, we're so conditioned to say thank you for your service, and even though on the surface that's very beautiful to be able to acknowledge what someone has done, you don't really necessarily truly know what you're acknowledging, right, And so what I encourage people to do instead is to replace thank you for your service with tell me about your service. That to me speaks to what you did while the crews were back there working on you know, the backyard and the layout, and you're sitting on that front porch talking to these service members and their families. What did you learn that made you realize, as a civilian, I want to be connected to this. 00:09:06 Speaker 3: It was honestly a privilege from the moment I walked through though those doors to meet these families, to hear what they had been through, and to know that we could make a difference, whether it's small or big, to change the course of their life going forward. 00:09:26 Speaker 2: I think a lot of people tend to overthink it, right, Yeah, we tend to get caught up in the narrative that, well, what do I offer? What do I bring to the table? What do you say to those people when they're wondering I'd love to get involved. I buy into it the fact that it's a responsibility, But what do I do? 00:09:44 Speaker 3: You have to show up. You have to appreciate the life you live and not look for the negative. I am the incredible optimist. I know you have to believe everything's going to be okay and life is going to be good. And so many people, like you said, get caught up in what's going on and correct things to answer, and you just have to show up for each other. And that's the truth. So you said, thank you for your service. I have to share a great story. I had the privilege of meeting General Maddis and I was so nervous before meeting him, and I said, thank you for your service, sir, and he said, you're worth it. Oh, And it stopped me and he said, now, Jen, you see lots of people through your line of work. When you thank someone, if they say you're welcome, I want you to tell them this story. And I tell every military member I meet to say to somebody that says that you're worth it. 00:10:56 Speaker 2: When you said that, I literally, and I'm not exaggerating here, I literally felt like I had to like take a deep breath like it. I mean, it makes you think, it makes you feel something different. It definitely carries a different way to that I'm gonna have to use that you do. That's the perfect response right there. Thank you for sharing that story. It's funny how you said you were shy. Yeah, you ain't shy, Jen, I feel like we could talk for hours and hosting this podcast. That's one of the things I've identified is that we're telling these stories of these incredible individuals that did something that most of us can't even fathom, and it's easy to put them on a pedestal, and again, they deserve to be up there, right, Those individuals in a moment, they didn't know what the outcome would be. They just kept showing up, right. They didn't have to have all the answers. They just went with what they had. They just brought themselves and they just kept showing up. That's a beautiful reminder to everybody that's listening, whether you've served or not, no matter what you're navigating in life, keep showing up. Well, Jen, listen, I'm gonna ask you a straight up question now, when these families are showing up, are you trying to convert them to be like Celtics fans and Ruin fans? And I mean, are you trying a Red Sox fan? Are you trying to convert them to be Boston fans? 00:12:40 Speaker 1: Like? 00:12:40 Speaker 2: What do you do? I know you guys always trying to work on angle up there. 00:12:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, so everyone knows the Patriots and the Bruins are the best, so they just immediate and Celtics, you know, so they just automatically want to be part of our family with that. 00:12:55 Speaker 1: But I think that's one of the things. 00:12:59 Speaker 2: Like when I was in San Antonio recovering, like, you know, they would give me a hard time, right, I'd come out of a surgery and I'd wake up and then you know, the staff would prank me and they would literally decorate my room with spurs gear and I'm. 00:13:13 Speaker 1: Like, oh, like, what are you guys doing? Like why are you guys doing this to me? 00:13:16 Speaker 2: And it was just one of those fun, little banter things that just sort of kind of allowed you to have a little bit of an escape, if you will. 00:13:23 Speaker 3: So I will share our apartments. The three apartments were decorated and all the furniture donated by the New England Patriots. They have been an unbelievable partner. So I do get quite a bit when I put a family in one of our apartments. They joke with, Okay, we'll be a Patriots fan for this amount of time because all the pictures on the walls are the Patriots, So we do force them to be Patriots fans. 00:13:56 Speaker 1: But that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. 00:13:59 Speaker 2: Get up there and enjoy that culture, you know, Our show focuses on stories of courage, and we're often talking about that courage that takes place on the battlefield. 00:14:11 Speaker 1: What kind of courage do you see in the people that you work with? 00:14:17 Speaker 3: Just incredible from diagnosis that they are given and how they have to stay strong for both their family and themselves. J Are there things that would send you and I into tears in our bed for hours and they're standing up, showing up for their loved ones and everyone around them. I'll tell you. General John Kelly is a good friend, and we dedicated the garden in West Roxbury to General Kelly's son who was killed in action. And one day I was walking with John and I started crying about one of our families, just simple tears coming down. And John put his hand on my arm and he gave me the best of and he said, Jen, you can never cry with the family. You're here to support them. If you're crying, they're going to turn around and take care of you. Now, Jr. If you know me, I cry at the drop of a hat. So it is very hard for me to stay in a place with these families because when you hear that, you know we've been married fifty years and we're going to celebrate our anniversary in the hospital why he fights leukemia. Talking to the veteran that calls and says, hey, I'm making this call for my wife. I know you can't help me. I'm just going to go on hospice. I need to leave her financially sound, and if we come to Boston, I won't be able to. And then I get to pop in and say, sir, you're coming to Boston. I've got you covered. We're going to get you here, and we're going to take care of your stay. And just knowing the difference we're making, there's nothing you can feel but pride. And that is a true story. And he is still living today. It's just across the board a lesson every day because they are strong when they're seeing me. They're in that space that they are allowed to come down and cry and share the worst of what's going on or the best of what's going on. So I look at these families in awe at what they are shouldering, what they are handling for their loved one. And I will say, the military don't want to ask for anything. 00:16:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't ask for help. We don't. 00:17:01 Speaker 2: And you hear of these Medal of Honor recipients who come home and they struggle, right, They struggle. They struggle asking for help, They struggle with vulnerable you know, they struggle with how to build that community outside of that military environment. And when you have people like yourself that are doing what they're doing, it just helps a service member slowly start to believe that they can ask for help. 00:17:29 Speaker 3: The younger generation, I will say, is more apt to reach out, whereas the Korean and Vietnam vets, they're the ones that when I say, sir, I've got you, the phone goes quiet, and I know they're crying, so I have to give them a few minutes. Yeah, and then they come back and they say, ma'am, no one's ever done anything like this for me. I had a veteran say, we helped his wife who has leukemia and she was here for over two hundred days in the hospital receiving care. And he was a United States Marine and he said, in all the years and all the service, this is the greatest gift he has ever gotten back and the first time he ever felt respected. Wow, And that's huge. 00:18:22 Speaker 1: You know. 00:18:22 Speaker 2: I often refer to the nearly three years that I spent in the hospital recovering. When I actually sat down to write my book and I got into the section about my recovery, and I called my best friend and I said, Man, is it weird that as I'm referring and thinking about the time in the hospital, like I actually feel like I miss it. And he said, no, it's not weird, Jr. He's like, that's a reflection of the people that took care of you, the people that were there. And it was one of those moments where I was like, Oh, that's so true. They weren't just the team that took care of me, whether the physician or the social worker or the volunteer. They were my friends. They were my extended family. 00:19:08 Speaker 3: I get that because we have families that the husband or wife cannot come the whole time. And that's when we pop in and say, you know, is there anything you need? Is there any you know there's another family staying down the hall. Would you like to connect with them? And you make a community of support, And that's what it's all about. Even after we've put families up for three hundred days, you know, sometimes they don't think to come back and think about what kept them here. But I will tell you. On Thanksgiving, my text message chain fills up with messages from people saying thank you. 00:19:55 Speaker 2: But then, what do you do for yourself? How do you keep showing up? Because it takes an emotional toll. I mean, you become connected, invested in all of these families that you are around. What do you and what does the team do for themselves in order to keep showing up the way that you guys do. 00:20:16 Speaker 3: That's a great question. So I asked myself that question. I've been doing this sixteen years now, so I had gone a long time without realizing the toll that it was putting on me. Because when you hear so many sad stories, you hold them, you hold them in your heart. So this is a mission of love, I would say. And I'm going to circle this back to courage and being courageous because when I decided to start this program, I didn't know at the time if the foundation would even allow me to do this, But I had facts that there were military families that were sleeping in their cars. What are we supposed to do turn our back on them and pretend we don't know the this is happening now. So it took a lot of courage to put this together, know that it was crazy because we'd have to raise the funds to do this, and then it all just worked out. My son is in it, and early on he was volunteld that he would do this. Now he loves it and he loves being part of it because he gets to meet the military members that we help. I mentioned earlier that we have a nurse that does all of the medical intakes. That is my daughter, who I stole from her bedside nursing job after five years and said I need you on my team because they grew up with this idea. They saw me have the light bulb go off and say I need to do something. So this is a true family love. My daughter met her husband through the Fisher House Boston. He's an army guy, and unlike other jobs where you check out at the end of the day and you go home, we've have days that we put in sixteen hours sitting taking care of families. We never look at it as a job. When we talk about self care. We're family, so we talk and there's never really a cutoff time. At ten o'clock at night, Abigail can call me and say we just got a call. A man's coming in for a transplant. There medflighting him tomorrow morning. We're talking all the time about the families that need help, why the rest of the country is sleeping. 00:23:01 Speaker 2: So you guys turn out to be each other's support system absolutely, where you guys convent with one another's, share with one another, be there to support one another. 00:23:10 Speaker 1: Year you understand each other. That is beautiful. 00:23:13 Speaker 2: I love I love how you know the connection there and the ripple effect from the work and the way that you've shown up. You know, I'm a father, I have two kids. You know, you always get the question of like, which kid do you love the most right and as a parent, you can't really answer that question. You're like, I love them all equally. It's just but I get the impression that you're kind of like the mother for all of these you know, patients that come through and go through. 00:23:39 Speaker 1: You know your process. 00:23:41 Speaker 2: But is there one specific family or veteran whose story has stayed with you over the years. 00:23:50 Speaker 3: So I will tell you, honestly, every story touches me in a different way. You have children that have something called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. They are in the hospital for a long, long time, you get to know those families very well. Well. You know, I sit there and I cry with them, and I hold their hand and I support them. They are the same as the stem cell families that are coming through. It really is just like my son and daughter. Each family has changed my life in some way, and they really have. They come to you when they have fear, uncertainty, They have no idea how they're going to do this. I believe all they should focus on is their loved one and let me take care of the rest. I couldn't say I have a favorite, because they all have truly touched me and left me with something. 00:25:03 Speaker 1: I believe you. I believe you. 00:25:19 Speaker 3: So. 00:25:19 Speaker 1: Jen. 00:25:20 Speaker 2: Three years ago, in twenty twenty three, you, my friend, received the Citizen's Honors Service Act Medal. What did it mean for you to be recognized by Medal of Honor recipients for your service. 00:25:37 Speaker 3: Other than my children? The absolute greatest honor I have ever received. You know, I've been involved with the Medal of Honor for a long time. The Medal of Honor hosts a convention every year, and I would be the first to raise my hand to sit on the committee to make it an incredible week for them when they come to Boston. I can't tell you I'm you know. I look at them and the heroic things they did and the courage and the discipline everything that makes up a Medal of Honor recipient, and I am humbled. I can't believe that they even put my name in the same sentence with them, And it just makes me work harder because they gave me something so valuable and that meant so much that I have to keep showing up for these families and keep doing and growing and seeing where there are gaps and care and be there for the men and women that need us. 00:26:36 Speaker 2: I love that that is so pure and yet one hundred percent of what we constantly hear on this show when we're talking about metal of out of recipients, right, it's just this element of like, Okay, I have this responsibility now, right. You know it's not always easy, but this metal is just mainly a reminder that I am still in service and the job is not done right. What would you say to someone that is listening, that is navigating their own adversity, whatever it may be, and how they overcome it and how they continue to find ways to show up. 00:27:20 Speaker 3: So first, I'd say, give yourself a break, because we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Give yourself a little bit of a break, and then one step at a time. And know, something that you think is so big and overpowering and crushing, sometimes when you look at it the next day, you see another way to look at it, and you start to process things in a very different way. And that's what I would say is know there are thousands of different chances, opportunities. There's nothing that's so big that can't be overcome. And lean on people. Nobody does things alone. You need your team of people, whether it's family or battle buddies or you know, whoever it is, lean on them. That's what they're there for. 00:28:22 Speaker 1: How have you changed as a person? 00:28:26 Speaker 3: I've changed so much. I would say. Twenty years ago I never used the word blessed. I am blessed. It is a gift and a privilege to be able to make a change and a difference in someone's life, especially when it is the hardest time of their life. And I'm proud of my family to see my kids stepping up and being the next generation for this and knowing how important it is. To date, we have provided over thirty three thousand nights of lodging to over fifty five hundred military families, saving them thirty teen million dollars. And that is all on donated funds from our community and people that know what we're doing. 00:29:20 Speaker 2: Well, Jen, this is a great opportunity to give the listener a call to action. What do you need and how can people support you and your mission? And then how can people just support the Fisher House overall. 00:29:37 Speaker 3: So for us here in Boston, because we do run the program on donations, we are always in need of money. So we are at Fisherhouse Boston dot org. There are donation links there, all of our information is there and that is the greatest support we need to be able to keep doing what we do. And we have military and need they are being diagnosed to now with cancer, cardiac disease, high risk pregnancies, transplants, and they're all coming to Boston to get the best medical care they can and that they deserve. So help us help them and go to Fisherhouse Boston dot org. 00:30:30 Speaker 1: And no donation is too small, no never. 00:30:34 Speaker 3: You're making a difference in someone's life, and a real difference. 00:30:42 Speaker 2: When I'm listening to you and I would like to say that I'm speaking for the listener right now. I feel like I just sort of blanketed in like a big, warm hug from you. That's how it feels, And it feels like I would want when I'm in the Boston area, I want to link up and I want. 00:30:58 Speaker 1: To give you a big old hug and you better. 00:31:01 Speaker 2: I mean, you are an angel on this earth love and the way that you are impacting and showing up and pouring your heart into every single intake as incredible. And again for those listening, please go look up Fisherhouse Boston dot org. Thank you so much for your willingness to not only do this work but also come on to the Medal of Honor Stories of Courage podcast And it has been such a joy to have this conversation with you. 00:31:31 Speaker 3: Total pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much. 00:31:46 Speaker 2: To learn more about Jen's work at Fisher House Boston or to make a donation to support them, visit Fisherhouse Boston dot org. That link is also in our show notes. This episode was produced by Ryan Sweikert. It was edited by Lydia Jane Kott. Sound designed by Jake Gorski. Our Executive producer is Constanze Gayadroro original music by Eric Phillips. 00:32:11 Speaker 1: I'm j R. Martinez. Thank you for listening.