Halfaker & Associates

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November 2008

Halfaker and Associates' CEO, Dawn Halfaker shares her thoughts on resilience in a panel discussion at the Department of Defense Warrior Resilience Conference

The Warrior Resilience Conference: Partnership with the Line was held November 18-20, 2008 and was sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE) for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, Resilience and Prevention Directorate. The objectives of the conference were as follows:

  • Introduce the DCoE Resilience Model: Building a Culture of Resilience.
  • Promote a cultural shift within the military Services to a leader–driven psychological health, resilience, and performance philosophy that permeates all aspects of military readiness and operation.
  • Discuss best-practices, lessons learned, and concepts for promoting Resilience in Warriors and their Families.

Dawn Halfaker was featured as a panelist on the Real Warriors Panel. The panel featured warriors who all have experienced varying methods of coping with combat and its after effects. The panel was moderated by Command Sergeant Major James Murrin. The other featured panelists were Major General David Blackledge, Lieutenant Colonel (S) Iwona Blackledge, Major Stephen Williams, Master Sergeant (Ret) Christopher Scheuerman, and Sergeant (Ret) Andrew Brandi.

Dawn Halfaker, a retired Army Captain, said that for her, recovery was a three-part process that began in the hospital. That phase focuses on physically rebuilding the body. She lost an arm when her vehicle was ambushed with small-arms and rocket-propelled-grenade fire while she was serving in Baqouba, Iraq, in February 2004.

"I really, really would not be, I don’t think, here today or the person I am today without the physical therapy and occupational therapy that I received," Halfaker said. "Although I wasn’t certainly busting out pushups or maxing my [physical test] … I was working toward a goal of getting better."

"That was really, I think, a positive and powerful phase for me," she added.

Then, the West Point graduate entered the reintegration phase and realized it’s a journey that never ends.

"Every day something comes up that is difficult or challenging, or socially awkward or, I guess, psychologically challenging," Halfaker said. "I feel like the support I had at Walter Reed and my family support and just sort of my ability through my work … to regain that sense of purpose is so critical to get through all those little frustrations."

One thing that really helped, Halfaker said, was when she received a call from Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, former acting commander of U.S. Central Command, from Iraq. Halfaker had played on the West Point basketball team with Dempsey’s daughter.

"That was just huge. I can’t even explain how powerful that was," she said of the call.