At first, Nancy Schiliro thought she had gotten lucky. When a mortar hit a fuel point just feet from where she was standing in Iraq, she walked away with only a few scratches and a bad headache. Believing she had avoided serious injury, she shook it off and went back to work as a Marine Corps Logistics Specialist. But as she finished serving her last month in Iraq, Schiliro began realizing that she wasn't okay - her eye sight was worsening.
When her unit returned to California, she saw a specialist who diagnosed her with a torn retina, massive eye infection and a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Ultimately, she ended up with a prosthetic eye, an honorable discharge and little else as she had been forced to sell the ice cream shop she owned before deploying.
"I had nothing to come home to," says Schiliro. "I had a really good family that supported me through some really hard times when I first came home, but I was really miserable."
Schiliro didn't know what she was going to do. She didn't think she could do anything now that she had poor eyesight, constant headaches and memory deficits. She was afraid that she would fail at anything she tried, and that no one would understand why. So she didn't try.
Schiliro was first introduced to the Wounded Warrior Project at a veterans' retreat recommended by her therapist. The event showed her there were many people exactly like her-college students, business owners, young professionals and wounded warriors who were excelling at everything they tried.
"I realized I was so much more than what I saw in the mirror every day," she says.
That's when she decided she wanted to help people just like her. John Roberts, the National Service Director at the Wounded Warrior Project, recognized that Schiliro needed support and encouragement. He reached out to her and offered her a job as a Benefits Liaison while she was still in school.
"I was researching claims, laws and benefits; fighting for wounded warriors who needed the same help I had already gotten," Schiliro says. She goes on to admit that, had it not been for the same outreach, she would not be where she is now. The patience and understanding of the Wounded Warrior Project team members caused her to succeed.
The Wounded Warrior Project offered numerous workplace accommodations to Schiliro. While she hasn't needed to take advantage of any special supports to date, she appreciates her employer's willingness to provide them and knows she can ask for them at any time. "For now, I just carry around a pad of paper," she says. "That's all I need to keep myself on track."
Schiliro had first seen her injuries as an unattractive barrier, making her useless to society. She thought her head injury would prevent her from ever achieving success. However, it was her employers at the Wounded Warrior Project who pushed her to succeed and disprove those common misperceptions about employees with TBI and visual impairment. In fact, she wishes all employers could see that veterans are a special breed. She thinks a veteran's resume should be the first any hiring manager looks at, because in spite of injuries, visible or invisible, veterans possess the heart and integrity needed to help any business thrive.
"Just because superman doesn't wear a cape all the time doesn't mean he's not superman," Schiliro says. "He still does great things when you ask him to."
For additional workplace success stories and information on promising practices for accommodating employees with TBI or PTSD, visit www.AmericasHeroesAtWork.gov.