For 12 years, Ron Higgins served as the veterans service officer in Brown County, helping to bring in millions of dollars in benefits to veterans each year while also playing the role of a friend and listener.

On April 6, he received a promotion. He began working for the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs as the Southeast District Service Officer.

His first task? To train his replacement, Chris Snell.

Higgins served with the United States Navy and Navy Reserves for eight years. He now trains the veterans service officers in 16 counties within his district to do the job he did in Brown County for more than a decade.

“Following God’s calling,” Higgins said of the career move.

“That’s a really fantastic move for my family and myself. I’m really excited about the future.”

The move is bittersweet, but he knows he’s leaving his office in good hands.

Snell joined the United States Marine Corps when he graduated high school. He served from 2003 to 2011 in infantry and in special operations. He was deployed to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once and earned a Bronze Star.

He then joined the United States Army reserves as a human resources specialist in 2011, serving until 2017. At that point, he decided to put up his boots and end his military contract.

He worked with the Red Cross for three years as an armed forces program specialist. In 2019, he began working for the state as a disabled veterans outreach program specialist, helping veterans secure employment.

“My heart is more devoted to helping veterans in any way, aspect I can. I always told my wife, if I can get paid to help veterans, that’s the dream job.”

Now, he’s doing just that.

Snell’s first official day on the job was May 18.

He is the fifth veterans service officer in Brown County since the job was first created in 1996. Harry Bond was the first.

Snell lives in Bloomington with his five children and wife, where they are active in church. “We’re really excited. Our family is so excited to become a part of the community here,” he said.

He heard about the opening in Brown County after a friend sent him a job posting from the newspaper.

“We worked many events together, so I was super excited to hear he was our new hire,” Higgins said.

‘My heart was gripped’

Around the time Snell finished his service with the Marine Corps, he began writing about the trauma he experienced. That evolved into an idea for a book, then he started a nonprofit.

“I was like, ‘Man, this is really selfish. I’m going to talk to my friends and see if they want to talk about their experiences, then I’ll write that up instead.’ I had 14 colleagues of mine write up their own story,” Snell said.

He asked his colleagues questions to “really get in-depth of the mindset of a combat veteran.”

“One of my colleagues actually emailed back after giving me his story. He just said, ‘Thank you. That’s the first time I actually talked about my experience.’ For me, my heart was gripped,” Snell said.

He decided he would name his book “Restless Minds.” But soon, he began to think that he maybe would be best suited to just talking to combat veterans about combat-related trauma. “I already had an in. I had that experience, and I can build that immediate camaraderie, maybe some mentorship,” Snell said.

This led to creating his nonprofit, Restless Minds, which lasted two years before he decided to disband it. “The hardest part for me was understanding how a nonprofit works. Filing all of the paperwork and everything of that nature, two years into it, I don’t have services or programs,” Snell said.

His dive into learning about veterans in his community did not stop. At that time he was working security at Ivy Tech Community College, but his heart was still with the veterans. That’s when he began working for the Red Cross.

“I talked to several county veteran service officers and they’re doing good things for veterans. Not only are they filing claims, but they have the ability to be a mentor, they have the ability to encourage the transition, they have the ability to just be a listening ear at times,” he said.

“I just thought, ‘Man, what a great position. What a powerful position to be in that can just stabilize somebody who is maybe hurting.’”

As Snell steps in and Higgins steps out, Higgins said he will miss interacting with the veterans daily as they come in asking for help filing claims. “The friends that I’ve made in all of my circles are the best friends I ever had my whole life,” Higgins said.

“They have taken such good care of me. I really appreciate their kindness. I encourage them to give Chris the same kindness.”

Higgins was once new to the role and its duties, too. The veterans always treated him kindly.

“Instead of being like, ‘Oh, you don’t know the answer. Why are you even here?’ No, they treated me — I don’t even have the words for that,” he said.

‘Like it was my ministry’

American Legion Post 13 Commander Keith Baker sat in on the interviews to find Higgins’ replacement. The commanders of the VFW Post 3195 and the Brown County Vietnam Veterans, along with the president of the Brown County Veterans Coalition, also were part of the process.

The county commissioners supervise the veterans service officer, but they wanted to bring in these groups to make sure the right candidate was selected. One of the criteria for the job is that the person has to be a veteran, Baker explained.

After six interviews, Snell was the one. “It was awful hard to make that decision. All of those folks are really, really great candidates,” Baker said.

Snell’s experience helping veterans seek jobs and do interviews, along with his manner, put him over the line, Baker said.

“His manner of making everybody feel at home across the table, for me personally, was a good tiebreaker. He just puts you at ease when you walk into his house, and that’s what this guy (Ron) was all about,” Baker said, pointing to Higgins.

“He just has a heart and passion for people. His family is a close-knit family. They home school. They’re involved with their church — a lot of parallels to the Higgins family that are pretty neat for us.”

The veteran services officer job involves knowing which tools to pull from a toolbox of resources to help veterans who walk through the door looking for help. The service officer is responsible for filing federal, state and local applications for VA benefits.

“They are to embrace veterans and help them through difficult times as brothers and sisters, help their families when those people get elderly and need benefits,” Baker said, “… all the way from, ‘Can I get a funeral headstone for grandpa?’ to, ‘I’ve got this really bad illness going on and I don’t know where to go.’”

Higgins said that $9 million worth of federal VA benefits is coming into Brown County now, not including military retirement.

Snell will be joining Dave Pate in Veterans Hall. Pate serves as the veterans outreach, support liaison and office manager. Pate had been working extra hours until a replacement was picked, making food and medicine runs to veterans during the pandemic. He even suited up in personal protective equipment to pick a veteran up from a facility in Indianapolis who had recovered from the coronavirus and had no family to do it.

The passing of the torch between Higgins to Snell comes at a time when the veterans affairs office is working to “re-purpose” what it does in the county and how it helps veterans, Baker said.

“Engaging a lot of those old people who have always felt private about their services is a little tough, and we want to make sure we are engaging younger veterans, Gulf War veterans and finding out what their needs are,” he said.

One part of this re-invigoration process is updating Veterans Hall using money from the county’s capital improvement loan. The lower level parking lot will be widened and stairs will be built up to the entrance.

“We actually got into a great position where we don’t have any more parking out here for meetings. We have a lot of people show up for meetings,” Baker said.

Veterans Hall also will get more comfortable chairs, and new carpet was installed.

“This isn’t just about walk in my office and file a claim. It’s about taking care of those who served and those who sacrifice. The families sacrifice, too,” Snell said.

“As long as we can create that open environment, that welcoming environment, that’s what my job should be. … We want to make sure that people feel like family here. I know I’ve felt like family just being welcomed here, so I’m definitely not going to lose touch on that.”