Richard Kreiberg joined the Army in search of a sense of purpose.
Equally inspired by his family’s history of service to the nation, Kreiberg signed up in 1983.
Today, the retired Command Sergeant Major has a 35-year legacy of numerous assignments both in the country and abroad, including a deployment to Iraq in 2004.
And even after retiring, Kreiberg has continued to work for veterans’ causes, providing resources and care for the nation’s pre-9/11 veterans, specifically those who served in the Vietnam War era.
Kreiberg is the founder of Veterans Affinity, a volunteer-driven nonprofit that provides senior veterans with housing, healthcare, honors and benefits at zero cost.
This Veterans Day, he also will be one of the seven grand marshals of the Phoenix Veterans Day Parade.
Growing up, Kreiberg was always told joining the military was the career path for him, given his family’s history.
“Both my grandfathers were both Army veterans during the World War II era, and as long as I can remember, they’ve always told me that I needed to serve, I needed to go in the Army, I needed to get a pension,” he said.
“That was a conversation that they had when I was little, but I didn’t make the decision to join until a month prior to graduating high school – I waited to the very end, because I was still on the fence,” he added.
Kreiberg noted that though his grandfathers were his inspiration to join the Army, his experience was a little different from what his family had told him to expect.
“My grandfathers, both of them said, ‘Whenever you’re told to jump, you just ask, how high?’,” he said.
“Well, when I went in, the first thing our drill sergeant said was, ‘Look, when I tell you to jump, you don’t ask how high, you just start jumping!’ So I realized, okay, this is a little bit different.”
Kreiberg said that his leaders, all Vietnam veterans, helped him find the sense of purpose he was searching for.
A pivotal moment in Kreiberg’s military career came when he was deployed to Iraq in 2004 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Kreiberg, father to a toddler by then, said that his outlook then was vastly different from when he had just joined the Army.
“Prior to 9/11, and all these years that I was a single soldier, you just wanted to be in the action, to get your combat patch, you wanted to earn your stripes,” he said.
“But when 9/11 happened, I had a baby boy, I was married, and so my mindset was a little bit different. And it got very real, very quick.”
Leaving on the bus on the tarmac of Washington State’s Fort Lewis, Kreiberg said he still remembers the image of his 3-year-old son crying inconsolably. The image brought with it a realization – that coming back to his family was his purpose now.
“I had no interest in being surrounded by heroes or people who wanted to be heroes. I wanted to be with the ones that had a reason, a purpose, to live,” he said.
He recalled meeting one fellow soldier on the bus whose circumstances were similar.
“We never volunteered to do anything stupid or to do anything heroic. We just did our job. The key thing is that we just got to get home to be back with our families,” Kreiberg added.
Kreiberg said coming back home from a war was hard on him and his family.
“When I came back, it’s like I had to earn my son’s trust again that ‘I’m here, I’m not going anywhere’, and it was tough, it was really tough,” he said.
The idea to start his nonprofit, Veterans Affinity, came after he began noticing the lack of resources and care for senior, pre-9/11 veterans, specifically Vietnam war veterans.
The core mission of Kreiberg’s nonprofit is to provide the 3 H’s – Housing, Healthcare and Honors, or benefits – to such veterans.
He also gives dignity in the form of “final salutes” to dying veterans in hospice care.
Kreiberg came across one such profound experience with a Vietnam war veteran on hospice care. The veteran’s family contacted Kreiberg, who was able to bring in replacements for the awards and medals this veteran had earned during his service.
On his hospital bed surrounded by family, the veteran told Kreiberg the story of his military days, as Kreiberg pinned the awards and medals for each moment on his chest.
“When it came time to leave, I gave my final salute, meaning – you’re dismissed, you’re free to go, and I was in uniform, so I saluted him, and started to walk out, and he kicks me,” Kreiberg said.
“And then, he saluted me – he is one who is dying, and he turned around and saluted me, which is the utmost respect, like I earned his respect in a short amount of time. But most importantly, the family heard the story,” he added.
Another cause close to Kreiberg is suicide prevention in veterans. While raising awareness about the issue helps in some ways, reducing isolation among veterans is what will help in the long run, as per Kreiberg.
“We have veterans that are by themselves, and why are they by themselves? We’ll figure that out later, but we’ve got to connect with them, go find them,” he said.
What Kreiberg has found is that veterans feel at ease with something as simple as noticing a fellow soldier wearing a veteran cap, which in turn helps them seek out the larger community. He called the cap a “beacon of light” – a way to reach such veterans.
The community also helps veterans assimilate better into civilian life.
“When you’re in the military, you have structure, yes, somebody’s telling you where to go, somebody that’s going to keep you out of trouble, you’re on this together with a common goal,” Kreiberg said.
Even with veterans facing such challenges, Kreiberg said he would still encourage people to join the armed forces.
“It takes a special person who’s willing, this is a military mindset – something bigger than yourself. That’s what I love about the military, is you’re part of something bigger than yourself,” he said.