Warrior Class in Crisis: Bridging the Military-Civilian Gap to Serve Today's Veterans
As we celebrate our 15th-anniversary this year, we are excited to welcome US Marine Corps Veteran, author, and journalist Ben Kesling as keynote speaker. We will also honor long-time CVLC employee Nikki Kelsey with the Founders Award and Suisman Shapiro Attorneys-at-Law with the Pro Bono Award. This year’s event will also include a speech by US Marine Corps Veteran and CVLC client Morgan Gray and a special welcome from CVLC’s new Board Chair and US Army Veteran Margaret Donovan.
Special thanks to Yale NROTC, who will be presenting the color guard, and Doron Monk Flake, who will sing the National Anthem.
Congratulate Our Honorees with a Program Ad
For this year’s event we will produce a full color program book which will be distributed to each guest.
To purchase your ad please contact Patrick J Dunn, Deputy Director of Development and Communications no later than October 15th.
We have two ad sizes available, full page ($750) and half page ($375).
Meet Our Honorees and speakers
Ben Kesling
Keynote Speaker
Ben is an author who focuses on national security and veterans issues. He was a Wall Street Journal staff reporter for more than a decade with stints at the Journal’s bureaus in Chicago and Washington. He also spent time at the Baghdad bureau as a foreign and combat correspondent.
Ben graduated from Wabash College and has a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. He attended the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University. Before becoming a reporter he was a Marine Corps Infantry officer with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also a two-day Jeopardy! champion.
His book, Bravo Company, is about an Army company’s harrowing deployment to Afghanistan and its decade of reckoning afterwards.
Read some of Ben’s recently published Wall Street Journal articles here.
Read Ben’s most recent article published in The Atlantic here.
Read Ben’s recent articles published in Politico here and here.
Purchase a copy of Ben’s book “Bravo Company”, available via Abrams Books here.
Nikki Kelsey
Founders Award
Nikki Kelsey began her long paralegal career as a legal assistant for the Subway franchisor, registering the franchise company in states across the country. She then moved to Wiggin and Dana LLP and worked for almost a decade as a litigation paralegal in their appellate group. She joined the U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut Clerk’s office in 2007 where she was a case administrator in New Haven and then later promoted to operations supervisor in the Hartford division. In 2014, Nikki left the Court and came to CVLC where she worked as a paralegal for 8 ½ years, helping CVLC attorneys assist veterans with their VA and court filings. Nikki returned to federal service last year and now works remotely for the VA’s national call center as a legal administrative specialist, answering VA benefit questions from veterans, their family members and representatives.
Suisman Shapiro Attorneys-at-Law
Pro Bono Award
For over 80 years residents and businesses have relied on Suisman Shapiro Attorneys-at-Law.
Since Charles Suisman, Max Shapiro and Louis Wool established themselves as skilled eastern Connecticut attorneys in the 1930’s and collaborated in the 1950’s to form the firm, Suisman Shapiro has been protecting the interests of average citizens. As their firm has grown, their attorneys have continued to offer innovative, effective solutions for legal problems. Residents and businesses in Connecticut have responded – Suisman Shapiro is now the largest law firm headquartered in eastern Connecticut.
Even when Mr. Suisman was joined by partners Max Shapiro and Louis Wool in the 1950’s, a general practice attorney could still handle most matters capably. Since then the law has changed. In order to offer comprehensive and effective counsel for today’s more complex legal environment, each of their attorneys now focuses on specific practice areas.
Learn more here.
Morgan Gray
Veteran Speaker
Bio coming soon.
Thank You to Our 2023 Saluting Service Sponsors
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