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"Caregiving Is Essential Infrastructure": Military Caregiver Kellene Cole Advocates for Families Behind Our Veterans
Photo provided by Kellene Cole
"Love alone doesn't make you a caregiver."
It's a statement that surprises people when Kellene Cole says it. But after caring for her husband since 2012, a wounded veteran, she has come to understand the difference between loving someone and providing care.
Image provided by Kellene Cole
"You have to be present every day," she said.
That presence can mean managing appointments, navigating healthcare systems, advocating for benefits, supporting rehabilitation, raising a family, maintaining employment, and continuing to show up through challenges that have no clear endpoint.
For Kellene, that's what caregiving really is.
Today, she is a military caregiver, mother, founder of Combat Wounded Spouse, and a 2026 Elizabeth Dole Foundation (EDF) Dole Caregiver Fellow. The EDF Dole Caregiver Fellowship brings together military and veteran caregivers from across the country who share their experiences, connect with caregiving peers, and help raise awareness of the challenges and needs of military caregiving families.
She is also an advocate for a message she believes deserves far more attention: “Family caregivers are not simply helping loved ones – they are providing essential infrastructure that supports veterans, families, and communities.”
Kellene's caregiving journey began after her husband returned home from military service with a spinal injury that required surgery. Over time, he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other service-connected health conditions. As his care needs increased, Kellene found herself coordinating medical appointments, supporting his recovery, raising their children, and eventually became his full-time caregiver through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers (PCAFC).
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Like so many family caregivers, Kellene considered caring for her husband to be an act of love and supporting her spouse, not a caregiving role.
"I saw myself as a wife," she said.
Over the years, caregiving also required significant personal and professional sacrifices. Kellene returned to work after changes to the benefits her family depended on. Years of caregiving had kept her out of the workforce, and she re-entered with little recent experience on paper. She went back to school, earned new credentials, and rebuilt her career while continuing to care for her husband and raise her family. Currently, Kellene serves as a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Director in behavioral health, where she builds and leads programs for adults living with severe and persistent mental disorders.
Through those experiences, she developed a different understanding of resilience.
"Resilience isn't an outcome," she said. "It's something you show up and take on every day as a caregiver."
She worries that caregivers are often described as heroes or "superhuman" – labels that can unintentionally overlook the very real challenges they face. "Superhuman is not a compliment,” says Kellene. “It is the key ingredient in caregiver burnout, mom's guilt, and silent resentment." Caregivers need room to be human, ask for help, and acknowledge when the work is difficult.
As she navigated her own caregiving journey, Kellene realized many military spouses were experiencing similar struggles but lacked a place to talk openly about them. That realization led her to create Combat Wounded Spouse, a platform that connects military and veteran spouses and caregivers facing many of the same challenges.
Her advocacy eventually led her to the Elizabeth Dole Foundation Dole Caregiver Fellowship.
"What drew me to the foundation was that it focused on caregivers," she said. "The people behind the veterans. The people making family support possible."
Kellene uses her voice to advocate for greater recognition and support for military and veteran caregivers nationwide.
At the center of that advocacy is a simple idea: Caregiving is not charity. It is infrastructure.
Every day, family caregivers help veterans manage injuries, attend medical appointments, navigate healthcare systems, maintain independence, and remain in their homes and communities. Without the hard work of caregivers, much of that responsibility would shift to healthcare providers, long-term care facilities, and public systems.
"Caregiving is essential infrastructure," Kellene said.
She believes that recognizing caregivers as part of that infrastructure means providing the support they need to continue caring for others. That includes stronger financial support for caregivers whose careers, education, and earning potential are disrupted by caregiving responsibilities. Many family caregivers reduce work hours, leave jobs, or postpone professional opportunities to care for a loved one, often at significant personal cost.
Kellene also advocates for greater access to mental health resources for caregivers. Through both her own experiences and conversations with military spouses across the country, she has found that emotional support (like counseling services and support groups) is one of the most common unmet needs among family caregivers.
Too often, veteran and military caregivers feel responsible for carrying everyone else's burdens while having nowhere to process their own grief, stress, fear, or exhaustion.
"If we want caregivers to continue caring for others, we have to support them too," she said.
Kellene applies this principle in her own life, prioritizing her faith, making time for her mental health, and relying on a trusted support system of family, friends, fellow caregivers, and advocates who understand the challenges she faces.
It's a lesson she shares often: Asking for help isn't weakness. It's part of sustaining yourself for the long journey of caregiving.
“Faith didn't hand me answers,” she shares. “It refused to let me leave the room."
Ultimately, Kellene hopes people begin to think of caregivers in a different way. Not as invisible supporters working behind the scenes or superheroes expected to carry every burden alone; but as a vital part of the infrastructure that supports veterans, families, and communities every day.
Resources for Caregivers
- Learn more about the Elizabeth Dole Foundation
- Find resources through AARP’s Military Caregiving Guide
- Explore AARP's caregiving resources at AARP Caregiving.
- Find caregiving information and resources for Floridians at AARP Florida Caregiving.
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