By Vicki Prichard
NKyTribune Contributor
Sasha Bradford has the kind of smile that lights up a room and she wants to make sure that all veterans have a smile they feel at ease to share too.
Working with her aunt, Vicki Nixon, director of the Cincinnati Dental Society, Bradford, a Fort Thomas native, has found the opportunity to do just that through the organization’s Leave No Vet Behind program, which renders dental care to veterans throughout Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky who are not eligible for dental care at the VA Hospital, or are unable to utilize city health departments or city dental clinics due to financial restraints.
The program began in 2009, after several members of the Cincinnati Dental Society noted that the Cincinnati VA Medical Center was seeing a number of repeat patients in its emergency room who needed dental care but were without dental insurance.
“Only eight to ten percent of veterans are eligible for dental care,” Nixon points out.
Leave No Vet Behind begins with an initial dental screening, where up to 100 eligible veterans receive a free dental screening and x-rays. Once the screening is complete, volunteer dentists develop treatment plans to identify veterans with chronic and urgent needs and schedule them for further treatment. Others are scheduled according to level of need.
“Many of the dentists who volunteer are veterans too,” says Nixon.
Planning and executing the program is no small feat, what with coordinating volunteers and veterans, but Bradford and Nixon are driven to see to it that no veteran goes without proper dental care.
“This will be our fifth event,” says Bradford, who describes herself as the “binder person,” working alongside her aunt’s direction. “To date we have done over $650,000 in donated care to veterans alone. We’ve helped over 475 veterans so far. It’s amazing.”
It’s a program, says Nixon, which is self-sustaining and very doable.
“You don’t need your city to throw money at you to make it successful, just a handful of passionate people who care and want to see change. Dentists who are willing to take a Saturday and help people,” says Bradford.
The program, she says, succeeds because of committed volunteers and dentists like Dr. Ken Brandt, president of the Cuss’s Oral Health Foundation, Dr. Michael Schaeffer, CDS president and Dr. Fred Steinbeck, a Fort Thomas oral surgeon.
Screenings for the Cincinnati Dental Society’s “Leave No Vet Behind” program took place Sept. 12th, and treatment day is October 17th. But Bradford says they are on hand to help veterans year around.
“If we have a veteran call us up in the middle of the year, even when we’re not doing this, Vicki helps them. We do not turn anyone away if we don’t have to,” says Bradford. “But it seemed to make sense to have one day that is organized where everybody comes together, everything is done faster.”
Some veterans, Bradford says, think it’s too good to be true.
“We have veterans call us up and be like, “This is a joke, right? There’s got to be a catch,”” says Bradford. “The only catch is they have to show up for the appointment. If you miss your appointment you have to take that up with the dental office; if that office agrees to give you a second chance, that’s between you and them. We coordinate, tell you whom to call, where the address is and what time. We try to make it as easy as possible.”
Over the last four years Bradford has heard some heartbreaking, but ultimately, inspiring stories; stories about veterans who had all but given up on receiving the care they need only to find that relief from pain, or a smile they don’t feel they have to hide, turns the course for them. But it is perhaps her own story that makes her enthusiasm – her infectious optimism and sheer joy in helping veterans – all the more significant, and certainly humbling.
In 2013, Sasha’s husband Michael Bradford was killed in a suicide car bombing in the Afghan capitol of Kabul. A veteran of the U.S. Army, he was working for DynCorp International, a defense contractor working on the Combined Transition Command in Afghanistan. He was 26-years-old, and Sasha was seven and a half months pregnant with their first child.
On a blog that she has used to help her through the healing process, Bradford wrote about Michael and the defining moments in her life:
There are many times in your life when it is changed forever.
But none quite like this…
On May 11th, 2009 my life changed forever. This is the day I married my best friend.
In October 2009 my life changed forever. This is the time Michael deployed to Iraq.
On February 29th, 2011 my life changed forever. This is the day Michael got out of the Army.
From fall 2011 to February 2012 my life changed forever. This is the time Michael spent over in Afghanistan with his first contracting company.
In March 2012, my life changed forever again. Michael and I moved to Georgia and bought our first home.
On October 29th, 2012 my life changed forever. This is the day we found out we were pregnant.
On November 12th, 2012 my life changed forever. This is the day Michael left for Afghanistan. His second and final time.
On May 15th, 2013 my life changed forever. At 9:38 p.m. was the last time I would ever talk to my husband alive.
She remembers him as a brilliant young man.
“His idea of a fun Friday night was learning a new language while sitting on the couch,” says Bradford. “He was fluent in Spanish, could speak French, he knew some German. He taught himself Arabic and Farsi. And he knew a little bit of Chinese.”
Bradford, who was living in Georgia at the time Michael was killed, decided to return to Fort Thomas, and later to Milford, OH, after the baby, also named Michael, was born.
“I don’t want to unpack all his stuff. I know he’s not coming home, but I still have them because I don’t want to get rid of them. I’m not ready for that,” she says.
She also wasn’t quite sure that she was ready to take Nixon up on her offer to join become part of Leave No Vet Behind.
“Vicki, she wanted me to start helping with them last year when I came back and I didn’t think I could do it,” says Bradford. I” didn’t think I was ready because I almost felt like I was gypped a little bit. All these people got to come home and they get to live their lives. And then I’m like, ‘but that’s exactly why you need to do it, because they deserve to get the help.’
And so began her work to do her part to make life a little better for the veterans she meets., which certainly puts a smile on her face.
“It’s amazing to see all these people come together to make it possible for these men and women. If we can help with their oral health, maybe they won’t have a different issue. Just to see somebody smile.”
For more information about eligibility for future events, contact the Cincinnati Dental Society at 513-984-3443.
Sasha seems like such a wonderful person with an inspiring mindset to help others in need, thank you so much for this story and it really made my day 🙂
VA pulled all my do to I was supposed to have had a valve replacement. An since they pulled them out an they didn’t replace the valve as of yet, I am still without teeth in my mouth. An can’t afford to purchase dentures and since I don’t have100% disability through the Military they will not replace them. Thank You