What happens when the military gives you purpose, opportunity, and a future, but also leaves you questioning leadership, trust, and your own sense of safety? In this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, Captain Kimberly sits down with Navy veteran and former hospital corpsman Trish Escalante. Trish shares how a difficult childhood led her to seek stability and education through military service, and how an unexpected path into medicine changed her future. She reflects on deploying aboard the USNS Comfort after Hurricane Maria, working in urgent care and the ICU, losing her best friend to gun violence, and carrying grief while still being expected to complete the mission. Trish also opens up about therapy, harmful coping behaviors, reconnecting with women veterans, and finding pride in her service again. Today, she is pursuing nursing while advocating for health equity, community resilience, and women veterans.

Key Topics:

• Joining the Navy to create stability, earn an education, and build a better future
• Becoming a hospital corpsman and discovering a lasting connection to medicine and caregiving
• Being a woman in the military and feeling pressure to prove herself
• Speaking up against poor leadership and the cost of feeling unable to be herself
• Losing a close friend and learning what it meant to carry grief while still serving
• Using therapy to face childhood pain, unhealthy coping habits, and unresolved trauma
• Finding healing and purpose through relationships with other women veterans
• Returning to nursing and building a future around service, public health, and disaster relief
• Learning to trust her own character, boundaries, and instincts again

Notable Quotes & Moments:

• “I felt like my personality was stripped from me.” – Trish on how military culture and leadership affected her sense of self (00:16:17)
• “There’s different kinds of war zones that happen in your head.” – Trish on the lasting impact of military experiences beyond combat (00:43:11)

Timestamps:

• 00:05:11 – Trish’s childhood, family struggles, and the personality she carried into adulthood
• 00:08:37 – How she became a hospital corpsman after initially wanting a different career
• 00:10:51 – Why boot camp felt manageable after growing up around chaos
• 00:13:22 – Recognizing the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated military environment
• 00:17:27 – Deploying with 24 hours’ notice aboard the USNS Comfort
• 00:19:19 – Witnessing the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
• 00:22:16 – Losing her best friend Megan and carrying grief through military service
• 00:25:55 – Beginning therapy and uncovering deeper issues from childhood and adulthood
• 00:31:22 – Moving to Central Oregon, earning her MPH, and deciding to return to nursing
• 00:33:03 – Connecting with Reveille and Retreat Project and women veterans
• 00:40:36 – Reaching a place of calm, confidence, and feeling like she is finally on the right path
• 00:42:39 – Choosing to share her story and realizing that noncombat experiences still matter

About the Guest:

Trish Escalante is a United States Navy veteran and former hospital corpsman, third class, whose work has centered on military medicine, public health, humanitarian service, and supporting women veterans. She joined the Navy in 2015 while searching for stability, structure, an education, and a better future.

During her six and a half years of service, Trish worked in urgent care in Norfolk, Virginia, deployed aboard the USNS Comfort during the humanitarian response to Hurricane Maria, attended Field Medical Training Battalion at Camp Pendleton, and later worked in an ICU at Great Lakes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Her military experience included meaningful opportunities as well as injury, grief, difficult leadership, and experiences that changed the way she viewed trust and safety. After leaving the military, therapy and honest self-reflection became major parts of her healing.

Trish later earned a Master of Public Health and continues to advocate for health equity, community resilience, humanitarian work, and women veterans. She is currently completing prerequisites for nursing school and hopes to combine her medical experience with future humanitarian and disaster relief work.

She is also involved with Reveille and Retreat Project, where she has participated in retreats for military women and grown into a facilitation role, helping create spaces where women veterans can connect, share their experiences, and feel heard.

CONNECT WITH TRISH

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trish-escalante/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trish.colangelo.5

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Learn more about Reveille and Retreat Project:

reveilleandretreatproject.org

Instagram: @reveilleandretreatproject

Facebook: Reveille and Retreat Project