BY JOE ARCE AND COREY CRABLE
In-depth report
Memorial Day weekend is coming – a time for the nation to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by the military servicemen and women as they protect their country. But for many of those who are serving or have served on the front lines, a battle continues to rage within their own mind.
The enemy goes by many familiar names, all of them nefarious and powerful. Depression. Anxiety. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Survivors’ guilt. And as a therapist, one Army veteran, Glenda Hernandez Coronado, wants to be a vet’s best line of defense against those enemies.
Staff Sgt. Hernandez Coronado, who recently left the Army after serving for 20 years, spoke with Kansas City Hispanic News about her career and how she wants to effect positive change in the battle for good mental health.
Born in Michoacan, Mexico, in 1984, Hernandez Coronado and her family immigrated to the U.S. when she was 10.
Of her teen years, she said, “There was a lot of things going on in my life. But I would say the biggest thing is that the opportunity to continue my education was a huge factor. I was in college by the time that I joined, and I knew what I wanted to study, but there was something missing also. And I was always intrigued by the military, especially the army, when 9 /11 happened.”
Hernandez Coronado had seen her friends enlist, but could the military really be a path that was right for her?
“After one of my closest friends back then had also joined and he would always talk about it. And so there was an intriguing factor about it, especially the challenging aspect of it,” Hernandez Coronado said. “I always wondered, ‘Is this something I could do? Could I, as a female, could I do it? And then it just so happens that when I was at school and college, I realized, I needed some more assistance financially, so that was a good option.”
For Hernandez Coronado, who was attending the University of Kansas, it was time to embrace a new identity. And after enlisting in the Reserves in 2004, she said she was thankful to find a diverse community of people all working toward similar goals.
“There were a lot of minorities and a lot of females. It took me back to when I first got in there, and there was a girl from a Central American country. She would refer to me as ‘Mexicana’ because there was some Puerto Ricans, you had some Salvadorians, you had everything,” Hernandez Coronado said. “There was a Haitian girl that I remember I was close friends with, but she called everyone by their nationality, and so she used to call me ‘Mexicana,’ and so there were definitely people that I felt looked more like me.”
For a self-described problem solver, Hernandez Coronado said she’s always been good at being exposed to new environments and new situations. Hernandez Coronado said she was quick to adapt to life in the military, “I felt like one of the things that the Army taught me was to never give up, and so I would think about missions that I had that were difficult and how I overcame difficulties, and that just motivated me to continue going and get to the next rank or go on different missions to give me some extra income,” Hernandez Coronado said.
More importantly, Hernandez Coronado said, she has always been one to strive to make her family proud.
“It was just also kind of accomplishing something for my whole family. That’s kind of how I saw it accomplishing something for my parents so they saw some fruit came to their sacrifice, that it wasn’t in vain,” she said, “and definitely the Army was a huge part of that.”
Thanks to the Army, too, Hernandez Coronado was able to eventually earn her bachelor’s degree in sociology and French, followed by her Master’s degree in social work.
“And so I use my master’s degree in clinical social work to practice mental health. So I have a counseling business, which opened in 2020,” she said. “I have an office where I see a lot of people (patients) who are struggling with their mental health. And a majority of them are Spanish speaking or just a mixture (of multiple types of cultures and backgrounds).”
Hernandez Coronado said that pursuing a career in mental health only made sense after seeing so many of the servicemen and women around her struggle with mental health issues brought on by their experiences in the military.
“In 2008, 2009, the suicide rate in the military was skyrocketing, and that kind of motivated me to go into mental health,” she said. “My mentality was, ‘I can relate to soldiers, soldiers or service members can relate to me, and they might have a better view of getting help if someone they meet has experienced the same stuff that they’ve experienced.”
Within the next couple of years, Hernandez Coronado said she would like to add more staff members so her business can help more clients. But for now, she’s just glad that, as someone who is trilingual, she can help people of different cultures.
“I have a lot of people that reach out to me and they speak Spanish and they reach out to me for that reason, but when they learn that I understand the culture and I’m bicultural, it’s not just somebody that was born here and speaks a language, that I actually come from similar backgrounds to some of these people -- that helps even more. I can relate to them,” Hernandez Coronado said. “You can study all you want as far as mental health, but if you don’t have that connection, if people can’t connect to you, there’s not going to be a lot of help.”
Whoever you are, she added, the need for better mental health resources exists, and that need is only growing.
“The need is definitely there. It won’t be hard to find a job in this field, so I highly encourage anybody who’s thinking about it to do so. … I would say, take a pause for a second and just think about all the struggles that you’ve overcame already. You’ve always made it this far. But a lot of the times you need someone in your corner cheering you on, and there are a lot of people out there in your corner, and more cheering you on.”
Those biggest cheerleaders usually include family members, Hernandez Coronado noted.
“I think families, the biggest thing they can do is to listen and understand that this person needs maybe a higher level of care than what they can give, and just to be willing to be there, to be present for that person, to not judge, to just try to understand,” she said. She had specific praise for the Army, saying she remained grateful for its resources during her recent retirement from the Army celebration at which she was honored for her work by her family, friends and community.
“More than anything, the military gave me a lifelong sense of belonging, a mission greater than myself, and bonds that will never break,” Hernandez Coronado said in her speech at the recent ceremony.
Ultimately, Hernandez Coronado said she feels blessed and humbled to be able to help others – not just this Memorial Day, but every day.
“I’m extremely grateful, blessed, I’m humbled to be able to serve them. I feel like I ended my direct service to the country, but I’m hoping that I can still serve in a different capacity as a mental health therapist,” Hernandez Coronado said. “To those who either are still serving or have served, so they have something that just doesn’t leave them alone with their mental health struggles.”
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of self-harm or suicide, text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or visit www.988lifeline.org. To make an appointment with Hernandez Coronado, call 913-414-3579.
