While a few have sacrificed their lives fighting on the battlefield, some of the territory’s veterans have been working behind the scenes, dedicating their time to helping local residents through a quiet life of community service.
St. Thomas resident Franz Brady is one of those individuals. Though he only served one tour, in the early 1980’s, the lessons he learned from four years in the Navy have stuck with him over the past few decades and propelled him toward his present career as a narcotics and alcohol counselor with the Health Department.
Brady’s interest in psychology started from an early age. His father was a schizophrenic – a fact Brady is able to talk about without the reserve or denial that generally surfaces during discussions about mental health issues. Here in the territory, there’s some kind of stigma attached to the topic and only by talking about it can the community really begin to help those affected, Brady says.
"I guess my experience is what drew me to this field," he explains. "Subconsciously, you think, well I want to know why he was like that, to learn more about what was going with him. When I went into the Navy and I told my officer that, he said right away, ‘that’s why you got into this.’"
After graduating from Charlotte Amalie High School in 1980, Brady tried his hand at college for a few years, but found it didn’t take. He enlisted in the Navy in 1983, hoping to further his education and travel the world. And that’s just what he did – picking up lessons in self-discipline, determination and the importance of pursuing his passion along the way.
Having completed basic training at the San Diego Recruitment Training Center, Brady moved on from learning how to be a sailor to learning about basic psychology, anatomy and how to take care of the sick. He became a psychiatric technician – the naval equivalent to an emergency medical technician – and from there on out worked in several hospitals across the country attending to patients with mental health or substance abuse problems.
While stationed in San Diego, he worked with the Marines for 18 months, traveling to Japan, the Philippines and Korea as a corpsman, or medic. He also worked for two years at the Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, an experience he says "taught me a lot of things I’m doing today." And before leaving the Navy, he became licensed as a vocational nurse.
With his family still in the territory, Brady came back to St. Thomas in 1988, and his career path took a completely different turn: he took a job as an account executive at a television station learning about sales, making commercials and basic production techniques.
"Psychiatry can really burn you out," Brady says. "Many times, I intentionally looked for jobs that were completely different than what I was doing because it got to the point where I needed a break."
Over the years, Brady also worked as a homeownership coordinator with the V.I. Housing Finance Authority, a master control technician with WTJX Channel 12, a ticket agent for United Airways and a Transportation Security Administration agent.
His stint at United Airways was in Maryland, where he moved to be near his mother while she underwent surgery. Brady worked at Dulles International Airport, where he was stationed to be working during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"One of the highjacked planes left from there, and I was supposed to be there, but I got off at the last minute," he explains. "So I went to pick up my son from school – it was his birthday. But that day – that day, there was really a feeling in the air that anything could happen."
In between those jobs, Brady kept up his work at various hospitals and health departments across the country, which included spending two years in Guam working as a narcotics counselor with the government’s Department of Mental Health. The territory’s culture was similar to that of the Virgin Islands and there was much emphasis being placed on mental health issues.
"A lot of the infrastructure needed was already in place," he says. "Also, a lot of centers are on military bases, so they get a lot of federal funding."
What finally brought Brady back to the territory was his desire to be near his family and mother, local political stalwart and longtime educator Mavis Brady. Along with his job at the Health Department, he works in master control at TV2, but is taking classes at the University of the Virgin Islands so he can branch out into social work, which he says can be more hands on.
"It’s a multi-faceted field, meaning that there are so many different approaches you can take and resources you can use to tackle some of these issues," he says. "And with this job, the thing that really makes you want to stick with it is your successes — what you can do to help somebody overcome a significant problem in their lives and push them toward being productive citizens. Maybe that’s not the norm, but when it happens, it’s all worth it."
Also on the horizon for Brady is the promise of a spending a Thanksgiving holiday with son Travis, who, at 23-years-old, is working toward a career as either a teacher or a therapist working with people with disabilities. The two are close, Brady says, adding that he hopes talking about his experiences will help his son decide what to do next.
Brady celebrates his 47th birthday on Monday.