Taking service by the reigns: Washington Vet Corps member hosts equine therapy sessions for women veterans
Story by Rachel Friederich, Serve Washington
Photos courtesy Kristin Ashley
ELLENSBURG-Horses set you free, according to Army veteran Kristin Ashley. The act of brushing a horse, or simply watching the wind move through its mane as you walk alongside one through an obstacle course can create a sense of calm and self-reflection that can't be found on a battlefield.
"Horses are very in tune with our emotions," Ashley said. "We'll observe the horses and how they're acting with us and each other. And then we set up an obstacle course we're going to guide the horse through. As we see how the horse responds to that obstacle, it can be mirror of how we might respond to obstacles in our own individual lives."
Ashley's describing what goes on during equine therapy sessions. She co-leads them once a month for women veterans Wild Cove Farm as part of her service in Vet Corps. Vet Corps is an AmeriCorps-funded national service program designed to help veterans and their families navigate the transition from the military to civilian life.
Each equine therapy session has at least three participants. The sessions give veterans a safe to gather and talk honestly about their struggles and goals about life after military service with fellow veterans. The sessions go for about 90 minutes, but Ashely says many of them go longer because the women enjoy them so much.
Women disproportionately experience more challenges to civilian life after military service compared to their male counterparts, according 2023 report by the Wounded Warrior Project. The report analyzed qualitative data from women veteran focus groups. It found 58.7% of women veterans said they experienced moderate to severe symptoms of depression, compared to 54.1% of males. They also reported higher levels of loneliness, 73%, compared to 64.9% of males. The report cited additional data from other sources about challenges women veterans often must address, such as military sexual trauma, exposure to toxins and chronic pain.
Ashley says in the military, you're conditioned to taking orders from others and there's an added social expectation that you have to be tough, so it can be difficult for all veterans to recognize when something is adversely affecting them, regardless of gender.
"We aren't always great at observing the deeper nuances of how we feel or how we're interacting with certain situations in our life," Ashely said. "But having a big animal that is reflecting that to you visibly is really rewarding and it's very healing, too."
Serving veterans in the greater community
Horse therapy isn't the only way Ashley serves veterans in her community. Her Vet Corps host organization is the Kittitas County Veterans Coalition, which seeks to serve all veterans in Kittitas County.
A total of 432,523 veterans resided in the state of Washington as of January 2023, according to the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs. Of those, 2,980 lived in Kittitas County.
The coalition helps veterans seeking assistance with applying for disability benefits and connecting them to local resources that provide support with mental health counseling, food, housing and transportation.
Ashley's Vet Corps role is to build relationships with veterans organizations as well as nonprofits and social service organizations within Kittitas County to help match veterans with resources that address their specific individual needs.
During her first few weeks of Vet Corps, Ashley had the task of calling every client on the coalition's roster to introduce herself and interview them about their most urgent needs.
"It's empowering my brothers and sisters in arms and fellow warriors to ask for what they need and ask for help from somebody who they know cares about them. As a veteran that's a really difficult thing to do," Ashley said. "I'm grateful for Vet Corps because I feel like I can be that friend for fellow warriors to say, I'd like you ask me for what you need,' and this is a safe place to do it. Even if it's just connecting to them by phone, even if it's just to vent about how hard life can be, they know they have somebody that's encouraging them and is excited to hear about it."
Vet Corps in Washington
During the 2023-2024 service year, 43 Vet Corps members served among 46 service sites throughout Washington state.
Besides government and community-based organizations, Vet Corps members serve at colleges and universities. Vet Corps members, who are typically veterans or military family members, provide personal connections for student veterans. They are available
to help answer questions and listen to concerns student veterans have while navigating the academic and civilian world. They also provide training and support to faculty, staff, administration and the community-at-large to increase awareness of veterans' needs.
Service in the military to serving communities
Ashley was raised in Kittitas County and attended public schools in Ellensburg.
Ashley said her initial interest in serving in the military sparked after 9/11 happened when she was 16. After getting her GED, she joined the military at age 19 and became an Army medic. She served on active duty for five years and for an additional year in the Army Reserves.
From 2006-2007, she was deployed to Camp Bucca in Iraq, where she worked in a detainee internment facility, serving Iraqi detainees and working with Iraqi interpreters.
In 2009, Ashley was honorably discharged from active duty. While she transitioned to the Army Reserves, she got a job with the local emergency department at Wenatchee Valley Medical Center.
Though Ashley said she enjoyed witnessing the advances in medical technology as part of her work, she ultimately decided not to pursue a career in the medical field in the civilian world because it wasn't as satisfying as working in the military.
"In the military, everybody was young and treatments were mainly injuries," Ashley said in a 2020 radio interview. "It's easy to sew someone together and it's easy to put bones back together where they're supposed to be, but when you deal with chronic illnesses and see the same people over and over for the same issues is very difficult. When people don't get better, it made me feel like it was time to leave."
Ashley decided to pursue a career in tourism and the wine industry. She earned an associate degree from Wenatchee Valley Community College and bachelor's degrees in global wine studies and tourism from Central Washington University while working jobs as a sales representative at a local winery and a white river rafting guide.
While she was in school, she re-fell in love with the Kittitas Valley and being close to the mountains, rivers and wilderness surrounding a rural, tight-knit community. Though she's not yet sure what her next career move will be after Vet Corps, Ashley finds a sense of purpose by helping her community thrive though service.
She has volunteered with several community organizations. She's handed out sandwiches with the Washington Cattlewomen's Association to community members bidding on Future Farmers of America auctions that support youth leaders at the Kittitas County Fair. She's served food to senior citizens through the FISH community food bank's "Open Table" events that distribute hot meals for people experiencing food insecurity. She deployed to Spokane County last year to help cut down dead trees following some wildfires near Medical Lake that spanned 17 miles torched 240 homes and 86 structures as a part of her service with Team Rubicon, a veteran-led humanitarian organization that helps communities impacted by disasters. She's also training to be a leader with the Wounded Warrior project to organize events that invite veterans to connect with each other and communities.
She says whether you're considering serving in Vet Corps, the military or volunteering in the community, forming connections is the most rewarding part.
"When we're deployed or when we're a veteran, we have this sense of purpose and meaning that we get from being part of a community where you know exactly what your role is and how people rely on you and you know how to show up for the people you're around," Ashely said. "It's wonderful to be part of a team and feel that I'm useful and I'm meaningful in my community."
