Office of Faith established to support vets.
Candace Cieslo has been named Executive Director for the Office of Faith for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.). Among the assignments of this office are to address homelessness and suicide among veterans. In this newly titled position, Cieslo will lead this section of the V.A. She is a retired U.S. Army Captain.
Cieslo is a native Floridian, but her father was a Coast Guardsman, so she grew up around the U.S., including Alaska, D.C., Kansas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Cieslo played high school basketball, and colleges came knocking, but she wanted to join the Army. “That was a calling. That was something I always wanted to do. As a matter of fact, my five paid recruiting visits came down to Georgetown, Dartmouth, Brown, West Point, and Wake Forest. I actually chose West Point. But my brothers, who were at the Coast Guard Academy, said, ‘Absolutely not. We will transfer a semester and we will haze you until you quit. You have an opportunity to go to any school you want to in the country. If you really want to go in the military, you can go afterwards.” She listened to their advice and chose Georgetown University. At 6’0”, she played against centers as tall as 6’7”, and 6’4” national champion, and future WNBA star, Rebecca Lobo. “I was the smallest center in the Big East. I was so tiny, but I was unusually strong. I just didn’t let them go where they wanted to go. I couldn’t block them, but I could muscle them around.” After Cieslo graduated from Georgetown with a degree in International Relations Law and Organization, she joined the Army. During her eight years in the Army, she was a signal officer who served as a liaison officer with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and deployed to Iraq several times.
Cieslo moved to Plant City in 2018 with her husband, Lt. Colonel (RET) Joe Cieslo, who is the Plant City High School (PCHS) Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Senior Army Instructor and their family. She helps JROTC students with human resources content, and helps cadets polish their resumes.
When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the Cieslos decided they needed to do something. They both went to the Middle East. Candace and a friend ran a refugee camp in Abu Dhabi. In non-Department of Defense operations, they helped evacuate more than 12,000 people from Afghanistan.
The Office of Faith is an initiative for the Veterans Administration to work with churches, temples, and mosques to help provide a sense of accountability and community for veterans. “I think our biggest goal is going to be to try to cut down on the 22-per-day suicide rate,” the retired captain said. “It is devastating; with such a sense of purpose in the military, such a sense of camaraderie, and of brotherhood, that when you get out, you are in a completely new environment without that common sense of purpose. Sometimes your marriage has failed, which is more often than not. I think the veterans sometimes feel they are in a free fall. They’ve lost their families. They’ve lost their job. They have lost their sense of purpose, and that is a lot for any person to have to take. I think the best way to bring people to church is to do genuine outreach: ‘Hey, we are going to go pick up trash on the streets. Do you want to join us? We are going to go have a beer afterwards.’ Just normal activities that give people a sense of purpose, a sense of community, and a sense of accountability. People gravitate towards goodness, and I think demonstrating that through our actions works. Be a servant-leader. Be the light. Lead by your actions. Lead by example. Lead like Jesus did.”
How did Cieslo get this job? “I am not kidding when I say it was all God,” she commented. “A friend of ours I met when I was 18, is the person who helped us get into Abu Dhabi. From there we met another individual. He and I ended up running the refugee camp for a majority of the time. We keep in touch. We were talking one day, and he said, ‘Hey, do me a favor and send me your resume.’ I did, and about 30 minutes later, he said, ‘I’ve got some people in D.C. that would like to meet you. Can you be here on Wednesday?’ That was on a Monday. The whole way up to D.C. I was literally praying, ‘Whatever this is, please let me be a good representative of Christ in a place like D.C.’ I get there, I have no idea what job I was interviewing for, and they said, ‘What do you think about running the Faith Office?’ and my jaw just dropped. Literal prayer answered. It is unbelievable. I just couldn’t believe it. D.C.; I have lived there before. It is an intoxicating culture. There is a lot of power and influence. And my prayer was, if I did get a job there, I would not lose my way or be tempted to be something I’m not. But to hear the title of the office, I was just floored.”
In addition to her experience from the Army, Cieslo is far along in classwork on a Doctorate in Education in Christian Leadership and Christian Ministry, and has earned a doctorate from the school of hard knocks. “I don’t think I would be ready for this job if I had judgment left in me,” she said. “I think failing, struggling, having children that have problems, having health problems, having family—as we get older, people call it wisdom, but I think it is really God’s grace in allowing us to go through these challenges so we are strong enough to help others when the time is right.”
Veterans are dying at a rate of 22 each day, and an average of 135 people are impacted by suicide. Multiply that by 365 days, and that is 1,084,050 Cieslo’s office has the potential to help in a year. “It just makes my face hurt because I keep smiling, it makes me so happy,” she said. “My family supports this. It is just so beautiful.”
Cieslo will be sworn in on September 8 in Washington D.C.
