BROWNSTOWN — Cindy Barnard proudly served her country.

Combined, the Brownstown resident spent 22 years in the Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. She also was a federal military technician for the U.S. Property and Fiscal Office.

She’s an Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom combat veteran, as she was deployed with Charlie Company to Iraq in 2008.

Stateside, she served as a noncommissioned officer in the areas of training, education, safety and morale and welfare.

“I wore a lot of hats,” she said.

Since retiring in 2012, Barnard has remained around the military in various ways, including hosting the annual Charlie Company reunion, serving as post service officer for the American Legion in Brownstown, working as an office administrator for Paralyzed Veterans of America and volunteering to help fellow veterans understand the benefits they need.

Now, she’s wearing a new hat. At the beginning of the year, she began serving as the Jackson County veterans service officer.

In Indiana, county veterans services offices are a local point of contact for veterans in their county to assist with all veteran issues, according to in.gov/dva. They work closely with the Indiana Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and various veterans service organizations assisting veterans and their family members with benefits they may be eligible for due to their military service.

Keith Boling served in that role in Jackson County until retiring Dec. 31, 2023. Knowing he was going to retire, Boling asked Barnard if she was interested in the position. She filled out the application, went through the interview process and was offered the job.

“I feel like this is my after-service dream job,” Barnard said. “It enables me to ensure my brothers and sisters get what they need. … It’s odd because for 20 years, I wasn’t paid to do it, so the joke is ‘Oh, you’re finally going to get paid to do it.’ Even if I wasn’t getting paid, I’d still want to do it, and I would still be out there doing it.”

Her first day on the job was Jan. 2.

“It’s rewarding to be able to come and know that I’m in the system now, and all of those things that I don’t know is right at my fingertips,” Barnard said. “Now, I can learn it. It’s very exciting. … This is a way that I can still serve.”

Barnard said she’s originally from Jackson County with her dad growing up in Kurtz and her mom being raised in Brownstown. Her father worked for the post office when he came out of the Army and the family moved to Indianapolis, and Barnard graduated from John Marshall High School.

On the weekends, though, the family came back to Jackson County to see relatives.

“This is home,” Barnard said.

She joined the military when she was 23.

“I needed to do a little bit of living before I did, and I realized, ‘This is where I need to be.’ I wish I was still doing it,” she said, smiling.

Nowadays, she said her family lives in Jackson County with the exception of her daughter and son-in-law and their four children. Her son-in-law soon will be a sergeant major in the National Guard.

Now leading the Jackson County Veterans Service Office in Brownstown, Barnard said her main role is to help veterans file their disability claims.

The job also allows her to help them know about the variety of benefits they are entitled to, including education.

“If you are a disabled veteran and you have a child that wants to go to college and you entered service before 2009, they get to go to college for free in the state of Indiana,” Barnard said. “That is an important benefit that people don’t know about.”

The office also helps veterans receive property tax and license plate abatements.

“If you are a disabled veteran, Indiana has generously allowed you to get a discount on property taxes,” Barnard said. “If by some miracle you are lucky enough that your property tax abatement provided you from the mortgage and VA and all of that, wipes your taxes out, whatever is left over, you can use on your vehicle taxes, take to the BMV and have a $50 license plate.”

There are a lot of other county and state benefits for disabled veterans, including hunting and fishing license and state park entry fee reductions. On the federal side, disabled veterans get into federal parks for free.

“You just get so many incentives, but the property taxes, the education benefits, the disability claims, those are the big ones that I want to make sure people know about,” Barnard said.

“I just want to sit and have a dialogue with them because a lot of them think that they don’t qualify,” she said. “I want to help them know what services are available, general information about ‘Hey, you are a veteran. This is what you are allowed.’ I just want them to come in and talk to us and see what we can do for them.”

The office also provides transportation to and from Veterans Affairs appointments at the outpatient clinic in Scottsburg and the hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

In Jackson County, there are two vans that are driven by volunteers, Barnard and Tawana Guthrie, the assistant veterans service officer.

To be a volunteer driver, a person needs to have a valid driver’s license, a good driving record and insurance.

“We would love to be able to transport to other locations, but we rely on volunteer transportation for us, people that are willing to come in and just volunteer their time to help,” Barnard said.

She has a small list of volunteers and would like to increase it.

“We would love as many volunteers as we could possibly get,” Barnard said. “Ideally, you would like to have three drivers a day that you could call. You don’t want to take your volunteers every day because they are volunteers. … If I had 15 volunteers, maybe 20 volunteers, then we could expand to Wakeman and Indianapolis.”

Barnard said a lot of veterans from Jackson County go to Wakeman VA Clinic, which is right outside the gate at Camp Atterbury in Edinburgh.

“The more volunteers we have, the more likely we’re able to service the north region, as well,” she said.

For those needing transportation, Barnard said she asks for at least a week’s notice to arrange volunteer drivers.

“If there are no volunteers available, then either Tawana or myself can take them,” she said.

Guthrie has worked in the office for 25 years, and Barnard said she’s grateful to have her continue to serve.

“She knows her stuff,” Barnard said. “Either one of us can help you. We kind of tag team it, and if I’m busy with one, then she’ll take one because she can do anything and everything, and she is a wealth of knowledge.”

Barnard qualifies for the job because she’s a veteran, while the assistant role requires a person to be a veteran or a child, spouse or parent of a veteran or active-duty member of the military.

Barnard said she is Jackson County’s ninth veterans service officer and only the second female to hold that position.

“I’m looking forward to there being no homeless Jackson County veterans, there being no veterans that take their lives,” she said. “The 22 a day will not apply to Jackson County because we get them the services that they need, we get them the benefits that they need, that we can stabilize them and not have that and that we become the one county where our veterans are 100% taken care of. That’s my goal.”

The office hours were expanded to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to serve as many veterans as possible.

“We’ve been able to help two veterans because we expanded those hours,” Barnard said. “We’re just trying to do what we can. I’ll stay later if you need me to. I will come on Saturday if that’s the only time you have available. … I just really want everybody to know what’s available and how we can help them.”

At a glance

The Jackson County Veterans Service Office is at 270 Woodside Court, Brownstown.

Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For information, call 812-358-6115.