Veterans Day is a day to remember all those who have served our country. But one veteran in Stockton has found a different way to serve.
Marla Tooman is the Canteen Manager at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), Post 52 in Stockton.
Typically, you can find her behind the bar serving customers. But on Tuesday, she took the day off, and for good reason.
“I served 14 years, and I did two tours: one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq,” she shared.
Tooman is an Army veteran. After she got out, she struggled with civilian life until she moved to Stockton.
“When I moved here, I found out that California is very, very big with their veteran support,” she explained. “It’s really strong and really big, like, I had never had so much support.”
That support led her to her current job, where she serves other local veterans, whom she now calls family.
“This Veterans Day really reminded me of being like a family and being there for each other,” Tooman said. “I haven’t seen a lot of people in a long time, like July 4, even back to last Veterans Day, but I saw them today and it was good to see them. That’s what it is. It’s veterans’ love, I guess.”
For Tooman, Veterans Day is a day to honor and to thank. As a woman who served in the Army for over a decade, she knows that challenge all too well.
Now, she wants other women veterans to be just as proud as she is.
“Women just traditionally are humble about it,” she said. “They don’t really voice it out, but you could tell because you could see the emotions that are going through them, and some of them hide. But be proud. You did it.”
Her message for all women veterans on this honorable day: “It’s tough in the military, and if you go through that and overcome it and still be yourself, you’re one strong woman. You should be very proud of that.”
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