TAMPA, Fla. — Amy Sitze is a self-described Army brat.
“In a nutshell, it was the best thing I could have probably ever done in my life,” she said.
That’s why it was a challenging adjustment for her to retire from the Army years ago. It was difficult for Rob Cavin too, who spent 25 years with the U.S. Army Special Forces.
“How do you do a resume? How do you do an interview? What should I wear?” he said of his retirement, which happened not long after he was injured in an explosion during Operation Iraqi Freedom. “When you’re in the military, you’re an expert at making do with what you’re told to do. Suddenly, one day, somebody comes to you and says, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ That sounds great, right? Well, for a guy who’s been in the military for 25 years, that’s frightening.”
Even though Cavin said the Tampa Bay area is veteran-friendly with so many organizations that support veterans, he thinks it can be tricky in the region to identify resources and make the transition from military life to civilian life.
“You’re new here — how do you know there’s 500 different veteran organizations here?” he said. “There’s no central place you can go find that.”
He and others hope to change that.
Tuesday, the Tampa Green Beret Association, of which Cavin is president, joined the Chapter LX of the Special Forces Association to break ground on a new veterans center just outside the gates of MacDill Air Force Base on Dale Mabry Highway. The center will be called the “Team House.”
When it’s done, it will connect veterans from all branches to resources like networking, counseling, job training, and more.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re SOF, special forces, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard — you can come here, and you’ll have this kiosk of veteran organizations that offer some sort of service,” Cavin explained.
The center will also connect employers with those veterans through quarterly luncheons.
“We’re going to have business owners come in and talk to veterans that are getting ready to retire,” he said. “The business owners are more excited, I think, than the veterans.”
“For Tampa, if we don’t do this, you’re going to lose an asset that is brought into your community every year, and they move away because they don’t know what’s here,” Cavin continued. “So, we’re going to bridge that gap.”
As for Sitze, many of the people behind the upcoming veterans center helped her navigate her trying retirement.
“Immediately upon retiring, I ended up having some medical issues,” she remembered.
Since then, she’s been able to treat those medical issues. Additionally, she found a civilian job with the U.S. Special Operations Command at MacDill AFB and is thoroughly satisfied with her new role.
She thinks the new veterans center, which will cost an estimated $4 million, will allow the people who helped her to assist so many others.
According to Cavin, the new center should be complete and operational by summer 2024.
