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. …