She ran a 24-hour chow hall in Afghanistan. Now she makes sure no veteran is buried alone
Retired Army Staff Sgt. Sheila Y. Anthony, El Paso County’s 2026 Veteran of the Year, turned 22 years of service into a second career of showing up.
She served. She evolved. She’s not done.
When a veteran in El Paso, Texas, dies with no family to claim them, the El Paso Veterans Honor Unit still shows up to render military honors. Retired Army Staff Sgt. Sheila Y. Anthony is the unit’s secretary, and according to KFOX14, making sure unaccompanied veterans are not laid to rest alone is the part of the work she is most committed to.
On Nov. 3, the station reported that Anthony had been named El Paso County’s 2026 Veteran of the Year. It is not her first recognition: she was the 2023 Black El Paso Voice Veteran of the Year, and this year she was inducted into the El Paso Commission for Women Hall of Fame.
Her service chapter began in 1995 with the North Dakota Army National Guard and moved to active duty in the Army. She retired in 2017 after 22 years, with two deployments to Afghanistan, a Bronze Star Medal and a Combat Action Badge. At Forward Operating Base Blessing, she managed a dining facility that ran around the clock and coordinated food deliveries to remote outposts. She also organized hot Thanksgiving meals for soldiers across the area of operations.
The struggle doesn’t last always.
Retirement did not clear her calendar so much as rearrange it. Besides the honor unit, she holds leadership roles with Disabled American Veterans Chapter 187 and the Kappa Epsilon Psi Military Sorority. She volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in foster care, and she teaches as a certified suicide prevention and Mental Health First Aid instructor.
There is a through line. The soldier who made sure troops at far-flung outposts got a hot holiday meal is now the civilian who makes sure a veteran with no one left still gets full honors. Her message to fellow veterans, as she told KFOX14: “The struggle doesn’t last always.”
The Unranked takeaway: Some of the most important work after the uniform is logistics with a heart, the unglamorous job of making sure nobody gets left out. If your local honor guard, DAV chapter or CASA program needs hands, that is a mission with an opening.
Know a woman veteran whose next chapter belongs in Unranked? Nominate her.
