Watch the slideshow featuring Penn State Health employees who have served in the military. To be featured, submit your information using this form.
Click on the image below to view the photos on Flickr.
2025 VETS Indexes Recognized Employer
Penn State Health has been honored as a 2025 VETS Indexes Recognized Employer, a distinction that celebrates its dedication to veterans and the military-connected community. This recognition highlights the organization’s ongoing commitment to recruiting, hiring, retaining, and developing those who have served in the armed forces, along with their families.
Empowering Veterans Through Connection and Advocacy
Veteran-to-Veteran program connects patients and employees who served
The Veteran-to-Veteran program at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, launched in 2025, offers veteran patients and their family members a chance to be visited by a Penn State Health or Penn State College of Medicine employee who also served in the military. The goal is to help build a sense of connection between patients and staff who share military experience, which can help improve communication and care. Patients and their family members who would like a Veteran-to-Veteran visit can ask their care team.
Penn State Health Military and Veterans Business Employee Resource Group
Penn State Health’s regional military and veterans business and employee resource groups are dedicated to recognizing, supporting and advocating for the rights and needs of military and veteran employees and patients. These groups also support workplace equity, promote staff development for employees and advance the delivery of high-quality and culturally sensitive care to the military and veteran populations.
To join the Penn State Health Military and Veterans Business Employee Resource Group, complete this short survey.
Commemorative Tributes Honoring Veterans and Fallen Heroes
National Wreaths Across America Day
National Wreaths Across America Day is a time to remember, honor and educate through wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery and more than 2,800 locations in all 50 states, at sea and abroad. In 2025, the event will be held on Saturday, Dec. 13.
How can I participate in National Wreaths Across America Day?
Visit the Wreaths Across America website to sponsor a wreath to be placed on a fallen hero’s grave at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery. Or register as a volunteer.
What should I expect as a volunteer on National Wreaths Across America Day?
You will join tens of thousands across the nation in placing wreaths on the grave markers of our fallen heroes. As you place each wreath, you will say the veteran’s name to ensure that person’s legacy of duty, service and sacrifice is never forgotten.
Flags of Honor program honors veterans and active-duty service members
Through Penn State Health’s Flags of Honor program, 676 American flags waved outside its community hospitals from Memorial Day through mid-July this year.
Employees, patients, families and community members bought small U.S. flags to honor veterans and service members. Donors chose from six sites to display their tributes. Honorees, or their families, were notified.
Members of Penn State Health’s Military and Veteran Business Employee Resource Group organized, supplied and placed the flags.
Veterans honored through bugle tribute at Echo Taps ceremony
Dr. Bunty Shah, chief of the Division of Chronic Pain Management at Penn State College of Medicine, and Ted Reese, director of development for Penn State Heart and Vascular Institute, honored veterans by playing their bugles during the Echo Taps ceremony at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery on May 17, 2025. The annual Armed Forces Day event features a corps of regional buglers volunteering with Bugles Across America to perform Taps in a moving, 15-minute cascade across the cemetery.
Fallen Comrade Tables displayed at Penn State Health hospitals
A Fallen Comrade Table, also known as a Missing Man Table, is displayed in the cafeterias at Penn State Health hospitals annually during the week of Memorial Day. The table is reserved to honor our fallen comrades in arms and symbolizes that they are here with us in spirit.
Military Veteran Brings Crisis Management Skills to Penn State Health Emergency Department
“In the military, crisis management is a big part of the training that we get. Because of that, I’ve had more experience than a lot of people I work with only because I do both military service and nursing,” said Keith Littlewood, a nurse in Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center’s emergency department. “That ability to manage a crisis is important so we can do what we need to do in the ER. And, hopefully, I provide some of that experience and mentorship to folks.”