The Northern New England Blog

by Dan Dowling, regional communications manager     “I didn't know who I fully was until I became a Red Crosser. There's something special about being able to harness that humanitarian within you.”   Ashley St. Louis is a U.S. Army veteran and now the Disaster Workforce Engagement Manager for the American Red Cross of Northern New England. Her journey into service started unexpectedly.   “I had no desire to join the military ever, but 9/11 happened, and it was something that made me say, ‘I have to do something about this,’” Ashley admits.   Just two days after the terrorist attacks, at seventeen years old, Ashley enlisted in the Army.   “I spent my 18th birthday in a foxhole on the rifle range becoming an expert marksman,” she recalls.   Her path led her to become a medic at the base hospital at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, where for two years she cared for the families of deployed soldiers. After a pelvic fracture in 2005 led to a medical dischar...