On Wednesday, October 22, triple Bronze Star recipient Denise Estrada was officially tapped to be Presidio County’s new veterans service officer (VCSO). The position pays around $26,000 a year plus benefits. After a background check, Estrada will be trained and officially authorized to access nationwide Veterans Administration services and will have a permanent office space that local veterans can visit to help connect with resources available to them. “She’s a dedicated professional with over 15 years of experience,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Deirdre Hisler said of Estrada. “She’s lived the life of a veteran, and the best thing we can do as a court is put someone in a position who knows and lives that position.”
Over the summer, the position was on the chopping block during a particularly contentious budget drafting process. County Judge Joe Portillo—himself a veteran—was hoping to save money by adding some of the responsibilities of the VCSO to the job description of his assistant, Carina Nuñez. He explained at a Commissioners Court meeting in August that the move wasn’t intended to hurt the community but instead to be realistic about the sorry state of the county’s finances. “This doesn’t come from a place of not caring about veterans—I would like to think that I care more about veterans than most,” Portillo said.
Estrada told the Sentinel that she was inspired by her own quest to seek help a few years ago. “I came [to the county] in search of help when I was at my lowest, and I really didn’t get the help that I needed,” she said. “It’s been heavy on my heart, because I know that if anybody was in the dire straits that I was back in the day, there’s nowhere to go.”
Judge Portillo offered Estrada office space at the American Legion in Presidio so that she could hit the ground running. She plans to start by conducting outreach to the county’s 139 veterans, letting them know that the county plans to expand its offerings. While she hails from Presidio, she said that she’s noticed that morale is low among Marfa’s veterans and she would like to make herself especially available for them. “My priority is to start building that foundation,” she said. “It’s a matter of opening up the office and letting everybody in the county know that we’re there.”