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TEXT: Real stories from real Navy Federal Credit Union members.

BRANDON: My name's Brandon. I work as a firefighter and paramedic. My dad was in the army. All of them men and my family have been in the military. So I enlisted with an option to go to OCS,Officer Candidate School. My first assignment was in Schweinfurt, Germany, where I was then quickly deployed to Kosovo. It was peacekeeping operations, and so, going house-to-house searching for weapons. One time we cleared an area for mines, did a big project where we closed off the borders to try to keep contraband from coming in. I really enjoyed being a platoon leader, learning that, you know, it's not just about being in charge, it's about taking care of people.

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TEXT: Right now, Brandon is on a new front line as a first responder in the COVID-19 crisis.

BRANDON: We can't social distance in the way that, you know, your average person can. We're dealing with the sick and the injured and the dying and and we have to take care of them and so there is an added level of stress and making sure that that everybody is protecting themselves so that they can go home and then also protect their families. It is a heightened level of , I guess, responsibility, but one that I learned to deal with in the military, and have now carried over into the fire department. The teamwork is definitely elevated and that the reliance on each other is complete. You have sort of this invisible enemy that is, you know, harming people, that is creating a distance between people. I mean, I would love to just, you know, go see my father and give everybody hug, but that's not gonna happen until we we take it as serious as we can, for as long as we can, if that makes sense.

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TEXT: Thank you Brandon, and all our members on the front lines. BRANDON: Take care of yourselves.

TEXT: Real stories from real Navy Federal Credit Union members.

SHAWN: Hello, my name is Shawn. I'm from New Hampshire and I currently work as a clinical project lead and a paramedic. I started off with a large interest in the Boy Scouts, learning first aid, CPR. I got my EMT basic through the national registry and from there, I just progressed up the ranks all the way to paramedic. So i joined the United States Navy. I've done everything from working as a personal medical aide for the 41st president of the United States to Afghanistan, various places throughout the states, throughout the world. I just like to help people. I like critical-care medicine. I like the ability to think out of the box, trying to figure out what's wrong with somebody, and then helping them, and then seeing the after effects of, you know, them coming out of the hospital and getting better.

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TEXT: Right now, Shawn is on a new front line training hospitals to use cardiac monitors for COVID-19. SHAWN: The monitors, they have all the different functionalities to monitor all the different vital signs, pulse, blood pressure, cardiac monitoring for your heart and people with difficulty breathing, which is what, you know, they're seeing right now with COVID-19. So it's an essential piece of gear towards this fight. It's not just, you know, the one group of people that is gonna make this go away. It's gonna be everybody working together, whether it's medicine or the grocery store workers, It's a group effort to make this go away.

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TEXT: Thank you Shawn, and all our members on the front lines. SHAWN: Teamwork, that's an important thing.

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TEXT: Real stories from real Navy Federal Credit Union members.

LINDA: Hi, my name is Linda. I live in Maryland and I work as a physician assistant in the emergency department. I knew I wanted to be in medicine and I wanted to serve. I joined the when I was 17, in the Army. It was terrifying just coming out of boot camp. It's definitely an experience and you grow. I became a surgical technologist. I was mobilized to Washington State, where we replaced people that went to Iraq. I also worked at Walter Reed Hospital. To see patients coming back and to be able to care for them, that was very rewarding.

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TEXT: Right now, Linda is on a new front line treating patients with COVID-19. LINDA: We have to be calm and say, "Ok, we're gonna get through this day today. Just one day at a time." Everything, you're gonna do, there's gonna be a fear. It's really the faith and being optimistic that it's gonna work out. The military has brought me a lot of character and strength that I have, and makes you who you are.

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TEXT: Thank you Linda, and all our members on the front lines. LINDA: I really believe we're gonna get through this.