About Us
The Story of Recognize the Sacrifice:
Jayna and Kate go back nearly 20 years, to when they were trauma nurses and grad students studying TBI while marooned in Germany with their husbands deployed. In fact, both men sustained identical blast TBIs from EFPs detonating under their vehicle's seat on the same deployment: at roughly the same time in different AOs.
In late 2008, Kate was sitting behind Jayna in the bleachers of a base gymnasium in Germany, waiting on their spouses' return from an uncharacteristically long deployment. Both emergency nurses, they struck up a conversation about the increasing incidence of blast injuries and subsequent concussions and traumatic brain injuries sustained by Veterans. The two quickly realized they were studying the same topic in grad school, and decided to make some good trouble. Armed with little more than unreliable European internet connections and military-spouse tenacity, Jayna & Kate created this organization, Recognize the Sacrifice.
Two years and many Jayna-Kate interactions with Congresspeople and Commanders later, in 2010 the DoD and Congress reversed course on denying Purple Hearts for TBI (which has unfortunately reversed-reversed course again to denials, but we are working on that).
Jayna is from Puyallup, Washington and met her husband in elementary school. They reunited after his graduation from West Point and commission to combat arms, settling first in Germany. Kate was raised in part by her grandfather, one of the first UDT/Frogmen (now SEALs) to make it through Hell Week, who died the year before SFC Michael Froede crashed Kate's 24th birthday party to meet her. The two married at Fort Moore's storied Infantry Chapel and PCS'ed to Special Operations Forces (SOF) strongholds as Michael progressed into compartmentalized roles and missions.
As such, Kate's colleagues and patients in emergency medicine were often Operators and SOF-adjacent. Those relationships spurred Kate to study various practices and health outcomes in SOF. Which is why in early 2017, a senior SEAL medic asked her to immediately start seriously investigating the TBI-suicide nexus in SOF when his junior medic Ryan Larkin and several other Operators in his AO died by suicide. Months later, Kate was asked to attend Ryan’s memorial service in that senior medic's stead while he was overseas. That is where Kate met Ryan's father, Frank Larkin, and left her first manuscript on TBI and suicide in SOF with him.
Two years later in June 2019, Kate had just concluded a multidisciplinary research study of the same: the first on record involving US SOF participants in vivo. She was writing her fourth manuscript from those findings when Michael died post-mission while assigned to a clandestine unit. Like Ryan, he was SOF, had late-stage symptoms of blast-related TBI, and died by suicide. Kate reconnected with Frank on that, and again six months later when SOF colleagues and Kate ran the 220-bed NYC Covid hospital named for Ryan in early 2020.
After learning of Michael’s death - and without knowing about Ryan - somewhat telepathically, Jayna also immediately adjusted fire academically to only researching the TBI-suicide phenomenon, and *Thank God* she did. Jayna discovered the only known appreciable non-clinical intervention to reduce suicide from TBI: award the Purple Heart. Jayna ran into Frank at a brain injury conference in late 2023 and six degrees of Kevin Bacon later, the three joined forces, wrote a bill, and hit Capitol Hill in early 2024 armed with their research, collective experiences, and the military spouse mafia supporting them.
In mere months, Jayna and Kate became the first military spouse-scientists of record, and Frank the first gold-star father, to fundamentally influence the DoD’s status quo vis a vis blast injuries affecting the brains of 500k other GWOT-era Michaels and Ryans. With Frank’s invaluable guidance, the three wrote and pushed a ‘reformation act’ on blast overpressures and brain injuries that evolved into Senators Ernst and Warren’s bipartisan Blast Overpressure Bill (press release here and NYT coverage here).
Jayna Moceri Brooks, PhD, RN, Co-founder, Director:
Native of the Pacific Northwest, Jayna graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Seattle Pacific University and then went on to earn a Master of Nursing degree from the University of Washington Tacoma (2007) and PhD from Duquesne University (2022). Her dissertation research focused on suicidal behaviors among Post-9/11 Army Combat Veterans with a TBI.
In addition to working as an Emergency and Trauma nurse for over 17 years, she has experience volunteering and working on military installations within the United States and abroad. Jayna is currently a post-doctoral fellow continuing her work in military suicide prevention research.
She was moved to co-found Recognize the Sacrifice in January 2009 after her husband sustained a TBI while on deployment to Iraq (2007-2008). Jayna's goal in co-founding the organization is to support service members and their families through the complicated Purple Heart Award application process and to advocate for them to receive medical care, rehabilitation, and official recognition of their combat injury.
Kate Rocklein, PhD, DNP, RN, CCNE, CCEMTP(Emer.), Co-founder:
Originally from Apopka, Florida, Dr. Kate Rocklein earned her BNSc from Queen’s University (Kingston), MScN and DNP at Loyola University (New Orleans), and PhD from Rush University (Chicago). Kate was a civilian flight-certified emergency/trauma nurse specialist for the United States Army before becoming faculty in Nursing and Operational Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia with subsequent appointments in the University of North Carolina and University of Tennessee systems. In early 2020, Kate was appointed Chief Nursing Officer of the Ryan F. Larkin/New York Presbyterian 220-bed COVID hospital during New York City’s worst pandemic surges to date.
Dr. Rocklein's research journey started when patients of hers from Special Operations Forces (SOF) began reporting non-specific symptoms of neurological trauma during the early OEF years, at the start of her master's research. This led Kate to independently developing data sets and extrapolating estimations of TBI incidence among US Ground Forces from 2001-2007, years prior to release of the DoD's large-scale studies of TBI. Dr. Rocklein was then formally commended by the US military for exceptional achievements as a critical care and trauma clinician, and again for her invaluable contributions in public service to Soldiers and families. Afterward, colleagues in SOF medicine asked Kate to analyze the trajectory of SOF medics' education and practice, and thus she was the first civilian woman and nurse to study pedagogies influencing SOF medics’ curricula.
Dr. Rocklein was lead analyst on other highly-nuanced and sensitive research, and directed a national-level joint initiative on TBI data capture for the US Department of Defense and Veteran’s Administration from which she developed section 5 of President Obama's 2012 Executive Order on military/veteran TBI and mental health. Dr. Rocklein is a funded CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC researcher and Jonas Foundation Veterans Health Scholar, whose collaborations with physician co-investigators address suicidality in civilian emergency medicine and nursing, and trauma responses in similar military cohorts. Dr. Rocklein’s portfolio reflects over $13 million in affiliated interdisciplinary federally funded research, including co-creating with biomedical engineers patented ultra-miniature defibrillators and remote critical care modalities and monitoring for far-forward combat casualty care.
For leading her field by investigating escalating suicidality in SOF, in 2021 Rush University recognized Dr. Rocklein with the Luther Christman Model Unification Award for Research Excellence. In 2023, Dr. Rocklein received an alumni lifetime achievement award for Global Citizenship from her alma mater, Queen's University, further recognizing her repeated contributions to the health and welfare of New Yorkers and influential advocacy on behalf of multinational GWOT-era injured service members.
Jayna and Kate go back nearly 20 years, to when they were trauma nurses and grad students studying TBI while marooned in Germany with their husbands deployed. In fact, both men sustained identical blast TBIs from EFPs detonating under their vehicle's seat on the same deployment: at roughly the same time in different AOs.
In late 2008, Kate was sitting behind Jayna in the bleachers of a base gymnasium in Germany, waiting on their spouses' return from an uncharacteristically long deployment. Both emergency nurses, they struck up a conversation about the increasing incidence of blast injuries and subsequent concussions and traumatic brain injuries sustained by Veterans. The two quickly realized they were studying the same topic in grad school, and decided to make some good trouble. Armed with little more than unreliable European internet connections and military-spouse tenacity, Jayna & Kate created this organization, Recognize the Sacrifice.
Two years and many Jayna-Kate interactions with Congresspeople and Commanders later, in 2010 the DoD and Congress reversed course on denying Purple Hearts for TBI (which has unfortunately reversed-reversed course again to denials, but we are working on that).
Jayna is from Puyallup, Washington and met her husband in elementary school. They reunited after his graduation from West Point and commission to combat arms, settling first in Germany. Kate was raised in part by her grandfather, one of the first UDT/Frogmen (now SEALs) to make it through Hell Week, who died the year before SFC Michael Froede crashed Kate's 24th birthday party to meet her. The two married at Fort Moore's storied Infantry Chapel and PCS'ed to Special Operations Forces (SOF) strongholds as Michael progressed into compartmentalized roles and missions.
As such, Kate's colleagues and patients in emergency medicine were often Operators and SOF-adjacent. Those relationships spurred Kate to study various practices and health outcomes in SOF. Which is why in early 2017, a senior SEAL medic asked her to immediately start seriously investigating the TBI-suicide nexus in SOF when his junior medic Ryan Larkin and several other Operators in his AO died by suicide. Months later, Kate was asked to attend Ryan’s memorial service in that senior medic's stead while he was overseas. That is where Kate met Ryan's father, Frank Larkin, and left her first manuscript on TBI and suicide in SOF with him.
Two years later in June 2019, Kate had just concluded a multidisciplinary research study of the same: the first on record involving US SOF participants in vivo. She was writing her fourth manuscript from those findings when Michael died post-mission while assigned to a clandestine unit. Like Ryan, he was SOF, had late-stage symptoms of blast-related TBI, and died by suicide. Kate reconnected with Frank on that, and again six months later when SOF colleagues and Kate ran the 220-bed NYC Covid hospital named for Ryan in early 2020.
After learning of Michael’s death - and without knowing about Ryan - somewhat telepathically, Jayna also immediately adjusted fire academically to only researching the TBI-suicide phenomenon, and *Thank God* she did. Jayna discovered the only known appreciable non-clinical intervention to reduce suicide from TBI: award the Purple Heart. Jayna ran into Frank at a brain injury conference in late 2023 and six degrees of Kevin Bacon later, the three joined forces, wrote a bill, and hit Capitol Hill in early 2024 armed with their research, collective experiences, and the military spouse mafia supporting them.
In mere months, Jayna and Kate became the first military spouse-scientists of record, and Frank the first gold-star father, to fundamentally influence the DoD’s status quo vis a vis blast injuries affecting the brains of 500k other GWOT-era Michaels and Ryans. With Frank’s invaluable guidance, the three wrote and pushed a ‘reformation act’ on blast overpressures and brain injuries that evolved into Senators Ernst and Warren’s bipartisan Blast Overpressure Bill (press release here and NYT coverage here).
Jayna Moceri Brooks, PhD, RN, Co-founder, Director:
Native of the Pacific Northwest, Jayna graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Seattle Pacific University and then went on to earn a Master of Nursing degree from the University of Washington Tacoma (2007) and PhD from Duquesne University (2022). Her dissertation research focused on suicidal behaviors among Post-9/11 Army Combat Veterans with a TBI.
In addition to working as an Emergency and Trauma nurse for over 17 years, she has experience volunteering and working on military installations within the United States and abroad. Jayna is currently a post-doctoral fellow continuing her work in military suicide prevention research.
She was moved to co-found Recognize the Sacrifice in January 2009 after her husband sustained a TBI while on deployment to Iraq (2007-2008). Jayna's goal in co-founding the organization is to support service members and their families through the complicated Purple Heart Award application process and to advocate for them to receive medical care, rehabilitation, and official recognition of their combat injury.
Kate Rocklein, PhD, DNP, RN, CCNE, CCEMTP(Emer.), Co-founder:
Originally from Apopka, Florida, Dr. Kate Rocklein earned her BNSc from Queen’s University (Kingston), MScN and DNP at Loyola University (New Orleans), and PhD from Rush University (Chicago). Kate was a civilian flight-certified emergency/trauma nurse specialist for the United States Army before becoming faculty in Nursing and Operational Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia with subsequent appointments in the University of North Carolina and University of Tennessee systems. In early 2020, Kate was appointed Chief Nursing Officer of the Ryan F. Larkin/New York Presbyterian 220-bed COVID hospital during New York City’s worst pandemic surges to date.
Dr. Rocklein's research journey started when patients of hers from Special Operations Forces (SOF) began reporting non-specific symptoms of neurological trauma during the early OEF years, at the start of her master's research. This led Kate to independently developing data sets and extrapolating estimations of TBI incidence among US Ground Forces from 2001-2007, years prior to release of the DoD's large-scale studies of TBI. Dr. Rocklein was then formally commended by the US military for exceptional achievements as a critical care and trauma clinician, and again for her invaluable contributions in public service to Soldiers and families. Afterward, colleagues in SOF medicine asked Kate to analyze the trajectory of SOF medics' education and practice, and thus she was the first civilian woman and nurse to study pedagogies influencing SOF medics’ curricula.
Dr. Rocklein was lead analyst on other highly-nuanced and sensitive research, and directed a national-level joint initiative on TBI data capture for the US Department of Defense and Veteran’s Administration from which she developed section 5 of President Obama's 2012 Executive Order on military/veteran TBI and mental health. Dr. Rocklein is a funded CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC researcher and Jonas Foundation Veterans Health Scholar, whose collaborations with physician co-investigators address suicidality in civilian emergency medicine and nursing, and trauma responses in similar military cohorts. Dr. Rocklein’s portfolio reflects over $13 million in affiliated interdisciplinary federally funded research, including co-creating with biomedical engineers patented ultra-miniature defibrillators and remote critical care modalities and monitoring for far-forward combat casualty care.
For leading her field by investigating escalating suicidality in SOF, in 2021 Rush University recognized Dr. Rocklein with the Luther Christman Model Unification Award for Research Excellence. In 2023, Dr. Rocklein received an alumni lifetime achievement award for Global Citizenship from her alma mater, Queen's University, further recognizing her repeated contributions to the health and welfare of New Yorkers and influential advocacy on behalf of multinational GWOT-era injured service members.