Updated November 2026. Written and reviewed by the Lily Hospice clinical team.
This Veterans Day, Lily Hospice is joining Evan Shelline, the Navy SEAL veteran who chairs our Veteran Advisory Committee, in asking one thing of metro Detroit: call a veteran you know and ask how he or she is doing. He calls it a Buddy Check. It takes five minutes.
Why one call
The men and women who served in Korea and Vietnam are now among our nation’s oldest Veterans. Many never talked about their service, and many live alone or in senior living communities where nobody asks. “Our Korean War and Vietnam Veterans are growing older, and every year there are fewer of them to call,” Shelline says.
At Lily we see this at the end of life. A veteran who has been quiet for fifty years may carry things that resurface in the last months, and a family that never knew what to ask is left guessing. The call is how it starts to come out, and it does not have to be made by a professional. Often it is better when it is not.
What Evan Shelline has learned from veterans
Evan Shelline (Evan Mark Shelline) served about a decade in the U.S. Navy, including about six years with the SEAL Teams. He is the founder and president of VETTED, which provides in-home care for veterans in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties, and the founder of The Veteran Muster: All Present and Accounted For, a veterans-only gathering held in senior living communities across Southeast Michigan. Since October 2026 he has chaired Lily Hospice’s Veteran Advisory Committee.
Of the older veterans he visits, he said on Veterans Radio in October: “I’m talking to him about things that he hasn’t talked to his family about. That peer-to-peer support is vital.”
And in an interview recorded at Inbound 281’s Studio 281: “If you know that your husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter is in a place where you’re worried about them, it’s time to make a call and get somebody involved.”
How to make a Buddy Check
- Pick one veteran. A parent, an uncle, a neighbor, the man at church who wears the cap. Someone you have not spoken to in a while is a good choice.
- Call, don’t text. Hearing a voice is the point.
- Ask how he or she is doing, then wait. Let the silence sit. You do not need to fix anything.
- Ask one question about their service if they seem open to it: where they were stationed, who they served with. Let them decide how far to go.
- End with a plan. A visit, a meal, another call next week.
If a veteran you call is in crisis, dial 988 and press 1 for the Veterans Crisis Line, which answers 24 hours a day, or text 838255.
If a veteran you love is seriously ill
Lily Hospice is a We Honor Veterans Bronze Level partner, and our veteran programs are shaped by veterans through the Veteran Advisory Committee. Read about hospice for a veteran in metro Detroit and the checklist of end-of-life benefits for Michigan veterans, or call (248) 955-5100 any hour. A real person answers.
Hospice isn’t giving up. It’s showing up.
