Dr. Bridgette Williams knows all too well the pain military spouses endure when they become widows or widowers.
Williams unexpectedly lost her husband, Kevin Williams, to a heart attack in April 2019. After the death of her husband, the Spotsylvania County mental health therapist made it her life’s work to support the families of deceased veterans.
In 2022, Williams encouraged Del. Phillip Scott (R-Spotsylvania) to introduce legislation to authorize a disabled veteran special license plate to be transferred to the surviving spouse if they were not remarried.
That bill passed, and the following year, Williams implored Scott to sponsor another authorizing un-remarried surviving military spouses to receive a special license plate for military service, overriding the previous law that only allowed it for certain types of service.
Williams doesn’t plan to stop any time soon. She is working with Del. Josh Cole (D-Fredericksburg) through her “No Widow Left Behind” campaign to create a special license plate inclusive of military, police and firefighter spouses.
The goal is to introduce the legislation in 2025, but Williams and Cole are already raising awareness.
They were on hand at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Fredericksburg this past Saturday to sign copies of “The Shepherd’s Pie.” Proceeds from the book, which centers on Williams’ efforts to overcome her own mental health struggles, go toward the “No Widow Left Behind” campaign and her efforts to create the new license plate.
“As far as I’m concerned, I never expected to be a widow,” Williams said. “My goal now is to create an organization that whatever [military widows] may need, we meet that need for them.”
Williams, who owns and operates the Angelo Recovery Center on Falcon Drive in Spotsylvania, said she considers the event at Barnes & Noble a success. And she’s been invited back to hold another book signing in November.
Cole said Williams’ stick-to-itiveness allowed her to author bills that were supported on a bipartisan basis. Cole also worked with Williams on HB426, passed earlier this year, which eliminated the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling examination as a requirement for individuals to become licensed in the field. The new law allows therapists to become licensed in Virginia by passing the comparatively less strenuous National Counselor Examination.
“She’s a fiery individual and I think because of her tenacity that’s how we’ve been able to get legislation passed,” Cole said. “Dealing with that [mental health] bill, it had three or four different iterations. But because of her tenacity, we were able to get it done. Some other legislators might have given up when they were told, ‘No, the Governor doesn’t like this.’ But we tried to figure out a way to get it to a posture where they say in Richmond, to have ‘peace in the valley.’”
Williams does not anticipate a fight for the new license plate next year. Cole said supporting veteran families should become more of a priority in the General Assembly.
Williams also plans to reach out to Devin Carr, the Spotsylvania woman whose husband was shot and killed by a Spotsylvania deputy June 30, to see what her needs are.
Kevin Carr, 38, was a Marine and active member of the Army Reserves. Williams said that, when her husband died, she was left to figure out benefits and other issues on her own.
She doesn’t want that to happen to another widow.
“As Americans, and especially in Virginia, there is so much more we can do to support our veterans and the widows that have been left behind,” Cole said. “Every piece of legislation that we do is a small step forward to support our veterans and widows. We just want to say, ‘thank you.’”
