Master Sgt. Minnie E. Hiller, of Passaic, N.J. (pop. 67,681), has spent most of her career helping others, both as a high school substance abuse and dropout prevention counselor and as a family assistance coordinator for the military.

“She’s a blessing,” says Jovannie Villabol, who went to see Hiller at the Teaneck (N.J.) Armory last year while her husband was serving in Iraq. Villabol, 24, recalls meeting Hiller, who greeted her at with a warm smile and a direct question. “How can I help you?”
Villabol burst into tears as she explained that she and her three children needed a place to live. Hiller went to work, finding Villabol an apartment with a free month’s rent and arranging day care for Villabol’s youngest child.

“My job is to change a no into a yes with a breath of sunshine,” Hiller, 51, says. Hiller joined the Army National Guard in 1978. When the 50th Main Support Battalion of the Army National Guard in Teaneck was deployed to Iraq in 2004, she left her civilian job to become the battalion’s full-time family assistance coordinator, working as a liaison between the soldiers, their families and the community. Now that most of the battalion’s troops have returned home, she still volunteers at the armory six days a week. Over the years, she’s coordinated the armory’s food pantry, provided counseling in its family readiness and teen programs and organized events ranging from baby showers to trips for military families.

In late 2005, Hiller received permission to go to Iraq to visit her fellow soldiers. Widowed five years ago, Hiller left behind her own five grown children and six grandchildren to spend four months in the desert. “Why’re you coming here, Ma?” the soldiers asked. “It’s dangerous here.”
For Hiller the answer was simple. She wanted to be there, in person, to reassure soldiers about their families at home and help them get ready for the challenges they faced upon their return to civilian life.
Last February, Hiller returned to her counseling career at Passaic High School, where she likes to tell students, “It’s not where you start, but where you finish.”

Hiller began working at Passaic High School as a dropout prevention counselor in 1999, the school’s dropout rate was 13 percent. By last year, the rate had fallen to 7 percent. “She’s constantly talking with students,” says Carlist A. Creech, the school’s principal.
“She engages them and doesn’t let them go.”

One of the many students Hiller hung onto was Pedro Valentin, 26. “She took me under her wing,” says Valentin, who remains close friends with Hiller. “She’s a leader and she trained me to be a leader.”

Although Hiller has returned to her civilian life and ongoing monthly National Guard duty, her military supervisors wanted her behind-the-scenes impact to extend beyond the 50th Main Support Battalion. She recently received a new assignment; she will soon begin providing equal employment opportunity training and counseling for the New Jersey Army National Guard at Fort Dix.

“Minnie’s position is unique,” says Lt. Col. Roberta Niedt, of the N.J. Department of Military and Veteran Affairs. “She is a very talented person who is able to take her knowledge from her civilian job and apply it to a military setting.”

“She’s the most caring person I ever met,” says Lt. Col. Jerry Guareno, director of military personnel in New Jersey. “There’s something the Army calls the 4 C’s—careful, complete, conscientious and continuous. She has it all.”