Profile of Sharon Bannister
A retired U.S. Air Force general who didn’t go quietly into the night
By Peter Aronson
The Practical Altruism Project
Published on October 14, 2024
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My first impression of Sharon Bannister was that she was simply a kindhearted and soft-spoken volunteer trying to help out and console people.
My wife, Emily, and I met her on a cold winter day in 2023 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. She was wearing a yellow coat, a matching yellow baseball cap and talking quietly to a family that was visiting the memorial.
I don’t remember all the details, but I believe those visitors were there to pay their respects to a family member or a friend killed in the war.
After a few minutes, the yellow-clad woman came over to talk with us. We were there as visitors, not mourners. We chatted about the memorial and what she did there. When it got to the why, Emily and I realized that we were not dealing with a normal volunteer, known as a Yellow Hat at the wall.
It turned out Sharon Bannister was Major General Dr. Sharon R. Bannister, a two-star general in the Air Force and a periodontal surgeon who had a side volunteer gig as a docent at the memorial. She was also a Gold Star child, having lost her father in the war just three days before her sixth birthday.
“I understand the feeling of loss - it’s not something the children of names on the Wall talked about growing up,” she said in a later interview. “It wasn’t a popular war. People weren’t welcomed home with open arms, and the families of the fallen often were silent … especially those who didn’t know what really happened to their loved one. For me, that was the case until 2007, when my father’s remains were identified and returned.”
Dr. Bannister, 58, is a modest person. We would not have learned she was a general if we had not asked a lot of questions. As I meet and interview practical altruists, I am learning that modesty breeds decency, and that sometimes modesty and decency masks accomplishment and generosity, concealing how a person has chosen to give back. In some cases, the give back is significant.
Dr. Bannister is among the first group of people I am profiling as I launch The Practical Altruism Project. The project is simple and singularly focused. I am profiling individuals who have applied their career skills as an important volunteer at a nonprofit, sometimes during their career, but often after retirement. Dr. Bannister is doing this in abundance.
She represents extraordinary accomplishment - she is the first female dentist to attain the rank of general in the U.S. Air Force - and has performed significant volunteer and practical altruistic work for almost 20 years. She retired from the military in June 2023 and now serves on the board of directors of three veterans-themed nonprofits. She also serves on the board of the Be Good Foundation, a nonprofit started by her sister in memory of their father. And she served on the board of the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) from 2007 to 2013 and continues to volunteer with that organization today.
She said her widowed, hardworking mother instilled in her and her sister the need to work hard, strive to achieve and continuously give back, a message she and her husband, retired Army Col. Jack Jensen, have passed on to their children.
“I’ve always had a service-driven approach to everything I do,” she said. “There were times growing up when I was confused, alone and sad. I didn’t want other people to feel that way.”
Dr. Bannister’s father’s death serves as an important reminder
The death of Dr. Bannister’s father was a touchstone for her, if not always the driving force.
For years there was uncertainty about what happened to Capt. Stephen A. Rusch, an Air Force weapons systems officer, when he was shot down on a classified mission over the jungles of southern Laos. It was March 7, 1972.
“No words can explain the years to follow,” Dr. Bannister told the Air Force News Service. “The uncertainty was always there. What if my dad had died on impact? What if he had been captured and tortured? What if he got lost in the jungle, injured and alone?”
This uncertainty and trauma led to a life growing up without a father. When Dr. Bannister was 13, her family held a funeral for him, even though his remains had not yet been found.
“I was sitting there feeling guilty that I didn’t feel like crying,” Dr. Bannister said. “At the time, I didn’t have a full understanding of what happened to him. I didn’t really know if he was lost. I didn’t really know if he was dead for decades.”
It wasn’t until 2007, when Dr. Bannister was a colonel in the Air Force, that her father’s remains were found.
“I don’t think I really truly understood how much it was gonna impact me until after I went to Hawaii and received his remains,” she said. “It was incredibly impactful for me. I was just standing in the street and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s really home.’ ”
Her father was buried in Arlington Cemetery.
Soon after her father died, Dr. Bannister and her younger sister and mom moved from near Louisville, Kentucky, to Downers Grove, Illinois, a middle-class Chicago suburb. Dr. Bannister recalls her mother working hard in the tech industry to provide a comfortable home.
“I still remember her staying up late at night to sew us clothes and make doll clothes for Christmas presents,” she said. She learned from her mom.
“It taught my sister and me to be independent and to never think a goal was out of reach,” she said. “My mom had high expectations for grades in school, and pushed us to be the best we could be. This carried on through college and dental school and I taught my children the same values. I know this also helped me to be a compassionate leader for single parents in the military.”
At Miami University in Ohio, Dr. Bannister studied chemistry with the idea that she would go either to dental or medical school. Going into the military was not a thought.
She attended dental school at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and in her third year a mentor, a retired colonel, suggested she consider the military, in part because she would get a year of paid dental training, with only a two-year military obligation to follow. Also, the Gulf War was ongoing and Dr. Bannister was feeling patriotic, thinking she could help out at a time when her country could use her service. But she was not thinking about the military long-term. That was not until the night she graduated from Officer Training School, at a dinner hosted by General Bill McCoy.
“He kept looking at me from across the room and I was looking at my uniform going, ‘Oh my gosh, is my uniform ok? Did I do something wrong?’ ” she said. “He finally came over to me and said, ‘Captain, what’s your last name?’ And I said, ‘Rusch’ and he said, ‘You are Stephen Rusch’s daughter, aren’t you? I flew with your dad in Vietnam. I recognize you from pictures your dad had when he was deployed.’ I was blown away, because here I am, 26 years old, two decades after my dad was shot down, and he recognized me from pictures when I was six. And I think at that point, I realized that I was joining something a little bigger than myself and more than anything, it gave me a new curiosity about my dad, wanting to understand what he did and why he served. And, I’m not gonna say that on that day I knew I would serve for 31 years and become a general, because that absolutely is not accurate. But it definitely made me pause and realize that, uh, this was more than just working for the Air Force. I felt like I was starting to be a part of a family that was bigger than just a job.”
Dr. Bannister ended up serving in the Air Force from 1992 to 2023, rising from the rank of captain through five promotions to Major General, a two star in military lingo. She divides her career into roughly thirds, the first third where she was a practicing dentist and periodontist.
“I was taking care of people that wore the uniform and made sure that they were ready to deploy at any moment,” she said. During this period she received her masters in periodontal surgical dentistry at the University of Texas Health Science Center, and began teaching other Air Force dentists.
“It was a hugely rewarding part of my career,” she said. “I loved teaching people, watching them start, being kind of green, and then seeing them turn into amazing surgeons at the end of their three-year program.”
In the middle third of her career, as a lieutenant colonel, then a full colonel, Dr. Bannister had command jobs, leading dental clinics, then hospitals, then large ambulatory surgical centers serving the military and their civilian support staff.
“I thought that that wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I found that helping to develop young officers working under me … was super rewarding, just as much as teaching dentistry,” she said. “So I kept going.”
The last third of her career saw her get promoted to brigadier general, then major general as she took on major leadership posts within the Air Force medical establishment. In her second to last post, she served as Command Surgeon, Air Combat Command and Assistant Surgeon General for Dental Services. She advised the Air Force Surgeon General on matters involving 1,000 Air Force dentists and 2,500 dental technicians, all serving 81,000 active-duty combat airmen and civilian personnel located around the world. Much of this time was during Covid.
“We were trying to figure out ways for the commanding four-star general to develop strategies and manage risk in being able to keep our nation safe during a time where we weren't even sure we could put two people in a plane together,” she said. It was 2020, the scary time of limited vaccinations and tremendous uncertainty, she said, “And yet we still had a national security mission.”
In her last post, Director of Medical Operations for the Air Force, she led a team of 443 strategists and policy makers in guiding and advising the Air Force and Space Force medical operations in support of 43,000 medical personnel, 76 hospitals and clinics and a $6.2 billion budget. She was a leader in strategizing medical plans and policy with all military branches and advocating before Congress. This successfully led to the implementation of the Air Force’s best practices for resiliency and mental health care, which was adopted by the entire Defense Department.
“We were always looking for ways to do things better and smarter and provide safer and focused care for those that wear the uniform,” she said.
Obviously, developing leadership skills is paramount if you become a general in the U.S. Air Force.
“I think that more than anything, my service helped develop me into the leader that I became. I wanted to be able to know the people that I served as a leader in the way that General Billy McCoy did. I wanted somebody else to feel like they were important, that they mattered. And you know, I don’t know that I was as good as he was in terms of remembering children from photos two decades earlier, but I definitely gave it a try every day that I served.”
A volunteer from early on
Dr. Bannister’s volunteer work began years before she retired. As she moved around the country to her 21 military postings in nine states, the Azores, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan, she applied the altruistic beliefs her mother taught her.
She hammered, painted and caulked for Habitat for Humanity in Georgia, did community gardening and helped collect garbage in Virginia, served holiday meals at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and did lots of volunteer dental work.
“When you move from community to community, they’re welcoming us in with open arms, helping us get resettled, to become part of the community that you’re only probably gonna be a part of for a couple of years,” she said. “So giving back to those communities was really important to me.”
Much of Dr. Bannister’s practical altruistic work with nonprofits now has a common theme of serving the veteran community.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund
She has served on the board of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), the nonprofit that oversees the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, since June 2019 and as a Yellow Hat docent at the memorial since 2017.
“It’s about talking to the people. It’s about the names and learning their stories, so that you can connect people to the sacrifice of those who wear the uniform,” she said. “It’s been an important part of my volunteer status, which I’ve continued for years. And I can’t see myself stopping.”
She said there’s an element of self healing attached to her work at the Wall.
“This work helps connect me not only to veterans, but to other Gold Star children,” she said. “It’s been healing for me and it’s the first time, really, that I’ve found that I’m able to talk a little bit about what it feels like to be a Vietnam Gold Star child. … There’s so much community now and there wasn’t when my dad died. Nobody talked about it then.”
Being a military officer, a Gold Star child and a docent at the Wall made Dr. Bannister a perfect candidate for the VVMF board, said Jim Knotts, VVMF president and CEO. He said she and her sister served as keynote speakers during their national Memorial Day ceremony at the Wall a few years ago and says Dr. Bannister brings important organizational skills and a story that resonates.
“Sharing her story helped to reinforce the importance of our ongoing mission to serve Vietnam veterans and their families,” he said.
Military Women’s Memorial
Since August 2023, Dr. Bannister has served on the board of directors of the Military Women’s Memorial (MWM), a nonprofit dedicated to gathering and preserving the history of the more than three million women who have served in the military during our nation’s history, honoring those who served and educating the public about this service. Its physical memorial is about a mile from the Lincoln Memorial, across the Potomac.
“As a military woman herself and just recently retired, she has a clear understanding and appreciation of the service, sacrifice, and contributions of our currently serving military women from her perspective and lived experience as a servicewoman and a military leader,” said Clare Tomasetti, the MWM’s chief of staff. “Not only does she know our military women, which is integral to the work we do, but she also knows and is deeply involved in our military community, which is extremely important to us.”
Dr. Bannister is a hands-on board member, or what Tomasetti called a “servant leader,” wherever she serves. A key mission for the MWM is maintaining a National Register of the stories of women who have served since the Revolutionary War.
When visiting her mother-in-law at an assisted living facility, Dr. Bannister met 106-year-old Louise Terwillager, a Navy veteran nurse who served during World War II at Pearl Harbor. She interviewed her to preserve her story and presented her with a MWM Living Legend Award.
“I know I’m capturing stuff that will be used for a lifetime, for other people to understand what women have done to support our military and our country all the way back to the Revolutionary War,” Dr. Bannister said.
Dr. Bannister also applies her medical knowledge. She moderated an event on health and wellness for military women and also participated in an event to bring awareness to and fight against veteran suicide among women.
“Sharon’s military profession and expertise in the medical field brings a different perspective to our board of directors and our organization,” Tomasetti said.
Dog Tag Inc.
In January 2024, Dr. Bannister joined the board of directors of Dog Tag Inc., a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit established in 2011 to provide intensive entrepreneurial training for post-9/11 veterans with disabilities and their military spouses and caregivers.
In a five-month program, Dog Tag fellows receive more than 500 hours of training through a regimen that involves classroom business training through certificate programs at Georgetown University in Washington or Loyola University in Chicago, wellness therapy and activities, learning lab workshops to explore careers and gain skills and hands on work experience at the Dog Tag Bakery in Washington, which has the motto: Live life with purpose baked in.
Calling Dr. Bannister a “natural fit” for the Dog Tag board, CEO Meghan Ogilvie said, “She empathizes with the journey of our veterans, spouses and caregivers post-service in a way that has allowed her to support the mission of a … [veteran’s] transition program with authenticity and grace.”
The brownies and butterscotch blondies are known to be delicious, but Dr. Bannister’s focus so far has been with helping advise participants on their networking and pitch approach, when they present their business plans to prospective investors or employers. She knows firsthand that transitioning out of the military is difficult, so she feels she can be helpful as a sounding board for these individuals.
“For me, that personal interaction is crucial, so it’s more than a bakery, although their bakery is amazing,” she said. “We ask: How would you sell yourself? What are your goals? What are your dreams? It’s a place where they learn the skills they need to go out in the world and find great careers.”
Ogilvie said Dr. Bannister’s experience has put her in a good position to help.
“She was able to relate to the challenges of networking, redefining skill sets for the civilian workforce, or finding the right attire to feel confident in the workforce,” Ogilvie said. “Dr. Bannister has truly walked the walk in the space of integration of veterans to the civilian world.”
Be Good Foundation
Nothing is more personal for Dr. Bannister than her participation with the Be Good Foundation, which she joined as a board member in 2023 after she retired from the military. When her father sent letters home when he was in the Air Force, he always signed them “Be Good, Steve.”
“I feel like that was a message to me and my sister to do the best that we can in life. And the Be Good Foundation spends a lot of time encouraging young women and girls to be everything they can be,” she said.
Dr. Bannister’s sister, Rebecca Rusch, is a champion cyclist and environmental activist. In 2015, she rode her bike the length of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, made famous during the Vietnam War, to find their father’s crash site. This trip was documented in the Emmy Award-winning documentary Blood Road. Rusch began the Be Good Foundation soon after to honor her father through causes important to her: exercise and a healthy environment, all viewed through the use of a bicycle.
The Be Good Foundation has partnered with the Mines Advisory Group to clear live land mines in Laos and has created scholarships and grants in the U.S. for individuals to go on bike or backpacking adventures as a healing process for vets, youth, paracyclists and members of the BIPOC and LGTBQIA communities.
Dr. Bannister’s involvement has brought a better understanding of nonprofit fundamentals, said Aerah Hardin, Be Good’s executive director.
“Sharon has brought leadership in so many ways,” Hardin said. “Her vast experience on boards … has provided better tools and processes within the Be Good Foundation,” ranging from simple things like better structure for collecting board minutes to being more proactive in developing “a thank you call campaign” for donors.
“Sharon also contributes a level of passion and commitment that goes beyond attending meetings,” Hardin said. “She understands the mission and story of Be Good on such a personal level that she has given her time to helping us create clearer messaging around who we are and what we do.”
Dr. Bannister said she hopes her experience can further help advance Be Good’s mission.
“It means the world serving on the board of a nonprofit my sister founded,” she said. “I know my dad is watching and he’d be proud.”
Helping other periodontists
Dr. Bannister also served on the board of the American Academy of Periodontology (AAP) from 2007 and 2013 and continues to volunteer with the organization today.
“Sharon has both the hard and soft skills of leadership, made even more valuable within the context of the AAP, because she is one of a small handful of volunteers who has contextual experience different from dentistry,” said Executive Director Erin O’Donnell Dotzler. “She brought a leadership perspective and skillset, gained via all the military training. She knows what questions to ask, knows how to motivate and critique, and can be appropriately unyielding in that pursuit. That voice and confidence, and knowledge, garnered her respect in the boardroom. You could tell she was playing on a different level than everyone else, and also wouldn’t back down or be meek/cower when having to ask the tough question.”
Dotzler said Dr. Bannister also brought a combination of empathy, wisdom and sensitivity to her work with AAP, because of her varied leadership roles with the military.
One of those experiences for Dr. Bannister was serving as a Dignified Transfer Officer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where she helped oversee the dignified transfer of fallen service members to U.S. soil. These solemn scenes often play out on TV news as soldiers in lockstep carry a flag-draped coffin off a plane.
“Though I was on the tarmac solely to bring our fallen military brother or sister home to U.S. soil,” Dr. Bannister said, “it wasn’t lost on me that there was a family often watching—and that I fully understood the pain the family was feeling—and maybe in some way, that connection made a difference.”
Even though Dr. Bannister no longer serves on the AAP board, she is still a valuable contributor to the Periodontology Academy.
She helped the AAP develop a leadership development program targeting young periodontists, with 5-10 years of experience, “one of the crown jewels of our organization,” Dotzler said. “Sharon keynotes the program (now in its sixth year), sharing her personal story and talking about the virtues of servant leadership. Traits she espouses.”
The nonprofits I spoke with emphasized that Dr. Bannister leads and serves with grace, dignity, hard work and a listener’s mind, not with a loud voice. The retired general said providing service to others has always been the key for her, whether as an officer in the Air Force or as a member of a nonprofit board.
She analogized her work to throwing a pebble into a pond, and watching the concentric water rings ripple away from where the pebble struck. She said she’s trying to create pebble waves of goodness that spread across our communities, country and world.
“I think,” she said, “it’s about doing good and encouraging others to do good, so that the world becomes a better place.”
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If you wish to learn more about the nonprofits Dr. Bannister works with, please see the following: the Dog Tag Foundation, the Be Good Foundation, the Military Women's Memorial Fund, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and the American Academy of Periodontology.
To learn more about becoming a yellow hat volunteer for the U.S. Park Service, click here.