Linda Miles
Linda Miles (MS, MBA, MFT) is a U.S. Navy veteran with four years of active duty and six years with the Naval Reserve. She is dedicating to healing and empowering female veterans and providing supportive services and emergency shelter for homeless individuals. Linda’s mission is to help set captives free. Her belief is that you don’t have to be incarcerated to be a captive, and that drug addiction, mental health struggles, and spiritual ruts can trap a person’s soul.
Linda is the founder and CEO of Arise & Shine Haven Social Services, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that addresses the gap in services for female military veterans who have experienced Military Sexual Trauma (MST). She has also served as a Drug and Alcohol Counselor and as a therapist. Linda worked as a Director of Women’s Outreach at the national nonprofit U.S. VETS, as well as served as Vice Chair for the Board of Directors. During her time at U.S. VETS, she assisted in founding the ADVANCE program for homeless female veterans in Long Beach, California – currently the largest program of this type in the country.
A regular spokesperson on the issue of veteran homelessness and MST, her story was featured in the Denver Post, in an article by the Education Development Center, and in two documentaries: one produced by U.S. VETS and the other by Roxanne Messina Captor, titled “Homecoming: Veterans, Wives, and Mothers.”
She is the author of the forthcoming memoir, TO SET FREE A CAPTIVE.
About the Book
To Set Free A Captive
After suffering two violent rapes while serving in the U.S. Navy, Linda Miles spent years homeless and self-medicating with crack cocaine – until she found an unexpected pathway to wholeness and inner peace.
When U.S. Navy veteran Linda Miles was only twenty years old, she was raped at gunpoint by a superior Navy officer. Four ears later, she was brutalized and raped a second time, by a fellow U.S. sailor. When she reported these assaults, she was told that as “a Black and a female,” she needed to suck it up and move on.
Linda’s 65,000 word completed memoir, TO SET FREE A CAPTIVE explores how, wrecked by this trauma and without the spiritual tools to heal, she fell into crack cocaine addiction, homelessness, prostitution, and more than a decade cycling in and out of Los Angeles’ jails. It also reveals how, though raised an atheist, she was able to find wholeness and inner peace by cultivating a deeply personal relationship with a God of her understanding.
This memoir is not for readers who seek traditional religious dogma. TO SET FREE A CAPTIVE is a unique blend of inspirational self-help and a social critique of American culture and the U.S. military rooted in feminist and anti-racist values. It’s the story of a woman who was among the first in her generation to fight for victims of Military Sexual Assault. Providing both a lucid look at the systemic inequities that undo us, and a pathway toward spiritual growth and hope, TO SET FREE A CAPTIVE is a book to heal broken souls.
Linda Miles 