Donna Zephrine’s life has been shaped by service, perseverance, and a refusal to quit.
Raised on Long Island after being born in Harlem, Zephrine grew up in the Brentwood School District, where she joined the Air Force Junior ROTC program and became active in student government, the National Honor Society, Special Olympics events, and weekly programs helping people with disabilities.
Her early struggles with learning disabilities did not stop her. Instead, they helped build the work ethic that would carry her through college, military service, combat deployments, and later graduate school at Columbia University.
After graduating from Brentwood High School in 1992, Zephrine attended SUNY Farmingdale, earning an associate’s degree in liberal arts. In 1997, she joined the Army Reserve and completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where she trained as a 63 Bravo mechanic, working on Humvees, tractor trailers, and other military vehicles.
She later served with a Reserve unit in Queens before going active duty after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Assigned to Hunter Army Airfield in Georgia, Zephrine deployed with the 3rd Infantry Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
She crossed from Kuwait into Iraq in the early days of the war, working as a mechanic under difficult and dangerous conditions. Her unit operated in Baghdad and later Garma, where soldiers faced RPGs, IEDs, incoming fire, long hours, heat, shortages, and uncertainty.
“You don’t know if you’re going to live or die,” she recalled. “I prayed. I kept my prayer book with me.”
During her first deployment, her unit lost two soldiers. Zephrine later kept killed-in-action bracelets in their memory, including one for her squad leader, whose widow she visited after returning home.
She deployed again from 2004 to 2005, serving at Al-Asad, Iraq, where conditions had improved in some ways but the danger remained constant. She worked on vehicles, performed preventive maintenance, pulled guard duty, and lived with the daily stress of combat.
After leaving active duty, Zephrine returned to New York, worked in the Brentwood School District and at the Northport VA, and later pursued social work at Columbia University. Despite PTSD, academic challenges, and a two-year leave of absence, she graduated in 2017.
Today, Zephrine stays active in veterans’ organizations, including the VFW, DAV, Wounded Warrior Project, Team Red, White & Blue, Team Rubicon, Achilles International, and veterans writing workshops.
She has completed major races, including the New York City Marathon, and earned a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Her advice to struggling veterans is direct: reach out.
“Someone that you could trust,” she said, whether another veteran, an organization, art, music, writing, cycling, or another path toward healing.