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2013–2026 · St. Joseph County
The county's working hand for veterans is its Veteran Service Officer, and the current holder is named at the strength of the county record: Nina Padilla, St. Joseph County's Veteran Service Officer, described in the Indiana Department of Veterans' Affairs biannual briefing to the Board of Commissioners of February 10–11, 2026, as "the county's new veteran service officer," then progressing through accreditation — VA claims-preparation training and American Legion Service Officer 101 completed, a PIV card for VA systems next — against the June 30 compliance deadline set by the amended Indiana Code 10-17-1. She is named here as the holder as of November 2026 on that February 2026 record; the briefing names her as new in the seat and does not name the predecessor she succeeded, and no later change of holder appears in the open record reached. (One IDVA item mislabels her a "district service officer" in a Marshall County context; the county record — the commissioners' briefing — is the one followed.) The IDVA's CVSO locator stands at in.gov/dva/home/cvso-locate/ for the seat's standing confirmation.
The county's annual muster of services is the St. Joseph County Military Veteran Stand Down: held July 12, 2025, 11 a.m.–3 p.m., at 120 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, South Bend, organized with Goodwill Industries of Michiana's Veterans Resource Network (events.in.gov; VA Northern Indiana event listing) — and the South Bend Vet Center's own page carries the recurrence on its 2026 schedule, July 11, 2026, St. Joseph County, 11 a.m.–3 p.m., printed as the Vet Center records it. The county's court hand is the St. Joseph County Veterans Treatment Court, started in 2013 by St. Joseph Superior Judge Jane Woodward Miller; at its November 21, 2016 graduation ceremony the presiding judge was Judge Steven Hostetler, the program then holding eighteen participants and twelve graduates, with retired Judge Robert Miller Sr., a retired U.S. Naval Reserve officer, leading the Pledge (The Indiana Lawyer, November 29, 2016). The presiding judge as of November 2026 is not verified in the open record reached, and that is printed as a named gap: the settling source is the Indiana Office of Court Services problem-solving court directory and the St. Joseph Superior Court's own assignment record. Beside the court stands the Robert L. Miller Veterans Center — the Miller Veterans Center — in South Bend, named for Robert L. Miller Sr. (Notre Dame Law 1942/1947), housing up to twenty-four veterans under the Center for the Homeless: the county hand's residential arm, named here so the institution is not lost between the court and the clinic.