Michelle Bulla completes tough chapter with new lease on life
This article was featured in our July 4th PlayBall program at BB&T Ballpark. Five times this season, the Dash and Goodwill Industries of Northwest North Carolina will honor someone through their Salute to Veterans Program.
As the old saying goes, life comes full circle.
For former US Coast Guard First Class Storekeeper Dionne “Michelle” Bulla, she can say that with full sincerity.
After spending almost 10 years in the military, Michelle turned to drugs and alcohol to help distract her from the psychological pain she experienced in her personal life and in her time in service. Ironic to her now, she abused drugs in an area close to where BB&T Ballpark is now located.
However, the 50-year-old has worked to turn her life around. Becoming an amazing mother to her son Dante and helping fellow veterans in the process is what compelled Goodwill Industries of NWNC to select her as its Fourth of July honoree for the Dash’s Veterans Program.

It’s a fitting end to a story that has always had its roots in the state.
Growing up in Davidson County, Michelle was raised solely by her mother Bonnie after her father passed away at a young age. The North Carolina native attended West Davidson High School from 1983–86.
After graduating, she spent a couple of years working as a YMCA camp counselor and a Nursing Assistant while attending school to become an EMT before moving to Charleston, S.C., to spend a summer with some friends.
However, it wasn’t until one day in 1989 that she found her calling. Seeing a Coast Guard sign on the road, Michelle decided to enlist.
“I was always interested in the military,” said the veteran.
She went to boot camp in February of that year and soon traveled to Alameda, Calif., to work at the U. S. Coast Guard Support Center, where she provided logistical and inventory management support. In 1992, she attended “A” school in Petaluma, Calif., where she was trained to become a Storekeeper, a position that entails issuing, preserving, procuring and storing different supplies and materials involved with the Coast Guard.
Michelle helped decommission an air station in St. Augustine, Fla., and then hopped aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Legare, which is one of six 270-foot ships stationed out of the Base Support Unit in Portsmouth, Va. Michelle quickly made a name for herself, becoming First Class within six years.
In 1995, she made her first excursion to Europe, helping decommission a unit in Lampedusa, Italy. For her efforts, Michelle earned a Coast Guard Achievement Medal.
That would be the first of her trips east of the United States. Afterward, she was a part of a 20-country public relations tour around Europe.
It wasn’t until a setback in 1998 that ultimately reshaped her life for quite some time.
In June of that year, Michelle was diagnosed with asthma. Because of this, the Coast Guard temporarily discharged her, while also allowing her to the come back in three years.
While a break was needed, home life brought other challenges. On top of Michelle having trouble finding employment, her mother was also ill.
“I was lost,” said the Dash’s July Veterans Program honoree. “That transition from military life to civilian life was not easy for me. Especially in the frame of mind I was in while watching my mom’s health deteriorate right before my eyes. Although the Coast Guard trained me to handle many things, it could have never prepared me for that.”
Trying to cope with the pain, Michelle made her first dangerous turn towards drugs and alcohol.
She was not done trying to serve in the military, though. In fact, she coerced a doctor to let her back into the Coast Guard in 2001, with hopes of getting her life back on track.

Sadly, on her first day at a new unit in Alexandria, Va., right as she was introduced to her new chief, the September 11th attacks occurred. Being only miles away from the Pentagon, Michelle’s PTSD kicked in and sent her into another spiral.
The West Davidson High School graduate returned home to take care of her mom, but her drug and alcohol addiction worsened. Staying at a hotel across from where BB&T Ballpark is now located, she holed herself inside for three weeks.
She was picked up by the Coast Guard and sent to rehab in Norfolk, Va., but went AWOL and was ultimately sent to four months in the brig (aka military prison).
At that point, the Coast Guard decided it was best for her not to come back. Michelle was discharged in 2002.
Unfortunately, that year would bring about another difficult event, as her mother Bonnie passed away.
While she tried to kick her habits, Michelle’s addictions worsened. Over the course of 10 years, the former storekeeper was at times either homeless or in prison.
“Those years were miserable,” she said. “I was on the street, hopeless and alone, and I didn’t have a place of my own.”
It wasn’t until 2010 when the tides began to turn. After asking a friend to drop her off at Arlington Hospital in Arlington, Va., Michelle sat on the bench outside hoping for a sign.
“I said, ‘God, you either have to give me the strength to get off this bench and go in this hospital, or you give me the strength to kill myself’.”
Ultimately, she willed herself inside, and, after a couple of tests, Michelle was told some life-altering news.
She was three-months pregnant with a boy.
“He saved my life,” said the mother of Dante, who was born in 2011 and is now six years old. “I haven’t looked back since.”
With new hope, Michelle started to get her life in order. In August 2010, she enrolled in a two-year residential treatment program in Vienna, Va., called New Generations, which is for women with substance abuse problems.
Michelle graduated the program in July of 2011 and was able to find a job working for a military uniform company while living in a transitional housing program.
She would be laid off in 2014, but that set up the groundwork for her return to North Carolina.
Going back to her roots, Michelle moved back to Davidson County and enrolled in the Work First program, where she was soon assigned to the Goodwill career connections.
Climbing quickly up the ranks like she did in the Coast Guard, Michelle became a Career Connections Specialist in April of 2015 at the Salisbury center after taking part in Goodwill’s Operation Good Jobs program.
In February of this year, she made her most recent career change. She is now working in Goodwill’s Winston-Salem office as an Employment Specialist. In this role, Michelle works in the Veterans Services program and helps veterans overcome some of the same barriers she has faced in her own life while helping them find employment, training and area resources.
Now living in China Grove, N.C., Michelle has been sober for seven years. The memories of her tribulations remain fresh, but the subsequent strength mustered to overcome those obstacles has allowed her to have some closure.
“A lot of it was at my hands, and it wouldn’t have been what I would’ve chose for my life but it has definitely made me the person I am today. But to be coming back here, and actually in the same spot that stole my life, it makes me proud to see what I’ve overcome in my life. It’s a big moment.”
