Elizabeth Laird, known as “The Hug Lady,” by the soldiers at Ft. Hood, attends every single deployment and homecoming at the army base with one purpose: to hug every soldier going to or returning from war.

To the rest of us, going to war can seem exciting, as it has been romanticized in American culture for decades. But for soldiers actually getting ready to deploy, it can be an unsettling, even scary event.

Thankfully, Elizabeth Laird is always there to make deployment a bit easier.