Orlando People Power Hour radio program guest is me?

I was invited to participate in the show by John Hamilton, producer of the People Power Hour radio program heard Saturdays from 11am until noon on WAMT 1190AM in Orlando. I'll be on this Saturday along with Barry Stanley and Fanita Jackson-Norman of the Orlando VA Hospital discussing their Seamless Transition Program among other things. PTSD will be the focus of this program, that is for sure. We have a lot of issues here in Florida and over 400,000 veterans in this state. Not sure how much time I'll have but you won't be able to miss my Bostonian accent.

In the Orlando area, we have 1,200 homeless veterans and very little help for them. What we have managed to do is wonderful but only a fraction of the veterans needing help are getting it. The Orlando VA clinic, the size of a hospital, is always full of veterans waiting for their appointments. This gets really crazy in the winter when the "snow birds" arrive and it becomes a freak of luck and timing if you can get a parking space without having to park on the grass section with the dirt road leading into the real parking lot. They do have golf carts to retrieve people who cannot walk that great of a distance and take them back to their cars, which is a blessing for the older veterans, usually accompanied by an equally elderly wife.

The Dom facility for homeless veterans is run by Dr. Shay with great rooms and services but they can only take in 60 homeless veterans at a time. Then there is the nursing home with a great staff. I've been there several times with friends playing Bingo with the residents and they are a great bunch.

The other thing done for them is the DAV invites them to the monthly meetings because dinner is served before the meetings and they get treated like honored guests accompanied by caring nurses. After dinner they are escorted to the van before the meeting begins. It gives them a chance to get out. The DAV also goes to the nursing home to play Bingo once a month. I belong to the DAV Auxiliary.

There is a Veteran's Council at City Hall with a dedicated group of people working very hard for the sake of our veterans. I met several of them the beginning of June when I did a presentation on PTSD with one of my videos, Hero After War. During the meeting I was fascinated learning how much is going on in this area for veterans. I was invited to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the new Veteran's Clinic in Orange, which is also a much needed resource for the veterans who had to travel to Orlando before the clinic was opened.

NAMI, another organization I belong to, is gearing up to put more resources into Florida. We had our convention here in June and it was well attended. Again even more was learned about what we were getting right but raised more awareness on how much more needs to be done.

If we are going to really take care of our veterans it will take all the communities to get involved. Every service organization needs to step up as well as all the local clergy. Citizens of Florida have stepped up and that's great but too many are still not involved at all. There are things they can do but they don't ask. First suggestion is to call the Dom and find out what the needs of the homeless veterans are. Try to fill that need or at least make a donation to them. When the Vietnam Veterans of America call to tell you they will have a truck in your area, think of what you don't need in your house and tell them to pick it up. They make it easy on you to donate to them. Get involved and remember the veterans got involved for you. That's how they became veterans.



Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington