Bill would let troops get help at Vet Centers

Bill would let troops get help at Vet Centers

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Aug 13, 2008 18:07:59 EDT

Opening the nation’s 232 Vet Centers to active-duty and reserve component members who served in Iraq or Afghanistan so they could receive readjustment counseling might duplicate existing military programs, but it would still help combat veterans, according to a new analysis by a nonpartisan arm of Congress.

The Congressional Budget Office, tasked with putting a price tag on pending legislation, looked at counseling services as it estimated the cost of S 2969, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2008, passed by the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_activeduty_vetcenters_081308w/

This is one of the smartest things they could do, so why aren't they all lining up to support this? Have you ever tried to get a combat veteran into the VA? Most of the time they say they don't want anything to do with the government and they view Vets Centers as going to see one of their own. Instead of turning to the government they view as "the one who sent them into combat in the first place" they view the centers as going to see their brothers. Big difference.

The Veteran's Center in Boston was the reason my husband was finally willing to go to the VA. He had been diagnosed three years earlier with PTSD from Vietnam despite the fact I already knew it. He just wouldn't listen. I had to build a relationship with a vet at the center before I could get my husband to go. Up until then, any mention of the VA was a guaranteed anger riser. Had it not been for the Vet's Center, I don't know if I would have ever managed to get him to go for help at the VA.

The centers are not just friendly territory, they are a bridge to help them face dealing with the bureaucracy of the VA itself. They provide support for the veteran and their families. It's money well spent. The other plus side is that we don't have VA hospitals where they are needed. Take a veteran in a rural part of the country who needs some face to face compassion and understanding of another veteran but not being able to get to it and you have a life on the line. It happens all the time.

It's hard enough to get these veterans to seek help in the first place. Why not make it as easy as possible? The suicide prevention call numbers are great but they are not the long term answer. Veteran's Centers are a bridge to getting there.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos

Namguardianangel@aol.com

http://www.namguardianangel.org/

http://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