Aaron Glantz: "You Saved My Life" ... A Reason to Keep Reporting

People ask me why I do what I do, but Aaron put it a lot better than I ever could. I do it because of the people not yet saved. I rejoice for the veterans that get help, come to terms with what PTSD is and begin to heal. Still I keep going for all the ones I couldn't reach. Not being able to save my husband's nephew will haunt me for the rest of my life even though I knew I did everything possible, the odds were just stacked against him. To this day, I wonder what else I could have done, or said, that would have prevented him from checking himself into a motel room, locking the door with enough heroin to kill ten men. The "what if" gets played in our brains every time one of them is failed. A son, daughter, husband, wife, parent or even a friend, there is always the questions there never seems to be an answer for. All we can do is know we did the best we could and try to do the best we can after that for the sake of someone we loved. I do what I do because my husband deserved better than he received and he's still here, still in treatment and still on medication, but is living a life again instead of just existing. We had to fight to get us to where we are but this year, our 25th anniversary, was worth the effort of getting here.

Read what Aaron Glantz wrote about this and then the next time you read something a reporter took the time to do, know what reporting on it did to them because no one walks away from these men and women untouched.

Aaron Glantz: "You Saved My Life" ... A Reason to Keep Reporting

After six years of war in Iraq, it is easy to get exhausted and depressed -- to think that all your repeated exposures to the trauma of war are for nothing, that you are screwing yourself up for next to no money for no reason -- then something happens that suddenly gives all your work meaning, that gives you the strength to continue.

Back at my hotel room Tuesday night, I began to cry -- though I couldn't figure out exactly why -- I think the tears were partially tears of joy in recognition of the power of journalism to change and even save lives. But behind the tears was another feeling too, one that's more complicated. Why does it take a news story and a US Senator to get a wounded veteran the support he needs to step back from homelessness and suicide?