Veterans Administration Pulls Funding From Therapeutic Farm Training Program

This is not some kind of new program that has not been proven to work. As a matter of fact, they had farms after WWII where spiritually wounded could go to live out their days in a peaceful environment as well as feel needed. My husband's uncle was one of them. He was a Merchant Marine and the ship he was on was sunk by a Kamikaze pilot. He was in the ocean for days before rescue. When he came back to the USA, he was sent to live on a farm, where other veterans were also spending their days living and working on the farm.

We do a good job patting them on the back, telling them how much we need them when we send them off to risk their lives, yet when they come home, should they come home wounded by body or mind, we end up delivering an entirely new message. When we ignore them, make them fight to have claims approved and are nowhere to be found when they need us, we end up telling them they are not only no longer needed, they are no longer worthy of the pat on the back or our support.

Programs like this not only provide shelter, food and support from other veterans, they make the veterans feel they are still needed. Most of us know they never stop giving back in one form or another, but for them, for how they feel about themselves, feeling as if they still mean something is often hard for them to understand. Canceling a program like this, for whatever reason unless they were being abused in some way, is wrong and there are no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Reading this just gave me a migraine!

Veterans Administration Pulls Funding From Therapeutic Farm Training Program

Brigid Brett
Writer, the Los Angeles Times; Tricycle
Posted: April 9, 2010 04:50 PM

If I hadn't known better I'd have thought it was just another early morning of basil picking in the hothouse at Archi's Acres Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training (VSAT) in rural San Diego County. But it wasn't just another morning. There was none of the usual good natured bantering I'd seen in the past; the veterans were grim-faced and tense, and they'd shown up for work despite the fact that the VA had pulled their funding from the program and there was no money to pay their wages.

"I'm here because it's harvest day and there's a heck of a lot of basil to be harvested and delivered. This program has given me so much and I'm not about to turn my back on them," said Rod, a Vietnam era veteran and former Navy Corpsman, when I asked him why he'd come to work without pay. "Because of Archi's Acres I've been able to have a normal life again and move into my own apartment." Before coming to Archi's Acres just over a year ago, he'd spent four years on narcotics and bed rest for back pain; he had become homeless and unable to support himself. I'd met Rod on other occasions and noticed how he always seemed to be smiling while he worked. He wasn't smiling now.

The two Iraq veterans, Carlos and Corey were there too. They both have that look that many young combat veterans have: too young to have seen the things they've seen and old beyond their years because of it. Because of their post traumatic stress issues they were referred by the VA San Diego Healthcare System to Archis Acres, as much for its peaceful therapeutic environment as its training and employment opportunities.

"It's more than a job," said Carlos when I asked him why he was prepared to work without pay. "This is the first time I've felt safe since I got back from Iraq."
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