When Will Nation Make Veterans High Profile Story?

I was watching WESH 2 News this morning and they were reporting on the protest in Orlando over the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. They called it a "high profile" story.

'We're human beings. We all need to care about each other and that's not what I'm seeing," demonstrator Krystal Pherai said.

She is right. We should care about each other. What she isn't seeing is what is happening to veterans all over the country everyday in America. They come home from wherever they are sent and simply don't get the help they need to be pulled from the brink of total despair. No matter how many times we've heard the American people care about them, the result is always the same. They are forgotten about. People move on until the next scandal and they become a story that is supposed to matter.

What doesn't matter is people forget all about everything they just learned. Their suffering doesn't end, nothing substantial happens and then the next time a reporter covers another scandal, folks get to pretend it is something new. The cycle goes on and on as history is repeated.

They have no clue how bad it has been for veterans. This report out of Boise sums up what the average citizen isn't aware of.

Boise Police Department On average, Boise police officers encounter approximately one veteran per week facing a crisis and in need of assistance, and officers are provided the opportunity to aid in referring the veteran to one of the network partners. These interactions demonstrate the value of the program, and that its objective is being met.

At least they are talking about what veterans are going through. Too bad it hasn't become a "high profile" news story. The population of Boise is 214,237 yet every week they have to respond to a veteran in crisis. There are only 16,725 in Boise.

There is the National Veterans Crisis Line veterans can call 1-800-273-8255 24-7. But over and over again we find that veterans are still committing suicide double the civilian population.

There is now an investigation into veterans being put on hold by the Crisis Line topped off with the fact that when veterans call the VA the automated phone message says "If this is an emergency call 911.

The VA has the Veterans Center where veterans are supposed to be able to get help they need before they end up in crisis.
The Vet Center

Ten Minutes Away
As fate would have it, there was a Vet Center just 10 minutes down the road from where Beatty worked at Fort Belvoir.

“When I walked in there, everything changed for me,” she said. “I had individual sessions with a female therapist, and 12 weeks of Cognitive Processing Therapy to specifically address my PTSD. I also completed a 12-week trauma group that was designed for women Veterans. I had always felt alone in my trauma, but being surrounded by supportive women who understood what I was going through was comforting. It helped me a lot.”

On April 4th a freeway was shut down because there was a police standoff with a suicidal veteran.

WacoTrib.com It was then that the man told officers he was trying to get to the Veterans Administration hospital in Temple when he ran out of gasoline.

Police confirmed he was a veteran and took him to the hospital. Investigators were waiting Saturday afternoon to talk to doctors and decide whether to file charges, Dickson said.

But here is another one that was resolved and the veteran is finally getting help.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Less than one week after being found not guilty by a Travis County jury on charges of assaulting a police officer, Marine veteran Gene Vela says he will check himself into a Veteran Affairs clinic in Temple on Tuesday.

In an exclusive interview with KXAN’s Sally Hernandez, Vela, 31, says he’ll be getting treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Treatment was something he was trying to do for months before he was shot three times by Austin police during a stand-off in November 2013, the day before Veteran’s Day.

Why didn't he get help before that? Why did it all this happen?
Brian Babb, Oregon National Guard, had PTSD and TBI. He called for help because he was suicidal. He ended up being shot by police instead.

Veteran’s family pledges to push for changes
Brian Babb’s relatives are proposing a new protocol for police responding to similar incidents in the future
The Register-Guard
By Christian Hill
MAY 3, 2015 (Edited for summary)

The therapist called police to Babb’s home in west Eugene after Babb reported to her that he was contemplating suicide and had fired a handgun in his home.

The therapist, Becky Higgins, remained on the phone with Babb for about 45 minutes. She said her client was beginning to calm down and had unloaded the handgun.

But Higgins said Babb walked away from the call after police directed Babb over a loudspeaker mounted on an armored vehicle to exit his home unarmed, and when a 911 dispatcher directed Higgins over her objections to hang up her line so a crisis negotiator on scene could get in touch with Babb.

Higgins said she had repeated to the 911 dispatcher that Babb had unloaded the handgun, but it’s unclear what information got to the officers on scene.

“We have said that we believe there were multiple points in time that if where a single action had been changed, he would be alive,” said Ronda McGowan, Babb’s other sister. “It would have been a better outcome.”
read more here

May 1, 2015
Officials layout a moment by moment timeline of events leading to the fatal shooting of Brian Babb by a Eugene Police Officer during a standoff in Eugene March 30th, 2015. (Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard)
My first thought was why didn't the negotiator talk to his therapist? After all, she was on the phone with 9-11.

“Nothing I’ve said here is intended to suggest there was no possible alternative or no possible better outcome or nothing could have fallen differently,” Gardner said. “We have the benefit of lots of information now that we didn’t have then.”

It is also puzzling as to why they didn't use tear gas or a flash grenade?

A stun grenade, also known as a flash grenade or flashbang, is a non-lethal explosive device used to temporarily disorient an enemy's senses. It is designed to produce a blinding flash of light and intensely loud noise "bang" of greater than 170 decibels (dB) without causing permanent injury.

After the roommate walked out of the house, there was no one else in the home other than Babb.

So yes, veterans should be a high profile story. The question is, when will the national media notice a national crisis for our veterans?