Speeches Won't Replace Dignity of Our Disabled Veterans

How many Florida Veterans will end up meaning less to POTUS?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 12, 2017

When you look at the number of veterans that are under attack right now, it should put everyone on alert. After all, we're talking about veterans, disabled because they served this country. That should mean something but apparently, the words "grateful" "honor" and "commitment" mean absolutely nothing the the man who kept telling veterans he would take care of them. Florida Vote Results has the numbers from each county. 

Great thing about statistics is that there are always a lot of them we can look at, like the counties right here in Florida that are headed to the hardest hit on our veterans.


Compensation and Pension by County
These reports provide county-level estimates of the number of Veterans who received VA Disability Compensation or Pension benefits during the reported Fiscal Year.  It includes the Veterans’ total disability rating, age group, and gender.

State	County	Total: Compensation	0% to 20%	30% to 40%	50% to 60%	70% to 90%	100%
		ONLY
Florida	Alachua	3,554	1,215	758	571	672	338
Florida	Baker	417	161	85	63	82	27
Florida	Bay	6,941	2,342	1,447	1,131	1,434	587
Florida	Bradford	487	161	116	77	85	48
Florida	Brevard	17,230	5,298	3,023	2,600	4,127	2,181
Florida	Broward	14,731	4,684	2,690	2,280	3,530	1,547
Florida	Calhoun	331	105	59	51	70	48
Florida	Charlotte	3,569	1,166	586	489	827	500
Florida	Citrus	3,674	1,190	714	521	802	446
Florida	Clay	8,944	2,910	1,904	1,581	1,929	621
Florida	Collier	3,039	1,090	533	450	631	335
Florida	Columbia	1,717	535	344	272	351	215
Florida	Desoto	326	90	55	59	82	41
Florida	Dixie	311	88	55	52	76	39
Florida	Duval	21,482	7,503	4,624	3,680	4,193	1,481
Florida	Escambia	11,670	4,028	2,374	1,840	2,430	998
Florida	Flagler	2,226	647	405	352	546	277
Florida	Franklin	281	85	61	47	51	37
Florida	Gadsden	715	250	153	108	123	81
Florida	Gilchrist	523	167	106	77	110	64
Florida	Glades	238	95	25	28	58	33
Florida	Gulf	283	96	55	44	59	29
Florida	Hamilton	238	87	48	38	34	31
Florida	Hardee	190	69	31	23	43	24
Florida	Hendry	300	126	45	29	68	32
Florida	Hernando	5,082	1,710	848	693	1,174	658
Florida	Highlands	1,492	487	285	194	331	195
Florida	Hillsborough	26,621	7,942	5,159	4,236	6,322	2,961
Florida	Holmes	477	157	82	67	121	50
Florida	Indian River	2,639	846	456	392	599	345
Florida	Jackson	983	270	214	165	219	116
Florida	Jefferson	255	93	50	41	44	27
Florida	Lafayette	71	25	12	15	12	**
Florida	Lake	5,676	1,822	1,028	846	1,278	702
Florida	Lee	9,108	3,078	1,673	1,301	2,014	1,042
Florida	Leon	3,285	1,237	682	525	535	305
Florida	Levy	789	256	151	123	172	87
Florida	Liberty	89	40	15	12	15	**
Florida	Madison	271	88	49	56	54	24
Florida	Manatee	5,358	1,804	904	781	1,167	703
Florida	Marion	6,950	2,270	1,385	973	1,408	913
Florida	Martin	2,468	853	419	339	542	315
Florida	Miami-Dade	12,839	3,708	2,125	2,007	3,396	1,603
Florida	Monroe	1,658	540	292	262	396	168
Florida	Nassau	1,758	575	388	285	357	153
Florida	Okaloosa	12,972	4,444	2,876	2,099	2,637	916
Florida	Okeechobee	232	63	41	39	63	27
Florida	Orange	16,911	5,220	3,152	2,701	3,946	1,891
Florida	Osceola	5,122	1,341	838	778	1,392	773
Florida	Palm Beach	12,803	4,421	2,213	1,849	2,862	1,458
Florida	Pasco	10,725	3,256	1,919	1,618	2,537	1,395
Florida	Pinellas	17,682	5,631	2,961	2,518	4,136	2,436
Florida	Polk	9,996	3,210	1,810	1,497	2,260	1,218
Florida	Putnam	1,814	580	377	293	397	167
Florida	Saint Johns	3,807	1,296	761	626	786	339
Florida	Saint Lucie	5,071	1,594	818	713	1,259	687
Florida	Santa Rosa	8,882	2,794	1,855	1,517	1,965	752
Florida	Sarasota	6,043	2,261	993	751	1,292	745
Florida	Seminole	6,986	2,355	1,314	1,121	1,464	733
Florida	Sumter	3,693	1,306	744	536	683	424
Florida	Suwannee	899	277	176	148	178	120
Florida	Taylor	347	120	66	54	72	36
Florida	Union	267	99	52	46	49	22
Florida	Volusia	10,929	3,341	1,912	1,614	2,574	1,488
Florida	Wakulla	559	185	127	83	117	46
Florida	Walton	2,064	707	402	306	456	193
Florida	Washington	798	238	181	124	175	80
Florida	Unknown	1,211	319	232	215	317	128

Is this what he meant by he'll take care of our veterans?

Donald J. Trump

"They will be a part of America first. It will be America first from now on. America first."

(Unless they got too old to work and then they'll have to just get a reduction in the compensation they were promised would be permanent and total?)

Oh, but here is more from this same speech.

Donald J. Trump

The evidence shows that of veterans in the system receiving care, they are much less likely to take their own lives than veterans outside of this horrible, horrible and very unfair system.

Donald J. Trump

(APPLAUSE) Never again will we allow a veteran to suffer or die waiting for care they so richly deserve -- these are our great people. We need to clean out the corruption in government.

POTUS Ugly Budget Could Harm Most Florida Veterans

If you think older disabled veterans are freaking out about the President's Budget, read this and do something about it before it is too late! After all, they are the majority of veterans in this state!

DAV commander says Villages veterans could lose homes if Trump budget enacted
BY MARV BALOUSEKJUNE 9, 2017

Some veterans in The Villages could lose their homes if a federal proposal to cut benefits is enacted, said Villager Jack Johnson, Florida commander of the Disabled American Veterans.

Of about 40,000 veterans in The Villages, Johnson estimated at least 1,000 disabled veterans receive about $3,000 monthly from the Individual Unemployability Program because they are unable to find a job due to service-related injuries. 

The federal bill would cut off the benefit when veterans reach 62, the age when they can begin to draw Social Security. 

Veterans would not be able to apply for the program after that age.But since the recipients are disabled veterans, it’s unlikely they have paid much into Social Security, Johnson said. 

“People could lose their homes,” he said.As many as 225,000 veterans nationally, including 7,000 who are over age 80, could be affected. read more here

Veterans Crossroads Walking Tall Out of Homelessness

Waging war on veteran homelessness in Tampa Bay
WTSP
Phil Buck
June 11, 2017

“Oh, my God, that’s my angel right there. Whenever I see him, something good happens,” said Air Force veteran Randy Levell, who got an apartment with Lillard’s help after living on a park bench in Ybor City. “This is a godsend. It is, it really is. I mean, it will take a vet from down walking status to walking back tall, like I had my uniform back on.”

TAMPA, Fla. (WTSP) – Ron Lillard is an Army veteran who served in Iraq when he was active duty. Now out of the military, he serves on the front lines of another battle: waging war against veteran homelessness in Tampa Bay.

“I don’t actually think of this as work, it’s just something that I get excited about doing every single day,” said Lillard one May afternoon in his office at Tampa Crossroads. “This is my passion. This is what wakes me up every day. Being able to go out there and make a difference in the life of a veteran and being able to serve people who served so bravely for our country, it’s a joy.”

Tampa Crossroads is a veteran’s assistance center that works to get homeless veterans off the streets and into affordable housing. Once vets are placed in housing, the organization continues to work with them, giving them the resources and wrap-around services many veterans need to succeed on their own.

“We provide employment services, we help veterans with their resumes, we help veterans apply for disability, whether it’s social security or VA pension disability, we help them apply for healthcare if needed, we help them with identification. Anything that a veteran could need we basically assist them with,” said Lillard. “Whatever issue that they might have, we’re going to house them and we’re going to try to work on those issues after the fact. We don’t want a veteran to be homeless out there on the streets when they’re still working on issues. We’re going to get you off the streets, get you into housing and then try to link you to those services and try to assist you, and we find that we have much better success in doing that.”

“We’re slipping through the gaps. There’s too many guys, too many women and men, in this country, that served this country honorably that are falling through the gaps,” said Antonio Johnson, a Navy veteran who faced homelessness until he got help from Crossroads. Johnson says there’s not enough awareness about the organization and all it does for veterans.
read more here

Mailman and Tampa Police Officers Saved Disabled Vietnam Veteran

Mailman, Tampa police officers team up to save disabled veteran trapped inside burning home
Sergeant put on a gas mask and ran inside
ABC Action News
Michael Paluska
Jun 10, 2017

“Sgt. Larry Brass is the real hero,” Sierra said. “I felt hopeless. I couldn't get in there, and once my sergeant was in there a few minutes we didn't know what was going on. As soon as he pulled up to the window we grabbed him and got him out of the house.”

TAMPA, Fla. - A United States Postal Worker and four Tampa police officers are being called heroes after they worked together to save the life of a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran trapped inside his Tampa home.

Jason Moss was on his regular route when he says he smelled burning plastic. Then he saw smoke billowing out of the home at 7903 Greenwood Avenue.

“I just went in and did what anyone would do. I knew the father was there and the two dogs,” Jason Moss said. “Oh, I was scared to go in. I had to slide in through the window and when that smoke hits you you can't see or breathe.”

Moss was overcome with smoke. Another Tampa police officer also couldn’t handle the intense smoke as they frantically tried to reach Terry Sims, 68, who was trapped in the back of the home.
read more here

Responders Haunted By Pulse One Year Later

Basic Instinct to Save Lives Haunts Them After Pulse
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 11, 2017


Most humans are programmed to run from danger. The need to stay alive is a basic instinct. Some humans are programmed to run toward the danger. The need to help others stay alive is just as much an instinct within them.

A year ago it happened during a time when on man decided to kill as many others as possible at the Pulse Nightclub.

USA Today has a section devoted to the survivors and responders from DearWorld, like Eatonville Police Officer Omar Delgado.

Most of the people at that nightclub were running for their lives and trying to find their friends. All of the people rushing to the unknown horror awaiting them, were on a mission to save as many strangers as possible.

What makes people like Officer Delgado do such a thing? Not just during one horrifying event, but to choose to do it as a job?

We have far too many placing such a value on others lives, to the point where they were prepared to die for them, turning into someone who can no longer value their own lives.

“Each memory stings sharper than a slap, how can there be a healing of the heart?” Peter Meinke

As we approach one year since the Pulse nightclub shooting … 90.7 reached out to Florida’s Poet Laureate, Peter Meinke to see if he’d write a poem to mark the occasion. And he did.

Pulse six months It is an anniversary no one wanted to have.

Definition of anniversary
1: the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event a wedding anniversary; broadly : a date that follows such an event by a specified period of time measured in units other than years the 6-month anniversary of the accident
2: the celebration of an anniversary

A remembrance is not always something someone wants to have either.

Definition of remembrance
1: the state of bearing in mind
2 a : the ability to remember : memory b : the period over which one's memory extends
3: an act of recalling to mind
4: a memory of a person, thing, or event
5a : something that serves to keep in or bring to mind : reminder b : commemoration, memorial c : a greeting or gift recalling or expressing friendship or affection

Let all that sink in for a moment. Ready to sacrifice their own lives for total strangers ending up not being able to find something worth living for? What happened?

That question is asked all the time when we have men and women coming home from combat doing a job that they knew could cost them their lives. It is asked of current military members when they continue to do it knowing the price they too many have to pay.

We hardly ever ask that when police officers, firefighters and other first responders suffer for doing those jobs.

Why? Aren't they just as human as the rest of the people the majority of the humans depend on for their own lives?

We were stunned when regular people put their lives on the line to save their friends. Even more so when they stopped to help strangers they could have simply ran by but did everything possible to help them get to safety. We were not so stunned by the police officers and firefighters doing their jobs.

Have we become so hardened that we think "Oh well. They get paid to do it" instead of being able to simply be in awe of what they decided to do with their own lives? After all, they could have chosen any other profession that would not be do dangerous.

The most difficult thing for me to understand, or accept, is the simple fact that they valued life so much, they were willing to die, but did not value their own enough to find what they needed to recover from those jobs.

How is this possible? This is PTSD Awareness Month which began seven years ago and the 27th is PTSD Awareness Day. Yet for the people who put their lives on the line, are still unaware of what PTSD is, why they have it, or what they can do to heal. Most do not even know they can heal!

How about tomorrow we send our responders that message? Let them know we will help them heal and how much they do mean to us! They do not have to suffer alone. 

This is a day that will haunt them for the rest of their lives and they need help to kick the crap out of the ghosts and stop the sound of the cell phones from ringing in their dreams!