Trump Signs Order to #END27 VetSuicides a Day : A Personal Response

During the 2016 Presidential race I decided to set aside most of my other professional endeavors and hit the road to lead the Vets for Trump campaign movement.  Working on the front lines at rallies and behind the scenes in organizing and creating activism, I did everything in my own personal power to help Donald Trump get elected.

Why?

Last Tuesday is why.  On March 5, now President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order called the “National Initiative to Empower Veterans and End Veterans Suicide.”  This is addressing the single most devastating issue in America today; the abandonment of those who have served in our armed forces and allowing them to slip into such an abyss of loneliness that they feel the only rational choice is to take their own life. 

The President said in signing the order “To every veteran, I want you to know that you have an entire nation of more than 300 million people behind you.  You will never be forgotten. We are with you all the way.”

In 2016 we were able to mobilize Veterans to come out and support Donald Trump because we sensed that he was the first candidate from either party to mean it when he said he cared about Veterans and the failed system of Healthcare being managed through the Veteran’s Administration.

Our support made a difference.  Veterans made the difference in electing Donald Trump over Hilary Clinton, a woman who stood at the flag draped caskets of fallen heroes after Benghazi and lied to a nation about the circumstances of their death.

Every politician who runs for office says that they “support our troops” and that they “want to make sure that every veteran gets the care they need.”  Every politician promises it and every politician, even those who have served in the armed forces, ignores it once they get into office.

President Trump is the first President to step forward and try to make a real change.

This Executive Order comes in behind a previous Order issued in January of 2018.  Taken together, these two Orders provide an opportunity and a directive for real progress to be made in providing holistic care for our service men and women.

I am one of the founding members of the Non-Profit collaboration #END27.  That number is the minimum number of suicides our research indicates happen every day among those who serve, or have served, in our armed forces.  These are people who risked their lives deliberately in order to help protect the life of every American, regardless of their race, religion, economic status, political beliefs, or anything else of which you can imagine.

Then they end up losing their own life at their own hand.

As a Service Connected Disabled Veteran, I have been inside the system myself and I have been inside it with my brothers and sisters who have served.  I have watched the bureaucracy operate within a culture of inefficiency.  Previous administrations have paid lip service to reforming this culture but when the time comes for real action and reform, the status quo has “trumped” the willingness to change.  Now, hopefully, there is a new “Trump card.”

The Veteran’s Administration gets all the attention because they are the Federal Agency responsible.  It is always easy to focus people’s view on a single, large object.  The truth is that at the State level everywhere across the country the needs of Veterans are also being ignored.  When our organization talks about the need for holistic care, we are talking in part about the full range of treatments and support groups and activities that need to be in place for service men and women.  We are also talking, however, about how every unit of government at every level needs to be stepping up in support.

This action by President Trump needs to be a call to every member of the military, past and present, to get engaged and show support for him in the next election.  He is the only President to this point to take a stand to help us.  There is absolutely no reason, none, to assume that anyone who might replace him would continue with his efforts.

While people might say they care about us, their interest can be hard to hold.  Witness the reporter from CNN who right after the President’s announcement of the new Executive Order, stepped in to ask a question about Michael Cohen.  Attention being paid to Veteran issues rarely survives the next news cycle.

The most universally recognized symbol of human suffering may well be depiction of the Pieta, that moment when Mother Mary is shown to be holding the lifeless body of her son, Jesus.  Every day, there are approximately 27 non-depicted events of still more human suffering.  They are those of men and women, alone and without hope, doing to themselves what an enemy combatant failed to do.

Nobody is carving a sculpture for them.  Nobody is putting oil to canvass for them.  There is work to do.  Let’s get started.  Let’s support our President and his initiative #PREVENTS and let’s come together to #END27 today!