07/28/2011 - IF you build it, they will come, is the line taken from that Kevin Costner baseball movie, "Field of Dreams."
While it worked for heaven-sent baseball players in an imaginary ballpark in Iowa, it's not working in real life. Especially not when you're talking government projects. And in the case of veterans services, it's often not true at all.
Services for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder are available through the Veterans Administration. But often, veterans don't come. They don't know about them or choose not to go. Homeless shelters - usually through the VA-funded Salvation Army - have beds available but again, the veteran living under the freeway overpass may not know about the beds, how to access them, or is too ashamed to ask for help. So they don't come. The California public repeatedly pass ballot measures that sell bonds for veterans homes. Yet waiting lists remain as subsidized housing fills up quickly with older, World War II vets.
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Enter the group "Vet Hunters." These are veterans themselves, some trained in social work, some armed only with hearts of compassion, all embracing a soldier's code that says they must find and help all veterans in need, whether they're sleeping under a tarp in an abandoned building or in a shelter cot looking for a job. No matter, they leave no soldier behind.
"There are a lot of resources available today. They are just not getting down to these (homeless) veterans," explained Joe Leal, co-founder of the Vet Hunters Project, just before he and 20 other riders left for a 1,900-mile bicycle ride to St. Louis Wednesday to find homeless vets and raise awareness.
"We took an oath - not to leave any one behind. So we keep going back," Leal told the crowd in front of El Monte City Hall.
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Whittier's Joe Ramos, a combat medic who served in Vietnam, a man who nearly single-handedly helped start the first Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day (March 30) by riding his bicycle to the White House in 2004, has joined the Vet Hunters now traveling to the Gateway Arch for a National Stand Down with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. read more>>>
Friday, July 29, 2011
Vet Hunters Project***National Stand Down
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