As a Nation, last month, on Memorial Day, we honored fallen service members who gave their lives in defense of our Nation. During the various ceremonies, fellow Veterans, their family members, and friends mourned their deaths.
As a Nation, we are in a mourning period because of the uncertainty of the future due to the large personnel cuts at the Department of Veterans Administration (VA) throughout the Nation. These cuts, with more promised, adversely impact all Veterans, and especially our Disabled American Veterans – DAV at the VA. For this I mourn!
This year, our State and National legislators were provided with certain Veteran goals to understand how we, as a concerned team, may help improve the quality of life of our Veterans and their family members. We look forward to their feedback. Until the Veteran community hears clearly from them, I mourn!
• I mourn for our Veterans who have served and those still serving our great Nation and have not received the benefits they deserve and earned.
• I mourn for our military family members who have taken or still take care of their family at home while their service members(s) were deployed or have deployed during peacetime, yet they believe they have no one to support them.
• I mourn for those businesses who could, but choose not to, hire disabled Veterans, who are able to work, or their family members as they transition from serving our Nation. Also, for those industries who employ Veterans, but do not pay them enough to adequately combat food insecurity and homelessness.
• I mourn for the car and truck dealerships from whom our Veterans buy their vehicles or get their vehicles serviced at their dealerships, but they have not found a way to donate vehicles to local Veteran organizations to transport Veterans to the VA hospitals in Jackson or Biloxi, VA Community Clinics, or to local medical appointments or grocery shopping.
• I mourn for the lack of creativity of our various financial institutions in our community who have not fully maximized the collective resources and opportunities available to assist Veterans to get suitable, livable, affordable loans for homes or create opportunities for affordable rental properties to help solve the homelessness situation in our community.
• I mourn for our medical facilities who are not adequately staffed to best serve our Veterans with the much-needed resources to deal with suicide prevention, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and other medical conditions that should be addressed to meet the Veterans at their “point of need.”
• I mourn for Veterans in the Collins, Mississippi State Veterans Home who do not have family members who can visit them and those who are not visited by anyone in the community.
• I mourn for those educational institutions who have not provided free tuition and books for disabled Veterans and their families to get their educational degrees or go to our colleges, universities, or technical schools for “free” or at a reduced cost.
• I mourn for Veterans who need care-giver support, social worker assistance, ramps for them to use their scooters, roofs repaired, and other life sustaining support.
• I mourn for our community, that we do not have more citizens, community leaders and elected officials daily asking this question: “What am I doing, or what can I do, to ensure that all Veterans and their family members in my area of responsibility or my sphere of influence in this community, are identified and provided the necessary services to help them get assistance and the benefits they deserve?”
As a retired Veteran, I sincerely appreciate the “Thank you for your Service” greetings, but now, I ask our entire Pinebelt Region community to begin asking Veterans “How might I help you?’
I ask for the support of those with the means in our area who employ Veterans to pay them fairly and justly for their outstanding leadership, organizational, and managerial skills, so they can, with dignity, support themselves and their family.
I ask the support of those in the real-estate industry to consider doing more to assist Veterans when they are purchasing homes, many of them for the first time, by helping them secure the lowest rate possible for a home they can afford and maintain. For those not ready for home ownership, help them navigate through the market maze to find rental situations they can afford.
While I mourn, I am still so very thankful that we have concerned citizens and leaders in our Pinebelt Region (civic organizations, military organizations, elected officials) and others such as Veterans Service Officers in our military organizations who work day-in and day-out to assist and empower our Veterans to ensure a better quality of life.
So, Fellow PineBelters, as we now prepare to celebrate Flag Day and The Army’s Birthday on June 14th, what are you going to do to help us and others (either as individuals, organizations, businesses, industries, fellow citizens) to get our Veterans the services and benefits they are due so no PineBelt Region area Veteran will have to continue to suffer or mourn?
Let us work together to help stop our Veterans’ suffering and mourning! Please join me and all Veterans to put action behind the words, “Thank you for your service.” I will do my best to make an I.M.P.A.C.T. (“Individually-Motivated People Attacking Challenges Together”). Will you?
