20.
For most, it is just a number. For some, age-wise, it marks the official end of your teens but you’re still not old enough to drink (officially, of course). For others who are baseball fans, it is the number worn by three of the game’s all-time greats, Monte Irvin, Lou Brock, and Frank Robinson. And for history buffs, it signifies a “score” — as in the opening line of the Gettysburg Address: “Four score and seven years ago…..”
But for me, and others here at DKC, 20 has a more somber, solemn, and significant meaning: it represents the number of military veterans who commit suicide each and every day. It is hard to fathom, much less to which to come to grips. This is especially true when one considers that less than one percent of our population currently serves in the Armed Forces compared to more than 12 percent during World War II, and very few have a direct connection to someone in the military.
The men and women who don the uniforms of our nation’s five military branches — Navy (in which my now late dad proudly enlisted at 16, lying about his age, immediately following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942), Army, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard — swear an allegiance to America, to defending the freedoms and ideals that we all so cherish and enjoy, and even to die for us. And what do we do? We have backyard BBQs, lie on the beach, and go shopping on the three days of the year when we should make the greatest effort to celebrate them — Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the Fourth of July. We marginalize them; we forget them.
I believe I can say without any hesitation…
that most Americans don’t know that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 homeless veterans on any given night in this country; one in every 10 or so homeless people is a veteran. While less than 10% of this total are women, that number is on the rise. Moreover, one in every five women who have served are victims of military sexual assault. Yet, very few Veterans Administration programs are specifically tailored to meet their physical and psychological needs.
I believe I can also say without any hesitation…
that most Americans don’t know that there are now four million living disabled American veterans — men and women who have lost limbs, eyes and body organs, who suffered horrific burns over the faces and bodies, who continue to bear the scars of war — physical and emotional — long after the fighting on the battlefield ends. A recent study by the PTSD Foundation of America found that 1 in 3 American veterans has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but only 40 percent of those afflicted seek help.
And for those who do…
they far too often encounter a Veterans Administration system ill-prepared to meet their needs, a system plagued by scandal, a system in which wait times for appointments are seemingly longer than TSA lines at airports, a system that dispenses pills as if they were M & Ms — all this despite an influx of billions of dollars and the hiring of thousands of doctors and other medical personnel since the VA scandal erupted three years ago. While there has been some important progress being made under the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. David Shulkin, who deserves praise for initiating several innovative programs designed to help the most at-risk veterans, the overall situation is still a national tragedy. A suicide rate among veterans that is 41 percent higher than the national average must be completely unacceptable.
VA: The Human Cost of War
I have the great honor and privilege to spend the past two decades working with clients to raise awareness of our veterans community in the general population, including the Campaign for a New GI Bill, Fund for Veterans Education, USO, and the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial. I now lead a public relations team promoting a new documentary entitled VA: The Human Cost of War. Conceived of and funded by the distinguished philanthropist and great American patriot Lois Pope (who created and spearheaded the building of the Memorial and who advocated for October 5 to be designated a national day of honor for disabled veterans, among her numerous other veterans-related efforts) and directed by Emmy Award-winning director Ric Burns, the film looks at the United States Department of Veteran Affairs from its inception to current day and explores its successes, its role in healthcare in America, and its massive failures — due to corruption, policy and funding — in properly caring for veterans upon their return from war.
Told from a series of personal stories from veterans and intertwined with deep historical and political analysis from leading scholars and elected officials, the documentary, which will air on national TV later this year, explores the social contract between veterans and society, exposing the endless cycle of bureaucracy, apathy, and underfunding that has directly contributed to the harrowing rate at which veterans commit suicide in the US.
What Do We Owe Our Veterans?
In conjunction with the film, we have launched a national Facebook conversation “What Do We Owe Our Veterans.” We are asking all Americans to weigh in on this topic, and around Veterans Day we will release findings, lessons we have learned about who deserves care; whether all health care for veterans, regardless of whether they experienced active combat, should be administered by the VA; are we willing to pay higher taxes to provide veterans with lifetime care; and what innovations can be employed to fix the system, among many other issues.
At the very least — as we commemorate America’s birthday, as we celebrate our independence — it is my hope that the fireworks that light up skies across the country on July 4 serve to illuminate and remind us of the deeper meaning of the number 20.
Bruce Bobbins is an Executive Vice President at DKC
