Transcripts For CSPAN Mental Health Resources For Returning Veterans 20141111

Assistance for rent, utilityities, and deposits. Assistance with lan lord landlord tenant issues and application and appeals process. They provide education, employment, and job search. Transportation assistance. Financial literacy and budgeting, and physical and Mental Health care refers federals. Referrals. Our West Virginia benefit Assistance Program began as a pilot serving 25 veterans. They provide outreach to veterans in the Community Using a peer model. These volunteer vets are certified as veteran Service Officers. They develop a trust realings relationship and educate veterans about what benefits they have to assist them. The program was so successful they tripled their funding base and expanded their services with the projection of serving four times the veterans they serve now. The veteran appeals support project is one area or one program that they are providing services to. The other is the veterans employment support project. And that is using mobile Technology Kits to v. S. O. s to be used in the rural areas to serve veterans who do not have transportation, access to internet, or resources to get to a center. Each kit includes necessary items for job search. They complete, print, split applications, and communicate with agencies or employers. The strategy is to ensure meeting veterans where they are. Physically, emotionally, and professionally. V. S. O. s assist veterans to navigate the employment process by resume writings, helping completing applications, transportation to interviews, retrieval of documentation, assistance obtaining appropriate identification documents, clothing for interviews, job fairs, with employers, veterans are identified by the partnerships in homeless shelters, v. A. Hospitals, jails, and other community groups. Our Second Service is with volunteerism in v. A. Hospitals. We were one of the original v. A. Volunteering services. T was created in 1946 at the request of the v. A. And made up of five Service Organizations. They assist with coordination, plans, and policies for Community Participation of the programs. And its governed by the National Advisory committee comprised of Many National Service Organizations. The volunteers support the recovery and rehabilitation of veterans as they prepare for their transation to civilian life. Some of the services we provide there are patient escort, animal visitation programs. We assist in therapy programs. Comfort cart distribution. Administrative support for clinics, pharmacies, transportation, patient rehab, personal services, and community living. We also have licensed volunteer professionals, nurses, doctors, Rehab Specialists that support the v. A. Medical staff for rehab services. The American Red Cross also offers service to veterans and their families by connecting them with local, state, and National Resources through their local chapters. Their partnerships we provide case coordination and referral to mental, Behavioral Health care, financial, legal, and educational support. We offer information about cemetery burial benefits and other unique needs. As well as our red cross chapters provide services for Emergency Needs for food, clothing, shelter, preparedness, training, reconnection workshops, and blood services. Our reintegration support which is the last service that we is an to veterans important tool and strategy to assist them with challenges in civilian life. Its important for reintegration of veterans. It provides in communities free of charge workshops that are 90 minutes to 120 minutes long. They are in small groups focusing on one of several topics including communicating positivelyly with Family Members, employees, employers, and others in the community. Coping with trauma and managing and recognizing signs of stress. We offer information about ptsd and t. B. I. Healthy ways to manage anger by learning triggers of emotion and changing how we think about situations and then behave. And skills to change feelings of sadness an despair while recognizing and helping others who are depressed. The groups are interactive and provide a powerful model for Group Cohesion and universality. The facilitators, we have about 50, licensed meant 350, licensed Mental Health professionals, they are red cross volunteers in the community, nationally and internationall. Some are veterans, some are spouses or other Family Members. The future of red cross is about expanding those v. A. Benefit Assistance Programs. Using a piertopier support model for case coordination, advocacies, appeals pros test, and combine with information referral and other social Service Programs and individual communities. It well also expand our reconnection workshops on our stress and trauma module with the existing trauma module that mind, s blending our body, skills program. Deep breathing, meditation, for those veterans who have been diagnosed with ptsd or t. B. I. That were borne out of their combat experiences. We are also launching a couple of new modules for military children and children of veterans next year. One on communication, another on coping skills. Id like to in your packets, i dont know if you received if you have a packet from red cross. But in the packet theres a list of websites and contact information. And are our about our services. Thank you so much for having me on this panel. I wanted to leave you with a quote that i heard from an iraq and afghanistan veteran. He says, we dont want pity. We are not broken. We just need a little help to reintegrate back to the new normal. Thank you. [applause] well hear from beryl for the amvets. Thank you, mike. It is a pleasure to be with you and thanks to j. D. Moore and kenny for having something to do with the reason im here today. And i just want to share with you that i really appreciate your theme for this convention. Advocates for change from dialogue to action. I may going on 43year career nonprofit executive and i have sat through far too many meetings upon meetings where there was nothing but dialogue and discussion. And no action. So seeing this and being a part of the reality of when you leave here that we may facilitate some sharing of opportunities for action is tremendous. Something that served me well over the years early on in my career. A quote from a little known poet author of lebanese origin, who said a little bit of knowledge acted on is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. Said another way, its better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Having said that, what i want to do is kind of give you a real quick overview, make sure you undersoon stan who amvets, american veterans, a major Veterans Service organization, is. Then talk about some programs. There are a whole host of programs from a through z that take place across the country. Many of them at the local levels. Dye ann diane mentioned one of the things red cross is doing is voluntary service. If you take all our many programs, our volunteers across the country are engaged in, that is the largest number of hours and cash donations to the v. A. Program. Second, sadly, the second Largest Program where our folks are spending the majority of their hours out of 18 programs we track, is military funeral honors. Assisting the internment of roughly the 1,700 to 1,800 of our veterans daily. Back in 2000 there was a congressional Unfunded Mandate to give every veteran a military funeral. They arent able to do that with the two uniformed active service personnel. So they have been augmented by v. S. O. s over the country by the ap3 program. Amvets was born out of world war ii. There were about independent veteran Service Organizations coming back from world war ii and it pointed in 1944, about nine went to kansas city, missouri, when they left amvets was born. American veterans of world war ii. In 1946, amvets petitioned to congress to actually get a charter that. Was signed by harry truman in july of 1947. We have not looked back since then in temples our add vow can advocacy on behalf of veterans. Our Largest Program we deliver in terms of services to our veterans is our Service Officer corps. Roughly 55 across the country. Last year, 2013, they settled over 63,000 claims. By the v. A. s cal clue lations, fiscal year 2013, that totaled 1. 4 billion. All free. Service that is we provide. The unique thing about amvets, is, one, thats eligibility for membership, its put the hewn form on, raise the hand, take the oath. From the original charter its been amended over the years several times so that, again, eligibility for membership is simply to have served your country in any branch, any time, including the guard and reserve. With that, however, you do not have to be a member of amvets to receive all of the services which are free to the families and veterans. In the material thats on the table, i think hopefully every brochure, ot a before i focus on a couple of highlights, some National Programs, the information thats available on the back is our 2014 legislative priorities. Second to our National Service officers, we have legislative office that is monitoring any laws and introducing working with representatives to introduce laws that are affect the active military as well as our veterans. Work regularly with the House Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and give testimony as an opportunity provides. On that card theres two or three of the 10 issues that im sure will resonate with your membership, and thats the vadod health care Mental Health issues, women veterans, as well as the veterans treatment courts which at the reception last evening i talked to several people that indicated one of the many things the local chapters were doing was supporting that. Another card is on the legislative action that we attempted to introduce and did introduce. It was sponsored by representative kilmer out of washington and its the veterans and Service Members Employment Rights and housing act of 2013. The short story kind of summary of what we are recommending in this bill thats now been kicked down the road and in committees, but its to acknowledge the tremendous sacrifices of our veterans and allow them to enjoy the same legally mandated nondiscriminatory access to housing and employment and training opportunities as other deserving individuals. We simply dont want to introduce another nondiscrimination law. We want to insert veterans on the list of those minorities. Believe it or not theres only 7 of the u. S. Populace served in the military. Currently its only 1 . We think that qualifies as a minority. The other card is on a warrior transition workshop which ill round out some comments highlighting that. And in supporting that theres an evaluation of those workshops available there. And the last piece thats back there is our Service Officers directory. We do not have Service Officer in every state. A few of the more dense, we have several. But amvets is organized in officially 40 states where we have a presence. We have members in all states that the four states and territories. But we in essence through the Virtual World reach out and provide programs even in those states where we are not officially organized. The list of n. S. O. s please also take that. In the brochure that was passed around that kind of highlights the three National Programs that i want to just spend my remaining minutes talking about. Its basically three programs that are coordinated on the national throfle speak to our pofede9 11 veterans, as well as veterans from previous wars struggling with reintegration and stressers. The first program, as i open this up im prompted to see the orange block which i should have mentioned up front. Ffl 2008 the previous nominee might fitzpatrick signed a memorandum of understanding that said where we have local am vets post presence andlogical chapters and local chapters we ought to look for opportunities to serve each other and veterans. I know i have been on a few of the calls we have shared so we can make that a more dynamic m. O. U. And bring it to life. The three National Programs healing heroes, warrior transition workshops, and Career Centers. A three legged stool. The healing heroes is a program we have given out over 1 million. Its a program that helps keep the Families Together in those 50,000plus warriors that have been wounded. Many of them severely. And they are in hospitals, v. A. Polytrauma sites, locations, d. O. D. Facilities and they are separated fra families. Sadly there are not enough fisher houses yet. There is an issue of bureaucracy when a spouse sees a returning spouse coming back and they are a double or triple amputees and the spouse cant handle it and they want to start initially right away separation papers. Mom and dad would like to go, brothers and sisters, d. O. D. Doesnt pay for that since thats in that bureaucracy. Healing heroes provides basically the travel age lodgeling and childcare to allow those families to get together and be together bedside. The warrior transition workshop, we are really excited. Its been a program we have been working and struggling, pushing the wet noodle uphill for four or five years. But we are really pleased. What it is is a weekend deboot camp for those suffering from stress issues. Those that are reluctant to selfidentify or being seen by a psychiatrist is going to hurt their rank, hurt their job opportunity. So its a selfidentified laid back weekend. Early on its interesting we realized we needed to have major outcofments the whole intent is develop a betatype program thats making a difference helping our veterans in a reintegration. Coping, how to deal with those things thats been a part of in mup tillp deployments that we have to have major outcomes. We work very hard on that. Its interesting those of you who read all that incoming, the i. O. M. , institute of medicine, published a report in june, charged by the d. O. D. And detcht Veterans Affairs to say what have we been doing with 3. 5 billion in recent years . Whats worked . What hasnt in helping ptsd . Sadly there arent any measurable outcofments we are fortunate we have that report shows some from a very small study we were fortunate to have the National Institutes of health provide a survey known as the acronym is promise, and it was evaluated by the American Institute of research and what we found in veterans going into the weekend, testing, going out 30 days and 90 days, there has been statistically significant improvement in such things as social isolation, anger, anxiety. We are really quite pleased with that. The ph. D. S recommended a larger study to substaniate the generalizibility in larger groups. For that we need 400 and we are going to pursue that aggressively. Hopefully well knock on the door of the v. A. And d. O. D. With those results. I would just like to leave you the i talked about three National Programs. Career centers. The last piece. They got those stress issues under control. Family kind of reorganized. We are successful to be a seal of distinction recipient of the call of duty endowment, and they raised so much money with the games they decided to give back to the community and military. And so we are one of the grantees. We have stood up 16 Career Centers across the country and have about 1,000 veterans in that database and base placed about 250 in the last 18 months. We do that with many of the same things that dye ann mentioned. Everything from diane mentioned. Everything from resume assessment, reentering skills, and education if they needed it post9 11ed all their g. I. Bill. Im probably over my time, is hat you heard me go on with an extensive overview in 10 or 12 minutes. The reality is back to that m. O. U. , if you have a local chapter, it so happens its close to one of our 1,100 some local posts, particularly if its close to one of those 350 or 400 that have a post facility, those two can come together and network and provide a Little Service thats a gap in that community. We dont even know that. But collectively on the back of this brochure we try to track that and not counting what we have spent with these National Programs, in 2013 the figure stands at 28 million that our local posts by the independent sector formula and cash have provided those kind of services. You take away from here are fortunate enough, help you figure out, if you are close to the units, the collaboration locally is happening in spite of people up here. Thats a good thing. Thank you very much. [applause] well hear from christina about the code of support foundation. Please. Hi, everybody. I have a couple questions for the audience, actually, before we start. The first one can someone pass these out . Thats the first question. And the second question, how many people in here have served . How many people in here are Family Members . Ok. And how many people feel both really encouraged by all these resources and a little overwhelmed at the same time . Yeah. Its not you. Its definitely not you. One of the great things we have seen, and my background, i married a soldier in 2001 right before the war started. That makes me an entire generation of military families that knows nothing but war. You guys are dealing with those people on a daily basis. From a Military Spouse point of view, i want to thank you for the work you are doing. I had this entire population, then the suicide statistics have been mentioned for the Service Members and the veterans. We are not even counting the families. Youall know both the Service Members, veterans, and the families that one goes down and so does the other. There is no separation between a family and a veteran. For good or for bad. Looking at all of these programs and trying to approach them holistically from a family point of view is something i admire and the work you guys do. I think its important. You heard a couple of words here over and over again. Peer support. Again something that you guys really focus on is key. It is absolutely key. And without that, without that kind of feeling that you have a friendship or relationship with somebody, all the official resources in the world arent going to do much. I was telling caitlin last night, we had a case come in over the weekend. Ill tell you about code support, but you can read about t we do direct case coordination. Where we have veterans and Family Members and Service Members from all generation regardless of discharge status or disability contact us, refer to us by our partner organizations, both public and private, when they are in some kind of crisis. 90 of the time the first ask is financial. I think you guys probably all have heard that, too. We had a call come in this weekend from a mother whose son was going through withdrawal and was suicidal. He had been home for about three years. He was being seen at the v. A. Not sure it was for Mental Health or not. The long story short is, we were able to use three or four different organizations simultaneously, including the v. A. Crisis line, to get this guy the help he needed. The reason we were able to do it is because we had the v. A. Crisis line that was going through the v. A. Channels for us which would have taken me forever to do. I needed to find out if there was a bed in ann arbor, michigan if we sent him there. We are not going to send a veteran to a v. A. That cant take him. Yes, we ascertained there was a bed through the crisis line. Jeremy stayed swuss through the entire ty. Hi his mom on the cell phone with me and jeremy on my office phone. And we were able to make that happen. What made the difference was our veteran peer navigator, andy, on our staff, its the first time this guy talked to somebody that he felt really got it. Andy had been through something similar. The fact he had his family. We were able to get a bed, but we would not have been able to get him there unless andy talked him into going, unless his family was able to drive him there and get him there. Then he stood outside the emergency room for two hours. What we did on our social media platform, we just posted with no identifying information, we have a veteran in crisis that made it to the emergency room. Hes trying to go in. He needs words of encouragement. I had 50 posts within an hour. We cut and pasted that and sent it to his fiance and showed it to him and he went in. When we talk about how we all Work Together as a community here, everybody has a place in this. Theres no one public or private thats more or important. We cannot do it separately. Its just we need to figure ut a way for you guys, the frontline providers, to be able to navigate the resource that is are out there. I listened to. So things that you guys said and some of the programs i was familiar with. Some i wasnt. You look on paper, with 45,000plus nonprofits and all the government agencies, you wouldnt think we had a problem, right . But clearly thats not the case. So what do we do . What code of support can do for you right now is you can call us, if you have a veteran or a Family Member, when i say Family Member, caregiver, friend, whatever, struggling, call us and well help you navigate the resources. That in a nutshell is what we are doing right now. We are doing direct coordination. I know the majority of you guys are maybe i shouldnt say this. How many are volunteers . I know it nomi is a volunteer model. I know win of the struggles is, say youre able to have one of your peer groups, education groups, its going well, but people bring to you things that you dont have the resources to deal with. Maybe its financial. Maybe its education. Maybe its benefits. And beryl and red cross and v. A. Have resources. How do you really find them . You can take all this paper we are shoving at you and go back to your office and roll through it. Has anybody heard of the National Resource directory . Has anybody heard of military one source . And has anybody heard of warrior gateway . Ok. Those are really can be very valuable tools, but they can also be incredibly frustrating. Because basically it is a ton of resources and you put in your zip code and put in your key word and 50 things might come up. Maybe your veteran or yourself or client qualifies for one. There is no Eligibility Criteria attached to it. There is no scope. No capacity. What we are doing, can you see from the handout that i gave out, we are partnering with Technology Company to try to build a more strategicically populated strategically populated not database but collaborate platform that will have a beta form in the spring. Our goal is to be able to provide that to every service provider, to every volunteer, at no cost, in order for you guys to be able to actually find the help that you need for your clients. We know how frustrating it is. Most people do the same things they get on google. Thats not the most efficient way to do it, thats how we are all doing it because its just theres so much out there. And its so difficult to gaffe gate did gaffe gate. Thats if youre in the best of mental hell. What we are developing is for veterans and Family Members. But its for Service Providers doing the work on the ground to make it easier for you to connect. We had our office compace provided for us by catholic charities. Which i had no idea until they gave us office space, the incredible work that they do for military and veteran families. I certainly didnt know that as a Military Spouse. Used to drive me absolutely nuts when we were at fort bragg, my husband had a command of a battalion that we were sending batteries over every six months. In one battery for two years i was able to seat impact not just on the soldiers but the families before they went, while they were there, and when they came back all at once. It was nuts. This was from 2006 to 2008. It was during the surge. I had as a volunteer spouse, six volunteers and no money. And the way the regulations are not at we are if not if prohibited, highly discouraged from reaching out into community, right . So i tell the story how every time we had a deployment we would have these kids and it helped them to have teddy bears to hang on to. Its not a life changing thing, but in terms of wellbeing and Mental Health, youre waiving goodbye to your dad, its nice to have a teddy bear. Like most command teams we would spend hundreds of dollars every six months on these teddy bears. If i had just been able to call out to amvets or American Legion or red cross, i probably would have had 1,000 teddy bears the next day, right . But we were discourage interested doing that. Heresed good news. The people at the Leadership Levels now really do understand the importance of publicprivate partnership. There are barriers still to that. But both because of fiscal realities and because clearly at this point if we cant take care of t. As we used to say in the military, on our own. It used to drive me nuts when people would say we can take care of our own. Are we not american now . Just because we are the military doesnt mean we should be cut off from the rest of the community. From the Family Member point of view, once you leave active duty service, even when youre in active duty there are limitations for Mental Health because there is not enough nationwide, if you are a Military Spouse or kid who has been negatively impacted by your Service Members employment, and or living with someone with Mental Illness, p. T. S. , hysical, t. B. I. , you have very limited access to Mental Health care through the v. A. They have a Great Program for caregivers that has about 16,000 people in it right now. Here are 1. 1 million post 9 11 caregivers and 16,000 in this program. Thats where organizations like nomi provide such incredible value. Just like the veterans and the soldiers have that sense of isolation, so do we. So do the spouses. So do the kids. And beryl mentioned the fact that there is no precedent for these repeated deployments. Weve never dealt with this before. They are doing some research now. But theres a lot of Research Gaps around the Mental Health impacts on children, on spouses, and on Service Members and veterans from repeated employments. Im going to probably stop earl will i because i would rather have a discussion. I think that its really important for us all to understand that no one organization can do this alone. The v. A. Has a charge and i know people like caitlin are working in there every single day to do a good job, but the fact is that theres no one organization, public or private, that can handle this. Alone. We have to all figure out ways to truly partner, not just talk about stove pipes and silos, but figure out how do we actually do it. Im here to tell you today if you need if you get stuck and looking for help for a veteran we are small, dont want to act like we have huge capacity. If any of you guys in this room get stuck and you need help, call us. And well help. [applause] now we can talk to one another and ask questions of our panel. We have heard some really neat things about the v. S. O. s. These are four v. S. O. S and there are probably 20 or 30 others doing similar work and have similar missions. And unique missions. Nami needs to find out who all these grit great supports are like. We have to do it together. Theres a mike when you have a question, this gentleman will come up with a mike for you. Do you have a question . Im kenny chair of the veterans of military council. Thank youall so much for being here. And for giving us that information. I do have a specific question i would like to ask caitlin from the v. A. You spoke about guns. The danger and education and those things. We all know that one of the issues that veterans have when they come in to receive care is the stigma and the issue of perhaps to having their gun rights taken away. My understanding is that right now administratively over 185,000 veterans have been administratively disapproved from having a firearm. That is impacting in the community. Is that right or wrong . In fact should they still have due process . The question is thank you so much. Thank you for having us as well. The questions related to the situation with guns and the concerns that come up for veterans that there are where they dont necessarily reach out for help because of the fear they will lose their weapon. Im not sure i dont know the statistic, the 185,000 person statistic. I cant corroborate that. You would know bert than i would. Better than i would. In terms of what v. A. Does, gun possession can get tricky. V. A. , we are not interested in removing weapons. However state to state if you ave a Mental Illness and you have had your rights revoked to own a weapon, then thats the state issue. V. A. Needs to recognize that, which we do. At the same time, the fear that if i show up somewhere and i dont have any of these restrictions, if i show up at a v. A. And i am reallydirnl not feeling well and feeling suicidal, the fear that since i say i am feeling suicidal and people will then follow up and ask about means. Means restriction. Safety. So whether its its going to be talking about the plan. The clinician will say im concerned to hear this. Lets talk about have you had any thoughts of how you would do it . If somebody says, well, yeah. I think i would use a firearm, there is certainly going to be followup questions related to do you own a weapon, how do you keep it safe . With those cases, though, we dont say, ok, we have to we are getting the cops to your place to remove the weapon. We certainly hear stories where that has happened. With all of those stories theres typically another part of the story that we havent heard which may be that somebody has been restricted from using a weapon. One thing that i also want to make clear is that part of our Gun Safety Initiative is we have free begunlocks at every v. A. Around the country. No questions asked. They can be passed out to Family Members, friends, and Service Members. If youre interested in working together in terms of providing gun locks, i know one v. A. Has just a huge bin of gun locks at their entrance to the v. A. The Suicide Prevention coordinators manage that because what we want to talk about is un safety not removal of guns. Question from up here. All the way up. Retired marine corps captain, retired for schizophrenia. Im saying that mr. Obama signed an executive order modifying rehabilitation act of 19p 1973 requiring all federal contractors and subcontractors to have 7 of their work force be people with disabilities and 77 of the work force 7 of the work force being veterans. That was signed a year ago. Therefore it took effect six months ago. I am constantly asked how can i as an unemployed veteran take advantage of this what amounts to a quota system coming from the president s office, how can that be access . Id particularly like mr. Loves comment that the legislation or not, but its far better to have one of them actually implemented and benefit people. Does anything i have said make any sense to anybody up there . If so, could you please respond n a polite manner. I think i understood the question. m not sure i have any answer. What the legislation we have is to have the veterans added as a minority, if you will, to be pro protected. It comes down, in that case, i dont believe this is helping address your question per se, but the reality is if two of us present as veterans for a job opportunity, and the only difference is that i served down range, and the employer thinks i may have some edginess and hyper vigilance i may cause some disturbance, etc. , he hires the other individual. Right now there is no Legal Recourse that veteran has. Now, having the law passed doesnt necessarily mean that simply its going to be eradicated overnight and employers are going to readily hire veterans. But it reinforces and educates, and education is the best way to solve a lot of problems if our employers understand that there is some potential issues that they would have to deal with, could it be proven that they declined that veteran only because he was a veteran, theyll think twice. The reality of Unfunded Mandates and laws, passing one more law doesnt solve the worlds problems. I dont think that i certainly ave addressed your question. Ill just i sympathize and empathize with you in terms of the implementation piece because i get frustrated with that all the time. Up here in d. C. You see these laws passed and you get excited. And then when you are actually living down in the trenches not a lot has seemed to change. I will say that the department of labor has these, they keep changing the name, these career one stops. And they have people there that are specifically mandated to work with disabled veterans. And so we frequently partner with them when we have a case come in and employments an issue. Depending where you are, sometimes they are really goo. They know a lot of those laws and they know a lot of employers in their local communities that are hiring veterans. One thing about that, too. I dont know if you had the opportunity to attend any of the v. A. Mental health summits. They started last year i think. And they have been going consistently. I have attended four or five of them throughout missouri, arkansas, and illinois. Always there is a big issue on employment. And they break up in fact, the last one i was at was in springdale, arkansas. We had about 300 folks show up for the Mental Health summit. And at least 150 of them were veterans. We were teaching them how to go about using what laws are available and how to influence their employibility. It is being worked. Its a hard battle. Another question. This is for dr. Thompson. Have you seen statistics of the suicides and the calls to the crisis center, do you find it of people tain group like from iraq and afghanistan would basically because they have been going on these tours of duty and employment with maybe a sixmonth break and constantly deployed, do you think its they are worn out . Its such a great question. We are still learning about it. Thus far what we have found is that in fact the numbers of deployments has not been a factor in terms of whether or not someone has died by suicide. When we look at statistics of those who are currently serving, those who have died by suicide, less than half of them were even deployed. So thats very interesting thing for us to step back because one would assume the amount of stress that it takes to constantly have to go back would potentially increase someones rate of suicide increase somebodys risk of suicide. We are not finding that now. But we are certainly looking so hard at it because its a very, very important issue. Hank you for asking. The data we have for Service Members shows that less than half of the deployed. Do we have data for veteran suicide in that specific question . Do we have that yet . That i actually dont know. We can certainly look at it. But it brings up the really important point that looking at rates of veterans who die by suicide is much more difficult than looking at Service Members who died by suicide and being able to answer these questions. I can tell you that d. O. D. And v. A. Have collaborated to have a huge suicide Data Repository and we are able to cull a lot of that information from there. What we are looking at is state data, National Death index data, and those datas from corer ins offices. There are states where people coroners offices. There are states where its not known if somebody is a veteran when they die. With that, they die by suicide and whether or not they have been deployed makes it complicated. We are certainly we continue to work and work and work and better understanding that data. Ask a question, as he gets ready, ill remind our audience that tomorrow night the military veterans nami council is going to have a candlelight vigil. Veterans candlelight vigil where we remember the roughly 22 a day that are dying and possibly one active duty person a day dying. Join us 9 15 in front of the hotel here tomorrow night to remember that which is happening still. Daniel williams. Im the new v. A. Chair or new nami chair. Two things, i work at the v. A. As a peer support specialist, and also im an iraq veteran myself. To answer one of your questions about veterans having accessibility for the v. A. If you are 30 or more disabled from the v. A. , they actually give you preference over anyone else inside the v. A. And actually you are eligible for internal jobs before anyone else sees them just like any v. A. Employee would be. And that goes as well for government jobs. That is a way that you are accessed to a job sooner than someone else would be. My question is that with all these resources that we have, i still see that we have a humongous gap in getting the information that what veterans are entitled to from the v. A. We have to really put our nose to the grindstone and find out what we are entitled to. Do any one of youall up there see the v. A. Or groups getting together and making it be passed into a law or whatever that the v. A. , once a veteran gets to a certain percentage, that its mandated they tell them what services they are entitled to . I think thats a that would be a really great initiative. Its unfortunate that so many veterans are out there that dont know what they are entitled to. And i think thats what Outreach Services are about. We have Vietnam Veterans who dont realize that they have all of these benefits available to them. And then suddenly somebody tells them or has that trusted relationship like a peer support, and is able to bring them in and hook them in to whatever benefits they are entitled. If they are not, then to be able to provide other resources that they can access. I think that might be the key. There are a lot of veterans out there. Im daughter of veterans. Im also a spouse. And we its just so vast the kind of benefits that are there. I think the key really is outreach and peer support. Thanks. Its a very good question and of course we all have our biases but ill speak on behalf of our comrades and all our major Veterans Service organizations. D im not by any means talking about the poor performance on v. A. Employees, but veterans are trying to seek and get a claim approved through the bureaucracy, working with the v. A. , much less, you said once theyre at a certain percentage that theyre required, a law, or to make them aware of every possible benefit that theyre deserving of and have earned. Youre making a case for and the sean, veterans should be first going to a Veterans Service organization because theyre advocates of the veteran. And amvets was working with fully developed claims before it became a buzz word. And so the purpose for sitting with a trained Veterans Service officer, thats what the process has worked through. So what potentially might make a minimum 10 claim will in reality, when its sent through the first time, be a 50 rating. So the point i want to make, to try to get that done within the v. A. , is truly a major challenge. But veterans have that at their disposal today by seeking out a trained Veterans Service national officer. Part of the problem with that is i know we dont advertise ourselves. I dont think amvets goes on television, come, veterans, to us. I think we may have to do more of that because when they do come to us, we can offer them a great deal of support and advocacy. But again, i dont see us advertising people coming to us. We are basically out of time. The reason were cutting it a little short is because we want you to be aware of a program following this. Let me say first that nami in some lists and in some areas are actually considered the v. S. O. But we know in most affiliates we dont have the kind of knowledge that we need to have when it comes to the military culture and thats where we should be reach out to the foundation, to the red cross, to amvets, to the v. A. V. , to the American Legion, to the v. F. W. On and on and on. Some of them are very, very good. And some of them are very good in their location. Theyre well trained Service Officers. So it behooves us in nami world to reach out and merge with the v. S. O. s in our communities so we can help our veterans. Namis coming a little further v. S. O. In an actual the sebs that sense that we have a Brand New Program thats been rolled out in a few states this year. Its called nami front line. Nami front line. It is what did i say . You said front line. Ok. Home front. Front line. Well, its in the front line. Ok. Home front. Nami home front. In the sense that it is an evidencebased program because its been taken from family to family, its taken down to six sessions and it is wrapped in the military culture. And the military language. So once we get this thing out and really ready to go, we need to let our v. S. O. s know we have it available. So they can help us promote it. And we can reach all of those military families out there. So, that is the program thats oing to follow this session at 3 30. Thats why were going to take a break now, go out and walk around a little bit, get a glass of water, but please come back here at 3 30 for nami home front. Say what . Please. [inaudible] i know it can be overwhelming and it can get discouraging but look at it this way. When the Vietnam Veterans came , ck 40someodd years ago this country really fell down on the job. We really failed that generation of veterans and families. And we have an opportunity to do it so much better this time. Because we have so much more out there than they ever did. Its just a matter of connecting the dots and the people who are sitting in this audience are the ones that do it. So our job at the National Level is to empower and facilitate your success. And were really working for you on your behalf. So again thank you for all the work that youre doing. Its making the difference. Lets thank our panel. [applause] thank you all. You did great. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] reading some of your remarks and remarks from members of congress that have been tweeted to us about this veterans day. A beautiful sunny day here in washington as we commemorate this veterans day, 2014. Cspan cameras have been visiting various War Memorials throughout the day and weve been showing you the sights and sounds throughout the day. This is the Korean War Memorial here in washington, dedicated on july 27, 1995, during the 42nd anniversary of the armistice, that ended the conflict, by president clinton and the south korean president it. Commemorates the sacrifices of 5. Million americans who served in the armed forces during the korean war. Which lasted from 1950 to 1953. Over 54,000 americans died in that conflict. And heres a look at whats ahead on cspan heres a portion of remarks by general martin dempsey. When the barrel hit the pulley wheel and then the bottom burst a shower of bricks rained down on me i hadnt got a hope as i lay there moaning on the ground i let go the bloody rope the barrel then being heavier it started down once more and landed right across me as i lay across the floor well it broke three ribs and my left arm and i can only say that i hope youll understand why pattys not at work today cheers and applause] probably not what you were expecting but weapon of more veterans day programming coming up later with remarks from arizona senator and former p. O. W. John mccain. He has a new book out that recounts the lives of american solders who served in conflicts ranging from the revolutionary war to the wars in iraq and afghanistan. The book is called 13 soldiers a personal history of americans at war and you can see that live starting at 6 30 eastern on our companion network, cspan2. Also on this veterans day, we want to know what your message is to our fighting men and women. Log onto our Facebook Page to leave your comments or you can tweet us using the cspanchat. Heres what some of you are saying the cspan cities tour takes book tv and American History tv on the road. Traveling to u. S. Cities to learn about their history and literary life. This weekend we partnered with Charter Communications for a visit to madison, wisconsin. It is a glorious service, this service for the country the call comes to every citizen , it is an unending struggle to make and keep government representative. Bob la follette is probably the most important political figure in Wisconsin History and one of the most important in the history of the 20th century in the United States. He was a reforming governor. He defined what progressivism is. He was one of the first to use the term progressive to selfidentify. He was a United States senator who was recognized by his peers in the 1950s as one of the five greatest senators in American History. He was an opponent of world war i, stood his ground advocating for free speech. Above all, he was about the people. After the civil war, america changed radically from a nation of Small Farmers and small producers and small manufacturers and by the late 1870s, 18 0s, 1890s, we had concentrations of wealth, we had growing inequality and we had concern about the influence of money in government. So he spent the later part of 1890s giving speeches all over wisconsin. He wanted if you wanted a speaker for your club or group, he would give a speechest. Went to county fairs, he went to every kind of event that could you imagine. He made a reputation for himself. By 1900s, he was ready to run for governor, advocating on behalf of the people. He had two issues. One, the direct primary. No more selecting candidates and convention. Two, stop the interests. Specifically the railroads. Watch all of our events from madison, saturday at noon eastern on cspan2s book tv. And sunday afternoon at 2 00 on merican history tv on cn3 the 2015 cspan student cam video competition is under way. Open to all middle and High School Students to create a five to sevenminute documentary on the theme the three branches and you. Showing how a policy, law or action by the executive, legislative or Judicial Branch of the federal government has sfeakt affected you or your community. Theres 200 cash prices for students and teachers totaling 100,000. For the list of rules and how to get started go to studentcam. Org. Author and columnist Glenn Greenwald spoke about privacy, security and government surveillance to an audience in ottawa, canada. He also talked about concerns of mass surveillance programs in canadas Surveillance Agency known as csec. The following is a speech. He took questions from the audience on former n. S. A. Contractor Edward Snowden, canadas role in mass surveillance and working with canadian journalists to disclose information about invasive surveillance of canadians. Jesse brown moderates this nearly twohour event. Hello, everybody. Eye maim is bill owen. Im the organizer with a lot of help from open media who has been instrumental and these guys are just great sponsors, supportive and helpful. A little bit of history here, the reason im bringing or part of the reason im bringing glenn is glenn is a friend of mine and do i believe in his message. Its an important message. Particularly at this time in canada. So i asked him to come to ottawa. He wasnt planning to come to ot watt ottawa. As a favor to he me, hes come to ottawa. Thank you, glenn. So tonight you might be interested in how i met glenn. I was commenting years ago when glenn first started. It was a lot of fun, there were some great commenters there. We would debate. What was interesting is glenn would always jump into the comments and talk with us and sometimes insult us. Over the years glenn and i would exchange comments. I fed him some stuff, a couple of stories. Then eventually we started exchanging emails and things like that. And back in 2012 i brought demren here for the first time and i met him a few times since then. Contrary to the image that you see on tv and several others, people think glenns this ogre. You see him on tv and cease snarling at people. Hes the nice and hes snarling at people. Hes the nicest, sweetest guy you ever met. Im holding in my hand here a rubics cube. Everybody here familiar with this . This is central to this story. Because when glenn went to hong kong, he had no idea what snowden looked like. Snowden did not tell him what he look hadded looked like. He couldnt. That would be a bad operational security. So he told him, i will be carrying a rubics cube and thats how youll recognize me. So when glenn went into the lobby at the hotel in hong kong, hes looking around, hes looking around like, wheres this guy . Hes expecting a senior n. S. A. Guy. And he looks over there and sees little Edward Snowden, he looks about 19. And hes got the rubics cube. Apparently that blew glenns mind. Who is this guy . Im looking for a senior n. S. A. Guy and ive got this kid here. To make a long story short, they talked and this is where we are. Were almost ready here. Our host for the evening, actual host, is jesse brown. Jesse browns a real journalist. Unlike me, im just a guy with a big mouth. Hes had a lot of experience, hes worked at c. B. C. And the claims and he has his own website called canadaland. Hes a great journalist and hes going to do an interview with glenn after glenns talk. Jesses promised me a very probing interview. Hes not going to let glenn get way with anything. Thats basically the thing. Ill leave it at that. Jesses going to intro glenn and before i go i would like to thank everybody for coming and thank my sponsors again and my wife for helping me. Shes been instrumental. And also turn off your cell phones and put them in the refrigerator out back. I dont know how many people got that joke, but its a joke. Right now weve got jesse brown. Hes coming out. And give a big hand. Thank you very much for coming. [applause] thank you. Its been a hell of a week. I was following along on twitter as things were unfolding here and amid Everything Else i was feeling, all the confusion and the shock of it and later the sadness, i felt Something Else. I had a selfish thought. I thought, this is bad luck. What bad timing this had to happen so soon before the greenwald event. And everything that i heard as events unfolded and in the days since, sort of affirmed that sense, that the timing is off. We hear these things. We hear that canada lost her innocence on wednesday. And we hear that we have to say goodbye to the old normal because now its welcome to the ew normal. This gave me the sense that this was not the time for this conversation. Then i thought about some other things. I thought about bill c13. First introduced years ago as a lawful access legislation, then it was called the protecting children from online predators act and people were not so happy with that. And then it was rebranded and reintroduced to us as the anticyberbullying law. Whatever you call it, this is a piece of legislation that makes it very easy for Law Enforcement to call up your cell phone producer provider, call up your telephone provider and get information about you, all kinds of information, without a warrant. Which they do anyhow, but this would make it legal. This is a big that wed been beating down, 73 of canadians ppose this bill. Privacy advocates are against it and the Supreme Court ruled that its probably unconstitutional and weve been beating it back for years and this week it passed its third reading in the house of common sense and is off to the senate for a rubber stamp. After the shooting, Something Else happened. Our Prime Minister promised us that he would expedite tough new antiterrorism legislation that will make certain kinds of speech illegal and will make it easier for authorities to detain suspects of terrorism. This is not a new normal. This is the old normal. Weve seen this before. We have seen moments of trauma and fear that have come with them subtle messages that its not appropriate to have certain conversations during those times. And weve seen before that while were getting that subtle and not so subtle message, that those conversations are not appropriate, our rights get curtailed at that exact moment. His has happened before. So seeing this auditorium filled with canadians tells me that this is the exact right time to have this discussion. This is the exact right time to talk about things like surveillance and our rights and i feel incredibly lucky to be introducing Glenn Greenwald in a moment. I feel very lucky that there is a glenn greenwaled. I think about that. Yeah. [applause] i mean, think about that. Consider for a second if Edward Snowden didnt have a Glenn Greenwald to contact, if there wasnt a journalist who would encrypt the communication. Imagine if the n. S. A. Had heard what weard snowden was trying to convey to a journalist. Imagine if the journalist that Edward Snowden contacted was not as committed to rigorously and aggressively but responsibly reporting the revelations that snowden was brave enough to come forth with. And imagine. We would all be the worse off for it. We would all be ignorant. And i dont know where Edward Snowden would be. Glen greenwald has paid a price for revealing these truths. He has had his patriotism questioned, hes been called a criminal or an accessesry to a criminal. Hes been called these things by journalists. Hes had his boyfriend detained, hes had his freedom curtailed. But hes here with us in ottawa tonight and i would like a warm round of applause for Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you so much. Good evening to everybody and thanks for coming out tonight and thank you as well to open media and ravel c. A. For sponsoring the event and thanks as well to my enhas to yass tick reader bill owen for organizing this event and helping me be able to come this week to canada. Where i have had a very eventful 96 hours. [laughter] it is actually in an interesting way, i feel like ive had, despite how new tult white house its been, a rather productive week because i feel like ive accomplished something on my list of life objectives that a lot of people who believe the stereotypes about your country would say that would be impossible to achieve. Which is i have gotten to spend the entire week with my email in box full of enranged canadians. And there are a lot of people who would have said that thats just impossible to achieve. So its something i got to check off of my list. The reaction to the article i wrote this week, which i wrote after the quebec attacks, very shortly before news of the ottawa shooting, broke actually did provoke among the most intense and polarizing reaction of anything that ive ever written. And in a lot of ways i look at that as a sign that it was actually a piece very worth writing. Because i do think ultimately the role of journalism, especially at the most difficult times, is to question and challenge the assumptions that people cling to most fervently. And i heard from at least as many canadians, at least as many canadians, who were supportive of the arguments i made and who were appreciative of the fact that the debate ended up including those arguments and perspectives as i did hearing from enraged canadians. I think this really underscores an important point. Which is that the events of this week, as tragic and horrific as they have been to watch and to watch unfold, really do provide the perfect framework in a lot of ways to think about all of the issues that i had long planned here to come and discuss. Those issues are once that ive been ones that ive been working on for many years but were really brought into vivid highlight by the work ive been able to do over the last 16 months, reporting on the extraordinary archive of documents provided to me by my who are owic source, Edward Snowden by my heroic source, Edward Snowden. These pertain to the messages and narratives that western democracy, the governments of western democracies, have been dim disseminating to their citizenry in the post9 11 era about terrorism, about threats, about the nature of our societies. And they pertain to all of the policies that have been ushered in as a result of those claims and in a lot of ways the events of this week, which ive gotten to see unfold firsthand by being here, are almost like a Perfect Laboratory for understanding how countries in the west have responded to these kinds of attacks and the policies and perspectives that theyve been able to entrench as a result. The very first event that happened upon the first attack that i immediately noticed and recognized as extremely familiar and significant was the instantaneous injection, and by instantaneous, i do mean instantaneous, injection of the most inflammatory but also the most meaningless word in our political lexicon. Which is terrorism. Almost instantly, before anybody knew anything about the perpetrators of either events, the media and Political Class in this country and the United States and throughout the west all agreed by consensus that both of these attacks were adequately and even necessarily described as being terrorism. There is no discussion, as usual, of what that word means and what an act hads too has to do in order to qualify, its just a label that got replied applied without any reflection or deliberation or discussion of any kind. It has no definition but its inflammatory in the sense that its incredibly consequential and it happens over and over again with these attacks and i think its really worth thinking about what that word means and the affect that weve allowed it to have on all of our thought processes as citizens. That was followed by the remarkable agility of how the harper government tactically responded to these attacks. I am not a particularly enthused fan of the harper government. [applause] but i think its important to give credit where its due. The speed and the aggression and the brazenness and the shamelessness with which the Prime Minister moved to manipulate and exploit the emotions around these events, to demand more power for himself, was in a really warped way almost impressive. I mean, i think youve got to give him credit. If you look at how other western governments have respondsed to these attack, they usually have the decency to wait an interval of two to three weeks before admitting that theyre exploiting these fears in order to justify new legislation and new powers. But Prime Minister harper is remarkably unburdened by those kind of qualms. It was really its amazing. Less than 48 hours, less than 4 hours after the ottawa shootings, he stood up and in the house of commons this was yesterday, and this is what he said. He said, quote, our laws and policy and Police Powers need to be strengthened in the areas of surveillance, detention and arrest. They need to be much strengthened. I assure members that work which is already under way will be expedited. And again, the only thing unusual about that is the speed and nakedness with which it has happened. But this has been the process in the 9 11 era. These attacks are instantly seized upon as way to further dismantle protections of Civil Liberties and Core Principles of western justice. Another really visible and really familiar dynamic that i was able to see this week was what i often refer to as the too soon tactic. I had a lot of people who wrote to me, the canadians who wrote to me, who said, look, i agree with a lot of what you said in that article and what youve been saying in interviews throughout this week, i think its important for to you say it, but i just feel like its too soon. Apparently theres some kind of like time limit that youre supposed to wait before you Start Talking about these attacks in a substantive way. While i understand the sentiment behind that claim, the problem with it is that there is no such thing as too soon. When it comes to how the government and their allies in the media start politicizing these events. It was, as i said, instantaneous, that it got labeled a terrorist attack. And that there were all kinds of claims, very debatable claims, made based on the emotions that came out of these attacks and i think if youre a journalist or a citizen, its