Host bill rausch is the mayor to cspan beers, but they may be less value with their latest effort for the past year and a half. You have been working as executive director at got your 6. Explain the mission of that group. Guest absolutely. Thank you for having us. Got your 6 means i got your back and our mission is to a parent a resurgence of Community Across the country. What that means is from our perspective, the problem isnt a veteran problem. It is a nationwide problem that we are trying to leverage veterans to fix in a small towns and big city so we know that veterans volunteer more. A vote more. They are more active in the local communities based on census data there be penalized. Wevecensus data that analyzed. From our perspective, they should start where they live. Host were talking with veterans and veterans Family Members only. Concernso hear your and your thoughts. If you are a veteran or a member or a Family Member with a veteran and the family in the central or eastern time zones, call 2027488000. If you are in the pacific amount time zones, call 2027488001. Why did you see the need for this group. Was is part of the effort to a line guest why do we exist, right . It is simple. Thatf the biggest issues the majority of americans view veterans as either broken or heroic. There is this duality of a narrative that is a big barrier in terms of hiring veterans, welcoming them back into the community. And should include families. 6s your six got your approach is extremely unique. Ong approach pr focusing on shifting peoples perception. 80 of americans view veterans as having posttraumatic stress and other issues. When we do studies and show folks pictures of veterans or individuals who are american showing them who do think this is . If it is an 80 if it is a, percent if it is a homeless person, 80 say it is a veteran. It is a misconception. Very few people know what spirit taken that perception shift and reinforcing it is a culture change, we have 34 nonprofit partners who are mostly post9 11 and these are groups that are growing. These are younger groups growing rapidly. This is what sets us apart. Host a lot of this is bridging the militarycivilian divide . Guest i was waiting for you to validate it could that is precisely it. We have a bridge to build between the civilian and military population. It affects not only our military veterans and their families, but it affects the volunteer force. We are in a situation where the president and congress have committed to building up our military. Biggest just got its increase in recruiting goals and history of the army. At least in modern day times. The majority of americans view the military as a bad place to be. Host you met with President Trump last month alongside linux another veteran groups. What did you tell the president . Guest i told the president pretty much what i am telling you. I added specifics as it relates to the 21. 8 million veterans in this country. 13 million of them never touched Se Department of veteran affairs. That is an important fact. He and Everyone Needs to realize that veteran problems are not starting and stopping at the department of Veterans Affairs. The president to consider signing in order to create an office of veteran empowerment to lift up veteran issues outside of the walls of v. A. , so we can talk about public and private partnerships and v. A. Reform that needs to happen. Host this would be an Office Inside the white house question mark an Office Inside the white house . Guest yes. He was interested. The staff has reached out to me. We are in conversations right now to see what we can do to make this happen. Host for the past 100 years or so, the head of the v. A. Has been a veteran. Not a veteran. Does it matter . Guest it is worth talking about. It is interesting. I am sure the gears will correct me if i get this wrong, but i believe we have never had a physician who was ahead of the v. A. Dr. David chilton is still seeing patients in a new york facility and doing work out of oregon. , butnk it is interesting it is to a larger point as it relates to the v. A. From our perspective from where we said, there is a unique opportunity to bring needed reform to the department of Veterans Affairs to empower our veterans. We had met with dr. Shilin. Perspective, he is the right leader at the right time. The best part, and perhaps the reason why this exception was made for the first time. Is he is hitting the ground running. He was submitted with some of the reforms with what we were working. From our perspective, we think he is the right man for the job. Host we are talking to just veterans or Family Members of veterans for the next 25 minutes or so on the washington journal. It you are in the eastern or central time zone, it 2027488000. Mountain and pacific time zones 2027488001. Solomon is first. Caller good morning, sir. I am glad you are discussing this issue. I am a Mental Health patient. With that comes various behavior patterns that is not the norm. Veteran, there were a couple of doctors that really disrespected the veterans. They talked nasty to them. They wrote up that reports about them. And so i complained about it and several veterans complained about it. The oneshappened was, that i complained about, they did a Behavior Profile against me. Which means that every time when i came to the hospital, it showed it came up, and alert that i was a bad person. And i tried to get it corrected. And the doctor, who is gone, and it left me on this profile for years. It is just a shame that when a veteran stands up to treatment that theeterans, doctors that you complain about, they can turn around and put up a Behavior Profile, which is a negative thing against you. Host to be clear, was is a v. A. Hospital you are going to . Guest yes, sir. It was maguire hospital in richmond, virginia i was going to. Which comes up in april, actually. , but they get it off said it has to stay on for so many months and years. And it is coming up in april. It is going to be interesting. I have been going to this hospital for 41 years. And i never had a complaint against me, except when i complained about the doctors and how they were disrespecting and treating the veterans badly. Host thank you for sharing your story. David rush. Guest thank you, solomon. He brings up a good point, two big points as it relates to Mental Health. The department of Veterans Affairs does not have enough Mental Health professionals in their facilities. That is a fact. They need to hire more doctors and more professionals. The broader challenge is we have a shortage in this country. Across the United States, we do not have enough Mental Health professionals based off the needs we are having. Host so it is not something that more funding will fix . Guest general correll he is very involved in data sharing and use the example the other day. He said he is always excited when there are larger hiring initiatives, but he sees a Mental Health professionals moving from sector to sector. They may go to the department of Veterans Affairs. But more funding will not create more Mental Health professionals. The second problem that the caller alluded to is the issue in our country of understanding the signs and the issues related to Mental Health. How do we engage with individuals who have issues as it relates to Mental Health . Back to got your 6 and our withon, it starts perception. Because people are not having open and honest conversation, although we are having more and more conversations. The callers are encouraged to say, nd theres so much misinformation. I will give you an example. We talked a lot about veteran suicide in his country. There are a lot of numbers going around. There was a report released in the last 18 months saying 20 veterans today. If you talk to most americans, of thosek the majority 22 are guys and gals like me who served in iraq and afghanistan. But the majority of those are over the age of 60, white males, and they did not have combat deployments. Military people are not having issues. We have to reform the v. A. Omari is in tucker, georgia. Good morning. Caller i have two questions. , especiallyfeel since there is a smaller military, do you think that a pay raise would help, especially after you get out of the military, you would have more money . Two, some of the bases they are closing, they can can they be used to be homeless shelters, or medical facilities . Those are my two questions. Guest those are great questions. In terms of the pay raise, i an example based on personal experience and we are seeing now. I will share this anecdote. A senior official with the president and the president asked if we were paying the troops enough . And he said no. We not paying the troops enough. He would on to say that, what our young men and women do, nobody could be paid enough for that. But we do it for so much more than the pay. I think there are a lot of organizations focused on military compensation. That is not one of our main thrusts. And wentned the army to west point in 1998, i think the nation and the government have been a fabulous job as it relates to compensation. Being paid, not only a living wage, but inadequate weight. But we still have soldiers on food stamps. That is a problem that needs to be addressed. That is an interesting question. Leveraging basis in the process and thinking about what we can do with those facilities is an interesting question. It is interesting based off of the recent announcement that Jared Kushner would be leaving the task force to bring business best practices to government. The idea of looking at the government as an entire enterprise. When we talk dod ba, why cant we get an Electronic Health record . The simple basic things that have never been fixed, and have not been fixed because the have not been elevated to the white house. Host to the callers point about what they can use for unclaimed property, we have done segments about this. There is a law on the books title five of the homeless assistance act, which makes vacant federal property available to nonprofits for use as facilities to assist homeless people. Diane is up next in columbia, missouri. Diane, good morning. Caller yes. I actually dont live in columbia, but in one of the surrounding areas. But i choose to not reveal to you. I am a qualified Mental Health professional. Being an advanced registered nurse. I have become disabled due to a car accident. I come from a long family a military, as i told the gentleman that took my information. Children was one of 18. Her oldest brother served in the trenches of world war i. And had the gas poisoning, Health Problems all of his life. Her eldest brother joined the marine corps in early 1941 because there want jobs in the United States because there were not jobs in the United States. During the depression, people still think the Great Depression and it must be for that. It extended even into world war ii. He was on the uss pennsylvania. He was the admiral. Japs, and i will say japs hit pearl harbor, not once, but twice. And people dont bother, the kids of our history, we even had to take the 9 11 off because it was too offensive for the children to see. They need to see the history of our world. Is do you think that it do you think that it is worse then what it has been in the past . Caller it is a great misunderstanding. Because ing have no money. I am attempting to return to the workforce, to work with the military. , and hisissouri midmissouri area, we have a National Guard base, we have a wood within 60rd miles of here. The otheres in direction we have Whiteman Air Force base. People do not understand what ptsd is. Posttraumatic stress disorder. Thatld be willing to bet anybody that is in compaq has some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder. Rausch want to ask bill about some of those issues that you bring up. And good luck as you work on those issues. Guest there are interesting things from the caller. We have a nonprofit partner to take Mental Health professionals and match them with the servicemember or veteran who may need support and cannot afford it. The second thing is i can tell you, i am a combat veteran and i do not have posttraumatic stress. Trauma fromienced my life outside of combat like a lot of americans have. That might be a different story. Back to what senator mccain said, within the last 12 months or he talked about how to experience aan very similar dramatic event, whether it is in combat or out of combat, and their brain reacts differently. For the viewers, they will remember this the act of incident that involved a veteran in florida at the beginning of this year. The headlines read veterans with posttraumatic stress goes on a shooting spree. Because the individual heard voices in his head. For those who know about posttraumatic stress, hearing voices in ones head is not a posttraumatic. Ng another example of where we have to educate and inform the American People one, what these Mental Health issues are. Two, we cannot be ashamed to reach out and get hurt. And three, just because i served in the military does that mean i have posttraumatic stress. Host i present the caller bringing up her Family Service going back to world war i. Today, is a 100 anniversary of the united cs entry into world war i. Tv will bestory live in kansas city, missouri to mark the centennial happening at 10 30 today over on cspan3. Brandy is in st. Paul minnesota up next. Is in st. Paul, minnesota. Caller i am a retiree of 1998. I received avice, lot of issues and the pertains to my health. I received a lot of issues as it pertains to my health. Toldrd a rumor, but i was there was a bill in congress that will script the veterans of either of their retirement pay for the disability. I was told that they would only get one, whichever is higher. My concern is this lets say a soldier served five years in , and he gets 100 disability. I served 24 gears in the military 24 years in the mattel. I served 24 years in the military. If this bill is true, i will , either ave one check higher military tech, or a higher disability. Go, armyhings for randy. And there are issues that they have been talking about. After 9 11 took place, there was a big push in congress to ensure that retirees, like randy and others, would be able to receive the Retirement Benefits in addition to any v. A. Disabilities called concurrent receipt. Have been discussions recently about repealing that, or changing it, if you will. And it has happened because of the budgetary concerns over the years. What i contend you is the conversations that are happening right now are in the early stages, and i will also say there is a lot of debate within the veteran community as it individuals who are retirees receiving full benefits, and also receiving in full asdisability well. Time will bear that out. It is worth a discussion. Host lets go to jeff in denver, indiana. Caller good morning. Thank you for having me on your show. Interesting conversations we are having. I would like to talk a little bit about the opiate epidemic we are having with our veterans. Started aly, i notforprofit organization to alternativehat as medicine. A couple of days ago, you seen that the president appointed Chris Christie to fight this problem that we are having. Byortunately, they are going cara. I always said that general custard had a better plan than that. The comprehensive Addiction Recovery act. It is only mandate the states have they prescribe opiates. Unfortunately, you have the veterans set of been on it for so long. They may have to turn to alternative medicine. And they are turning to the streets to get their medication are turning to heroin. Guest i dont think it could be understated. There are real people doing real work outside of the federal government and some are doing partnership with the federal government. There is an Organization Called boulder crest retreat in virginia. The founder has talked about wellness and treating the issues. Ares an organization several organizations today doing events across the country. Some are leveraging physical there is a lot of work being done, but the bottom line is we have a huge problem in this country with physicians over prescribing opioids for these issues. Its got a stop. But it will take individuals outside of the federal government to come up with solutions. Host we talked about opioids. Arlier if you want to watch the entire event, seized and. Org is the place to be. Www. Cspan. Org is the place to get it. School nursesin a room talking about a lot sound and School District saying they want to be ready for possible peril when overdoses in school are possible heroin overdoses in school. Mark is up next in california. Good morning. Caller good morning. Problems, one of the is somebody mentioned earlier a lot of suicides. A lot of those vets were drafted. The statement i made about conscientious objection. My records got tagged. Till this day, i have not been paid completely from my time in service. The v. A. Will not recognize it as part of a mental problem. I finally get the right address to try to get my money, and they dont even answer me. How do we do with that, gentlemen, when a veteran is so lowly treated, that he cannot even get an answer from his own government for money he was told he was being shorted the day he got out. . Top one percent, nobody benefits from our militarys existence more than the top 1 three my dad was part of the military industrial complex. He dealt with money a