Another Opportunity to Help

You may have noticed I've been a bit sparse with the posts this last week.  And, if you read this blog with any regularity at all you will know immediately that I have been beyond disgusted with the way many of our veterans have been treated upon their return to this country after fighting for us all. 

Regardless of how you may feel abut the military in general, the lip service paid to them by some who send them into harm's way while they languish homeless and ignored on the streets in cities across our great nation is a travesty.  It is also an embarrassing and disgraceful testament to our misplaced priorities.

I've never served in any branch of the service, so in some ways, I cannot relate to "service-connected" disabilities.

But I have been on the streets, addicted, homeless, friendless, penniless, mentally ill and at times, feeling downright soulless.

I know firsthand the misery, struggles, fear, hopelessness and overwhelming sadness that often pervades a hand-to-mouth existence on the street and because of that, there are many ways in which I am able to engage and connect to vets.   When you strip away the causes and get right down to the nitty gritty, they are simply people with the same underlying problems as those facing many of my non-vet brothers and sisters out there.

How they arrived at those problems may be different, but the problems manifest themselves similarly.

I'm not telling you all this to blow smoke up your butts.

I have been hired as the Veteran Services Coordinator at Operation Standdown and am taking over for my dear friend and colleague Kathleen Hoffman, who is moving on to a new federal position that tentatively starts in early June.

I spent Friday orienting, paperworking and introducing myself to the crew at OSDN, although I knew about half of them from my previous work with them anyway!   :-)

The job is a bit different than the outreach position I've previously held in that I'll spend considerably more time in the facility performing intake and "services-triage" for incoming vets.  I also supervise the front office, volunteers and the community service folks sent over to repay their debt to society.

My buddy JC Smith likened the new position to that of the beat cop/desk cop.  "While you are behind the desk more, you still get to go out once in a while and shoot a few bad guys, too."

So my days of street outreach have not ended, they've only slowed a bit, but the focus of my clients has shifted considerably, since OSDN serves vets only.  Now, I don't mean to wax patriotic here, but since I'm way too old to enlist (and frankly doubt I'd be able to endure the "rigors" of active military life at my age and long-developed temperament, either) I can think of no better way to serve my country for the absolutely wonderful life I've been able to make for myself, in spite of my own stupidity and extremely poor choices made in the past, than to help vets get a new start in life after returning home.

I'm looking forward to a great experience at OSDN, as well as a broadening of my knowledge and skills as I begin providing services, hope and resources to those who've kept safe the place I've called home for the past 49 years......