In 2021, this country’s longest war, the post-9/11 conflict in Afghanistan, came to an end in a formal sense, with the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces punctuated by further tragedy and death for American soldiers and Afghans alike.
Even with the passing of such a major threshold, there is no real end to the toll of war for the nation’s active-duty troops. Boots are still on the ground in Iraq, to name the most prominent example of ongoing military intervention. Rising tensions with China are underscored by Department of Defense attentions turning to the Asia-Pacific region.
But on this Veterans Day holiday, it’s the sacrifices made by those discharged from service that are recognized. For many veterans, the pain has never stopped, and they need real help.
The National Council for Mental Wellbeing, a membership organization of 3,500 mental health and substance abuse treatment agencies, has assembled some startling figures that illuminate the scope of the crisis across the country:
>> About 730,000 men and women, or roughly 30% of servicemembers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, have a mental health condition requiring treatment, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and serious depression.
>> Less than half the veterans who need mental health treatment get it upon returning home.
>> On an average day, about 22 veterans will die by suicide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Military spouses and children, as a result of long deployments, suffer from emotional difficulties and mental health problems, too. Unofficially, they are also veterans.
The needs for health services, unmet by the VA, constituted a national crisis almost a decade ago, when there was a backlog of 600,000 claims. After five years, that fell to around 100,000, owing partly to a “Veterans Choice” program expanding veterans’ access to non-VA providers.
But bureaucratic delays persisted — and lines were especially long in Hawaii. Because facilities are not accessible on all islands, those wider options were open statewide to all who qualified for benefits. Elsewhere, only veterans who had very long waits or lived far from a VA facility could tap the expanded provider list.
A VA blog post from August also notes that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic generated an unprecedented tally of claims, doubling the backlog to 180,000. Last month, the agency began hiring and training about 2,000 new employees nationally to catch things up again.
There are encouraging prospects on the horizon. In a commentary published in Sunday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Dr. Adam M. Robinson Jr., director of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System, noted the addition of a Windward clinic at Adventist Health Castle Medical Center, with construction on a new Kapolei clinic to begin by year’s end.
And for veterans’ caregivers, the American Red Cross has a Military Veteran Caregiver Network to provide them with mentoring and support. The organization also has put out a call for volunteers to help with rehabilitation, recreation and other tasks (information: redcross.org/volunteer).
Homelessness — one of the most vexing problems veterans face here — is being addressed aggressively by USVETS. In addition to ongoing services to isle veterans, the organization also launched the Kama’oku Kauhale village project for homeless vets and civilians alike.
The work of providing care to the veterans is far from finished. Surely, if anyone deserves priority treatment from a grateful nation, it is America’s heroes. To say “Thank you for your service” is a fitting sentiment an individual can relay today, but collectively, we must do so much more.
