Warner Holds Roundtable on Veterans' Issues with Elected Officials and Area Leaders
Warner was joined by Senator Tim Kaine, Representative Eugene Vindman, and Delegate Stacey Carroll.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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According to the most recent report from the Department of Veterans Affairs, roughly 17.5 military veterans die by suicide each day—a number that is still too high and that Pamela Johnson-Hood, a local mental health care provider, worries will increase.
Speaking at a round table event hosted Thursday at the Griffin in Fredericksburg, Johnson-Hood said she not only works primarily with veterans, but is the mother and spouse of veterans and a veteran herself.
“We’re all being triggered by what’s going on, and the challenges are getting bigger every day. I’m afraid that suicide rate will go back up,” Johnson-Hood said, her voice cracking. “I want to talk about the barriers [to getting mental health care] that I see.”
Editor’s Note: Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and dial 1, text 838255, or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.
Thursday’s round table, which brought together elected officials and local military connected business owners and community leaders to talk about strengthening federal support for veterans, was part of a series of events kicking off Democrat Mark Warner’s campaign for re-election to the Senate.
Warner had something to say about the challenges and triggering events Johnson-Hood referred to, discussing the war with Iran and the cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, which disproportionately affected veterans and has resulted in the new Veterans Affairs Health Care Center in Spotsylvania not being fully staffed.
“There are still huge gaps in getting services to veterans,” Warner said. “It was a 10 year journey getting this built, and it’s a beautiful building, but also the epitome of how screwy government can be.”
The center is only about 40% staffed, Warner said, “a challenge exacerbated by the Trump administration’s war on federal employees & also the VA.”
Warner sharply criticized the war with Iran.
As one of Congress’s “Gang of Eight” leaders who are, by law, briefed by the executive branch on classified intelligence matters, Warner said “There was no imminent threat from Iran.”
“This is a war of choice,” he said, adding that he is “aghast” at language the president used in recent social media posts threatening to bomb power plants and bridges in Iran.
“No American president has used language like that,” Warner said. “We are in an extraordinary spot and it’s a blessing and a miracle that we have only lost 13 service members.”
Warner was joined by fellow Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, Representative Eugene Vindman, and state Delegate Stacey Carroll, and they also had strong words about the current administration.
Kaine, whose son serves in the Marine Corps, told the assembled audience, “I know why you enlisted in the service. It’s not because you lust after war, but because you wanted to defend the nation.”
He blamed “bad civilian decision makers” who perform “cosplay idiocy” for sending American troops into a war of choice.
Vindman, a retired Army officer, said that “We can’t make America great unless it is good—something fundamental that this president has forgotten or never knew.”
Trump “did not start this war with a plan,” Vindman said, and he also called out the president’s “inappropriate, obscene, and deranged [social media] comments.”
Carroll said the General Assembly has provided Virginians with “an option to fix” what Vindman described as the daily “chaos, cruelty, and corruption” of the Trump administration—vote “yes” on the April 21 redistricting referendum to ensure “10-to-1 Democratic representation in Congress.”
Vindman and Warner also both pointed to a “yes” vote as one that gives Virginians a chance to flip Congress.
In addition to the elected officials, the panel at Thursday’s event was comprised of military veterans and business owners and community leaders Vernon Green, Joel Griffin, Howard Rudat, Tonya James, Terron Sims, Sarah Baker, and Reginald Miller.
The panel and audience members discussed issues of concern to veterans going beyond current national events, such as healthcare for female service veterans, specifically related to menopause, perimenopause, and reproductive health; education benefits for the veteran and family members; differential preference for service-disabled veterans vs. non-service disabled; and the need for all service branches, including the Coast Guard, to receive pay during government shut downs.
Warner, who has further campaign kick-off events scheduled through Sunday across the state, ended the panel by stressing that, “These are hard times, but we are still in the greatest country in the world.”
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