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Welcome to Veteran Social Justice — a platform that allows us to introduce former U.S. military-service personnel (veterans) turned activists. Each activist has their own biography page, featuring their contributions and accomplishments within the veteran community (and beyond) to help veterans achieve social justice.
This project was developed by the students of English 2070 (Fall 2013 semester) at Bowling Green State University (of Bowling Green, OH) and envisioned by BriGette McCoy.
Very awesome, makes me proud of Ohio – where i grew up, ([…not Holy] Toledo) very impressive, i will look into this a bit more… i am curious
Keep up the great work. You are showing the rest of us the way to make a difference. Semper Fi.
How do I nominate someone to be on your page? Your list is impressive and I have the honor of meeting a few of those heroes.
I deeply appreciate what each of you are doing to help our veterans heal from war trauma and service-related trauma. I am committed as a civilian, clinician, and military family member to help you move your work forward. Part of that commitment is to assist BriGette McCoy in launching an interactive GA Women Veterans network and Inaugural Conference on Apr 4; i invite you to join us at http://www.wvsj.org
I appreciate the nice write up for my bio -thanks. However, I am not a war veteran. That should be corrected. I am a 9/11 survivor but not a combat war veteran. Xiomara A. Sosa
Please email me: mgrohow at gmail dot com
I hope I made the correction? Is this better? Thank you, Xiomara!!
Ok so definitely got my interest. Spreading the word to my fellow combat vet brothers and sister how do I start
This is directed to Stacey Bare …
Your recent attempt to write about veterans suicide was strange, and disappointing. What agenda are you after, really?
Let me attempt to open your eyes.
First off, the suicide rate among veterans is much more than 22 per day. It is likely closer to 40-50. You must consider that thousands of “accidental” overdoses on dangerous VA-prescribed pharmaceuticals are not counted in suicide data, same goes for every veteran who plows their car into a tree, or loses control of their motorcycle at 150mph. Majority of those are suicides, done without the embarrassment or shame to the family.
As to the data from VA. They failed to include the two states with the highest veterans populations (significantly higher than all others), Texas and Califonia.
Also, VA has an established and well documented history of misrepresenting any issue which is embarrassing or “bad news” in the public eye. That should clue you in from the start. How do you know when VA is lying? When they are speaking or writing in public.
Further …
There are about 24 million living veterans. About 3 million, roughly, have deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq. Or …?
Right, there are also ongoing deployments in the war against terror all over the planet, not just those two countries. So if you count only suicides among those who deployed to just Iraq or Afghanistan … your data is no good (talking to the study). If the data included every deployment outside the states, then it may be a bit more credible. But you have to realize, these stats masters are super clever the way they serve up their info to the public.
Now, as far as capering civilian suicide rate to military rate, well that is the biggest whopper of them all.
The number of completed suicides among military demographic civilians is soooooo wrong. That’s comparison is totally false because the civilians who died of suicide and could not have ever qualified for entrance into the military are always counted in the comparison. So if you count only civilian suicides among the civilian demographic who are also qualified for military service, your number drops way way down. You cannot count a civilian suicide if that person was unqualified for military service. Certainly you are smart enough to understand this huge omission.
If you really want to do some advocacy writing (I hesitate to call it reporting) about the topic, turn your attention to the “black box” warning VA/DoD-prescribed medications now being forced upon military members and veterans of all generations.
Tell us how much money either the VA or DoD spends annually on psychotropic drugs and Opiods pre-9/11 and then year-by-year to date. Then you may have something worthwhile.
Or you can simply show the annual rate of death among veterans or military persons, pre-9/11 and year-by-year to date.
You see, the rate of death is key. VA/DoD have become wiser and now routinely classify suicides with some other label. The men and women are still dying at shockingly high rates, compared to pre-9/11.
The bigger question is why?
Think about it … deeply.
See what you come up with, then write about that.
Thanks for your ear.
TMSR
Good Afternoon,
My name is Santiago, marine veteran currently attending University of Southern California. I am doing an 8 page paper on social justice and I am focusing on veteran suicide in California. Any information would be appreciated and doing further research on my paper. Thanks again and Semper Fi
Oct. 3, 2017, Tuesday
Ms. McCoy,
I met you at the Southeast Regional program hosted by the Savannah River Chapter of Federally Employed Women’s organization Sept. 13-15, 2017 at DoubleTree Hotel in Augusta, Georgia. You offered to help me possibly find a job, since I lost my job as a writer/photojournalist at Fort Gordon, GA, Aug. 8, 2016 and have been looking ever since. My email address is whoru60@gmail.com and my cell is (706) 449-9972. Any way you help me I would appreciate. Let know where I can send you a copy of my resume. I am a military veteran who has no children nor have I ever been married. I am also a member of the Atlanta Press Club. Thank you in advance for any help you can give me and please continue the good work you do for women veterans.
Bonnie Heater, FEW Life member
Looks like you are doing great work!
I thought I would let you know about 2 important typos.
Your bio states you are veteran of “Golf” not “Gulf” war.
Also it states on home page founded in 2070 instead of 2007
Thought you would want to update this!