What You can do to help

We owe a tremendous debt to our veterans and our active duty service members.  It seems to me that they are worth the time and effort it takes to learn their language, understand their culture, try to understand what they have experienced, and try to reach out and support the ones we know.  It’s always a bit of a moving experience at church on Veterans Day when the pastor asks all the veterans to please stand.  A large number stand at the request.  The pastor then asks for family members or friends of veterans to stand and almost all the rest of the congregation stands.  We all are related to or know veterans.  What if all of us tried to connect to veterans on their terms?  How many people actually do that?  The reported current rate of suicide among active duty and veteran populations is 22 per day.  It seems to me that connecting with a veteran in their language in their culture can be a good starting point to help lower that number.  Learn about vets and their lives and issues and see if you can be a factor in helping to make a veteran feel appreciated and help them know their sacrifice matters.