BOG POST: President Obama Signs the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act

[freshwest]

Posted in the BOG, or Barack Obama Group, a safe haven for supporters of the 44th President. It is where Barack Obama's policies and achievements as POTUS are celebrated.

**This is NOT a Forum. We have an SOP pinned on the index thread. If one is unable to post in the spirit of the group, or to respect the President or his supporters here, kindly do not post. GD exists for that kind of input. TIA.**

BTW, there is a GD post on reaction to what Obama is doing here. It's about a Texas woman Republican who wants her Tea Party representative to support the President's action on this.

[sheshe2]

1. ^^^^This^^^^

This why I love my President, freshwest.

BOG

[Cha]

2. Such an important Bill.. thank you, freshwest.. sorry, I missed it when you first posted!

[freshwest]

3. This is the thing the Texas 'life long' Republican woman begged her TP loon to support. We'll see...

[Cha]

4. Thanks.. as a rule.. if it helps Americans they won't do it bc they think it helps Obama.

[freshwest]

5. Remembering Clay Hunt:

The legacy of Clay Hunt: Marine recalled in new suicide legislation


Marine veteran Clay Hunt is shown here in Haiti in 2009, two years before he committed suicide. New suicide prevention introduced on Capitol Hill bears his name. (Photo released by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America)

By Dan Lamothe - November 19, 2014

Marine Cpl. Clay Hunt already was a survivor when he deployed to Afghanistan in 2008. An infantryman, he’d been wounded in the wrist by an enemy sniper in Iraq in 2007, just weeks after watching a fellow Marine sustain a mortal gunshot wound to the throat by another enemy marksman.

Hunt didn’t let his wounds in Iraq hold him back, though. He recovered, went to sniper school and then deployed with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, a unit from Twentynine Palms, Calif., that quietly deployed to Afghanistan in 2008, before the troop “surge,” and was spread across 10,000 square miles in Helmand and Farah provinces. Sixteen Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed in combat, and scores were wounded. They eventually were reinforced with more troops sent from the United States.

Hunt left the Marine Corps afterward. He struggled with depression, panic attacks and post-traumatic stress but threw himself into veterans advocacy and humanitarian work, even traveling to Haiti in 2009 with other Marine veterans to help after a devastating earthquake.

Then it was over. Hunt, 28, committed suicide in Houston in 2011. Family and friends said he had been battling the Department of Veterans Affairs to get his disability rating upgraded from 30 percent, as he struggled to find employment and his marriage unraveled. He locked himself in his apartment and turned a gun on himself...

The story goes on to tell of his pro active stance in getting treatment, failures of the system, and resulted in the legislation which should turn a light on mental wounds that have overwhelmed the system of veterans who need healthcare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/11/19/the-legacy-of-clay-hunt-marine-recalled-in-new-suicide-legislation/

We should remember that we send these young men to war, many of who have the best of intentions and who, in their own way, are there for love. Of their friends, family and fellow soldiers, often times for the people in the other countries they are in. The human mind and heart are complicated things, able to do good and evil. This young man worked in forms of public service we both hate and love. All that, confined within each living body, a universe of possibility, and too soon taken away.

IAVA working on bill:

#t=54

The day the bill was signed:

RIP:



When I look at him, I see a child.

[hopemountain]

6. made me very happy to see this act come into policy

it is personal for me. a dear relative returned from iraq with trauma & injuries following an ied explosion. he showed me his gallon size ziplock bag with 27 different medications. the military places a huge stigma on counseling or any type of physicological address - i.e., shhh...... "therapy". hopefully, they will address eliminating this stigma as they encourage our soldiers to reach out and that it is okay to not only ask for help - but to receive and accept effective treatment - not in the form of 27 different prescriptions to all be taken at the same time. grrrrrrr.....