Veterans With PTSD Are Losing Everything in COVID-19 Shutdown — and Congress Has Forgotten Them

Code of Vets, a volunteer veterans assistance program, is reporting that veterans in their care are in serious danger due to coronavirus restrictions. According to a press release, veterans with PTSD are losing their jobs, their homes, and life-saving medical care. Founder and veteran Gretchen Smith wrote,

We have 11 veterans in California we recently helped lift from homelessness by raising enough funds to pay for room and board at a veteran’s board and care. These veterans have all lost their jobs and we are scrambling to find funding for their food and board.

We currently have 50 requests for food assistance and that is just in the last three days.

We have a terminally ill vet in TN not getting the care he needs due to coronavirus — his palliative care appointments keep getting rescheduled and we fear he will be deceased before he actually gets an appointment.

We just had a Wisconsin Navy vet pass away as a result of side effects of Coronavirus. His family needs $6500 for funeral and we are going to be raising funds.

One of our Texas vets was suicidal over feeling he had Covid-19 symptoms. Police arrived at his house to intervene and we had to raise funds to get him into a special facility.

A veteran’s house burned down and [he] needs assistance for temporary housing. He was laid off do to Covid.

Smith also reported that her volunteers have spent hours on the phone this week with veterans who are suicidal because of how the shutdown is affecting their ability to see family and get treatment. Veterans appear to have been left out of the assistance bill that passed through the House with millions of dollars for the Kennedy Center and other Democrat boondoggles.

Veterans advocates like Smith are disgusted by it. “The recent Covid-19 Bill allotted 350 million dollars for refugee and migrant assistance without a single thought for our veterans and their families,” she said. “Our vets needed those funds. Grassroots veteran’s group Code of Vets does its best to help these veterans but is struggling with the number who have lost their jobs and are encountering dire situations such as no money for gas to get to their much needed VA appointments and money for food — for them and their families.”

Here is a comprehensive list from Fox News of the organizations that got millions of our dollars while veterans are going hungry and losing their jobs.

• $10,804,687,000 for international development
• $350,000,000 for refugee resettlement
• $93,000,000 Congress ($25 million of which is for “salaries and expenses”)
• $75,000,000 for PBS stations
• $75,000,000 for the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities
• $75,000,000 National Endowment for the Humanities
• $50,000,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services
• $25,000,000 for the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts
• $7,500,000 for the Smithsonian Institution

While we continue to hear from the “experts” that more lives will be saved by keeping the economy locked down, the people losing their incomes, livelihoods, and mental health are being completely ignored. We have reached the point where the cure is worse than the virus if we are going to allow American veterans to die in poverty on the off chance that keeping them from working might save a life from the Chinese COVID-19.

We are only just beginning to see the backlash from the decision to shut down Americans’ ability to feed themselves. Every day our businesses remain shuttered, people are suffering and growing desperate. The checks that the government promised may not be sent out until August. How many months does Congress think people can go without paychecks before they starve? According to friends and family members who have been laid off, unemployment offices are completely overrun in Chicago and New York and are now sending people to voicemail, not allowing them to sign up for the relief they were told they could have. But don’t worry, the museums all got a cut of the trillions, so maybe Americans can sleep there when they lose their homes.

If a country is judged by how it treats its veterans who gave up limbs and lives for her cause, America gets a big fat F. The next time Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx wax congratulatory about the good job they’ve done on keeping COVID-19 under control, someone should ask them what their plan is to stop the oncoming flood of homelessness, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and the mental health crises that are coming down the pike for us all. This outcome for veterans is by far the best argument for why unelected doctors should never be in charge of the economy. It’s time for leaders to lead us back to sanity and economic recovery before it’s too late.

Megan Fox is the author of “Believe Evidence; The Death of Due Process from Salome to #MeToo,” and host of The Fringe podcast. Follow on Twitter @MeganFoxWriter