Well, we had our protest

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Monday, about 100 graduates of the Salem VA Hospital PTSD program gathered at two entrances to the hospital. The guy who organized it is Zack. He got the permits and got the ball rolling for all of us. It was very interesting. That morning the local Roanoke Va TV news showed up. There were these two guys there with their VFW hats and all their pins. They cornered tne news girl. Nobody knew them and Zack didn't want our protest hijacked. He went up to them and the news girl and told them he was the one who got the permits and he didn't know them. They left. Then the VA hospital employees union rep showed up with a sign saying all the wards need more help. Same thing, Zach thanks them very much but we want to stay focused on our reason for being there. We had signs and flags and most of the cars going by tooted their horns in support. At 2 PM we had a scheduled meeting with Administration. Bob, the PTSD program director was there and an assistant to the chairman or something like that. It seemed the VA hospital director was on vacation that week after canceling all days off for the staff of the PTSD program. I told Bob and the Assistant to the assistant or whatever he was that I did appreciate them being there but the idea of the Director taking the day off showed a lack of respect. The secretary went out of the room and in about 15 minutes the Director showed up. There were about eight of us in the room and we were going around the table voicing our opinions and telling what Salem meant to us. More than one said it had saved their lives. Now I knew some of these guys and let me tell you , it was no exaggeration. One of the guys was telling about this when the Director, Dr. Lemons came in the room, and started shaking hands and talking quite loudly. Zack spoke up and said, "Excuse me, but you do not have the floor. Sit down and wait your turn." And he did. We met for two hours and it was quite heated at times. Lo and behold, they hired a new counselor just that day. Amazing coincidence! Lemons vowed he did not want to close the program and supported it totally. Nah. But we did get them to hire back up to their staffing of a couple of years ago which is half what it was ten years ago. So, it was a mixed success. We save the program but did not get any commitment to expand it. I guess every time they lose a person we are going to have to go back there and demand they be replaced. That's OK, we got nothing better to do.

Here's the deal, There used to be twenty of these inpatient PTSD programs. Now there are six. They were wanting to cut it down to eleven patients at time down from fifteen. This at a time when many more needs are being created in Iraq. Do the math, six six weeks programs that admit eleven at a time. That is eleven a week admittable in the whole US. How long would 250,000 Iraq veterans have to wait for help?