Top

Battle Buddy Response Team

Nonprofit Organization

News

Gratitude For Our Service Members and Veterans

 

November is usually a month that everyone looks forward to as a time to give thanks, meet with family…and eat! With many of our family gatherings canceled or reduced this month due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, our celebrations will look different. However, we can still reflect on our blessings on this special day that was first set aside by George Washington.

When speaking of this country’s blessings during his radio address in 1988, Ronald Reagan mentioned “peace and abundance in this land that God has kissed.”

“We will give thanks for these and one thing more: our freedom. Yes, in America, freedom seems like the air around us: It’s there; it’s sweet, though we rarely give it a thought. Yet as the air fills our lungs, freedom fills our souls.”

No matter what our holiday looks like this year, we are still blessed by our freedoms. Among other things, Thanksgiving is a day we can pause to give gratitude to the men and women who serve or served to defend our way of life. 

Whatever your holiday looks like this year, we hope you can find many things for which to be thankful. And we wish you all a safe, blessed, and happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you!

This Thanksgiving, Battle Buddy Response Team is thankful for your support. 

With your help, we have traveled 42,860 miles and helped 184 veterans with everything from mental health and advocating, to just sitting and talking. In October, the Team rendered aid to a Navy veteran by securing him a new hot water heater and finding service providers to update his electrical and plumbing needs.

None of this would be possible without you.

We’re changing and improving lives, but we still need your help. 

This holiday season, we’re asking you to give the best gift of all—a donation so that we can continue to provide aid to veterans who have served and sacrificed for us.

Giving Tuesday on December 1 is the perfect time make a donation that will allow us to carry out our mission of ‘Stopping and Preventing All Veteran Suicides.’ With your support we can change lives and help improve the lives of veterans.

Battle Buddy Response Team Members are ready to deploy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year across the United States to perform welfare checks when a concerned party reaches out. 

Learn more through their website: https://battlebuddyresponseteam.org or call (855)777-BBRT. The 501(c)(3) charity appreciates donations to cover their gas to travel when deploying a team. 

 

 

The bill named for Hannon would provide about $174 million

In October, President Donald Trump signed into law a major piece of legislation aimed at preventing veteran suicide, including one major bill focused on improving veteran mental health care.

The omnibus bill is named for Cmdr. John Scott Hannon, a former leader of SEAL Team Two, member of SEAL Team Six and Special Operations and policy staff officer at U.S. Special Operations Command, who retired in 2012. Six years later, Hannon died of suicide after 23 years of service. 

VA data shows roughly 17 veterans and three service members die by suicide on average each day.

Hannon received treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, severe depression and bipolar disorder at the VA in Montana. He was committed to helping others while seeking his own recovery. Volunteering with the National Alliance for Mental Illness he spoke candidly at events about his wartime injuries.

The bill aims to improve mental health care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs through several efforts, including grants to groups looking to help veterans outside VA.

Those efforts include: 

  • Grants to community organizations working to help veterans in crisis;
    • If veterans with other-than-honorable discharges are referred to VA by these organizations in the grant program, they may qualify for VA mental health services.
  • Ordering VA to study complementary and alternative care such as animal therapy, yoga, meditation, acupuncture and tai chi through a pilot program;
  • Studying expansion of care to all veterans with other-than-honorable discharges;
  • Transition assistance;
  • Hiring more suicide prevention coordinators for each VA medical center (at least one for each VA hospital);
  • Increasing access to VA telehealth locations for veterans who live in more rural or remote areas; 
  • Studying how VA manages its suicide prevention resources.

Some of those measures were inspired by what Hannon himself said helped him. 

The bill named for Hannon would provide about $174 million over five years for mental health care services, including the grant program for local organizations to provide help outside VA. 

The president also signed into law a bill that designates 988 as the universal telephone number of the national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline system, making it easier for those in need of help to quickly dial the potentially lifesaving service.

COMPACT Bill for Veterans Passes Senate

Just before Veterans Day, the Senate passed legislation aimed at improving mental health care and services for veterans and troops, sending them to the president’s desk for final approval.

The package of bills, the Veterans Comprehensive Prevention, Access to Care and Treatment (COMPACT) Act includes nine parts intended to help prevent veteran suicides.

The latest VA veteran suicide data report from 2019 found that on average, about 17 veterans died by suicide per day in 2017. The data typically is delayed by about two years, making it difficult to determine whether efforts have made a significant difference year over year. More than 6,000 veterans died by suicide each year from 2008 to 2017, according to previous reports.

Since that data lags behind by about two years, advocates and lawmakers worry they won’t have a concrete grasp of how the pandemic has affected suicide rates for veterans—but they agree that the isolation and stress caused by the turmoil spreading alongside the virus likely won’t improve things and that veterans, troops and their families need more help now than ever.

Specifically, the COMPACT Act would:

  • Provide free crisis care for any veteran with emergency suicide symptoms;
  • Create a pilot program between VA and designated family or friends of veterans to share information on benefits and assistance;
  • Require an annual report on VA’s Solid Start program;
  • Establish an education program for veteran families and caregivers on mental health concerns;
  • Create an interagency task force on outdoor recreation for veterans;
  • Establish a policy where veterans who have not had contact with VA in two or more years are encouraged to come in for an exam to continue eligibility for emergency care not linked to their service-connected disabilities; 
  • Require annual VA police de-escalation and crisis intervention training;
  • Require a study of VA programs providing assistance to women veterans who are homeless;
  • Provide a report on locations where women veterans are using VA health care.

For more information on potential warning signs of suicide, click here.

BATTLE BUDDY RESPONSE TEAM (BBRT) UPDATE

Battle Buddy Response Team, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing suicides among veterans and their families, has helped 86 veterans in just eight months — from February to September, 2020. The assistance ranged from mental health and advocating, to just sitting and talking. Last week the Team rendered aid to a Navy veteran by securing him a new hot water heater and finding service providers to update his electrical and plumbing needs.

Team Members are ready to deploy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year across the United States to perform welfare checks when a concerned party reaches out. If you know of a veteran or a veteran family member who may need help, please fill out a Deployment Form on the Battle Buddy Response Team website.

Statistics show that an average of 22 veterans commit suicide every day, a staggering number that demonstrates the need for organizations like Battle Buddy Response Team.

Learn more through their website: https://battlebuddyresponseteam.org or call (855)777-BBRT. The 501(c)(3) charity appreciates donations to cover their services when helping veterans and their families.

Battle Buddy Response Team is working nonstop to ensure the safety of all veterans and their family members. They will not stop until their mission of “Stopping and Preventing All Veteran Suicide” is completed.