VETERANS today face a very different world than did veterans returning from Vietnam. Praise and adulation have replaced contempt and public humiliation.
That we offer more respect now, however, doesn’t alter the fact that the post-service trauma today’s veterans endure is any less than that suffered by Vietnam vets.
Daniel Cortez, a decorated Vietnam veteran who served in the United States Marine Corps, says that the military trains soldiers to show no weakness or compassion toward its enemies. But, he continues, “such mindsets instilled by our initial military indoctrination remain a double-edged sword. It’s needed on the battlefield, but not in transition after the battle is over.”
For many vets, the nightmares and survivor’s guilt they feel becomes overwhelming, leading them to drugs and, eventually, the legal system. According to Justice for Vets, about 1 in 5 veterans has symptoms of a mental health disorder or cognitive impairment.
Enter the Rappahannock Regional Veterans Treatment Docket, an intensive program for former service members who find themselves in legal trouble.
Part of a national movement that Judge Robert Russell of the Buffalo City Court launched during the 1990s, the RRVTD offers offenders the chance to avoid jail time if they complete a rigorous 18-month program.
Begun in Spotsylvania by Judge Ricardo Rigual, also a former Marine; state Sen. Bryce Reeves, R–Spotsylvania; and public defender Wendy Harris, the RRVTD brings together treatment specialists, probation officers, counselors, and mentors like Cortez, to work with accepted individuals to break their addictions, deal with suicidal thoughts, land jobs, and avoid jail time, thereby keeping their criminal records clean.
The country may feel irretrievably divided, but programs like RRVTD are finding broad bipartisan support. In 2019, Congress passed the Veterans Treatment Court Coordination Act, which empowered “the Department of Justice to create a program that would provide funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal governments with veterans treatment courts or the intent to begin one,” according to Washington Military news.
Locally, that bill was supported both by congressional representatives Rob Wittman, R–1st, and Abigail Spanberger, D–7th.
The National Vet Court Alliance, chaired by Cortez, raises money to support the RRVTD and to help spread the program to other jurisdictions.
The alliance’s primary goal now is to raise funds to develop a “housing center, with vehicles to help get vets to work as they demonstrate contrition and earn back their driving privileges as part of the docket program,” according to Cortez. A key supporter has been GOYA Chief Executive Officer Bob Unanue, who is involved nationally and internationally in efforts to support vets.
This program is a welcome reminder that there are better ways to deal with drug addiction, alcoholism, and nonviolent infractions than by putting people behind bars.
By recognizing that veterans often fall into their legal troubles because of the trauma they have endured, most can appreciate that these individuals are not totally responsible for the places they find themselves in.
Rick Rein, a recent graduate of RRVTD, said well what the program taught him: “This program helped me believe I was a person worth saving, and that’s the biggest lesson I learned.”
We tip our collective hats to Judge Rigual, Cortez, and the many volunteers who work to raise the money needed to make this program work and give these deserving individuals a chance to reclaim their lives.
Further, we would hope that people could begin to extend that same compassion to others. Poverty, physical disabilities, circumstances arising over which people have no control such as sudden job loss, devastating illness, massive medical debt, and more can send any of us into depression, or worse. And like vets, these people can find themselves in legal trouble.
Their lives, too, are worth saving. The individuals benefit, to be sure. But so, too, society (it costs far less to rehabilitate people than to incarcerate them).
We understand that some will argue the answer to avoiding the court system is to exercise “personal responsibility” and not do something that puts you in that position to begin with.
Cortez and the vets docket shows, however, that personal responsibility falls on each of us, too, to care for those who need our help.
That more-compassionate understanding of personal responsibility is helping our vets. Imagine what it could do for others.
To learn more about the vets docket, visit nationalvetcourtalliance.org.