The California Department of Veterans Affairs holds a town hall in the Joint Forces Training Base's Liberty Theater in Los Alamitos at 6 this evening. (Anyone interested can also tour the base's Veteran Services Center from 5-5:30 p.m.) After an hour overview of programs offered and questions from an audience that was invited to attend free of charge (after showing at picture ID at the base entrance), follow up breakout sessions run from 7 to 8 p.m.
One wonders how many of these sessions there will be given the many, many issues facing veterans these days.
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Here are just some of those issues based on a quick glance at government and veteran advocacy sites:
PTSD
Hepatitus C
POWs
MIAs
Gulf War Syndrome
Vietnam flashbacks
Disability compensation
Pension
GI Bill
Vocational Rehabilitation
Employment
Healthcare
Suicide prevention
Educational assistance
Dependent assistance
Cemetery services
Survivor benefits
Life insurance
Home loans
Discrimination based on race
Discrimination based on sex
Discrimination based on sexual orientation
Chemical dependency
Recognition
Let me know the issues I'm missing.
If you're interested in attending, the theater is in Building 6 at 4411 Yorktown Ave. For more information, call J.P. Tremblay at (916) 653-2010, Jaime Arteaga at (916) 653-1355, Laura Herzog at (562) 522-5040 or Debbie Gregory at (800) 817-3777 or (805) 306-0580, ext. 124.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.