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Vets Helping Vets Going Statewide

July 2nd, 2018 by Mike Vasilinda
More than 10,000 veterans reached out for help in a two year pilot run by the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay that has vets helping other vets get through their troubles.
The project was so successful, it’s being expanded statewide.
Retired Army Staff Sergeant Luke Murphy came home from Iraq missing his right leg, his left leg severely injured.
After a year in the hospital, he says he had a decision to make.
“Honestly, it was a choice,” said Murphy. “Do you wanna live like this, or do you want to give up?”
Murphy wrote ‘Blasted by Adversity’ recounting what he went through.
“I wasn’t comfortable talking to psychologists or folks that hadn’t been through what I’d been through,” said Murphy. “I found just going on a hunting or fishing trip with other amputees was the most rewarding thing for me.”
Now the state is expanding a pilot begun in Tampa Bay to crisis centers statewide.
It will eventually link veterans like Murphy with those who are struggling.
“They have survivor guilt,” said Florida Veterans Affairs Secretary Col. Glen Sutphin. “How, why’d I get home? hun? How come my friends didn’t get home? What was the del here? If they are taking care of helping veterans, then every time they save a veteran who says I’m finished, I’m done with life, If they save them, it takes back. It gives something back to that survivors guilt.”
The program is being expanded in two phases, the first will offer counseling.
The second will actually offer veteran to veteran counseling.
So far in 2018, 15,000 vets have called the statewide line.
“He spent a good two hours on the phone with us,” said Big Bend Call Center CoordinatorCarrie Tyree. “At the end of the call, we had connected him with his immediate need, which was food.”
The number one need for vets in crisis? Behavioral health.
Expanding vet to vet counseling statewide will cost the state just over $1 million.

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