Editor,

Combat Veterans on Whidbey Island lack easy access to professional counseling for PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and related conditions.

To get needed help, vets must travel to VA facilities off-island. This can be particularly difficult for low-income, homeless or disabled vets.

One goal of the Whidbey Veterans Resource Center is to provide free, VA-approved counseling at our new offices in the South Whidbey Community Center in Langley.

As a counselor at the Portland Vet Center for the past 10 years, I worked with combat veterans of all eras, from WW II to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many Vietnam vets seek counseling for the first time when PTSD is retriggered by changes in their lives such as retirement or illness.

Many younger veterans juggle work and family while confronting the psychological and practical challenges of readjusting to civilian life. The suicide rate among veterans of all ages is distressingly high.

The Whidbey Veterans Resource Center serves all Whidbey veterans and their families.

We are working to raise $10,000 to match a Challenge Grant from U.S. Navy combat veteran Lucas Jushinski, owner of Island Herb in Freeland. We’ve raised more than $8,000 and expect to reach and exceed our goal in order to establish a continuing funding base.

WVRC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Except for a part-time bookkeeper we’re an all-volunteer organization.

Please consider helping veterans by sending donations or pledges to WVRC Campaign 2018, P.O. Box 85, Freeland, WA 98249.

Jeff Rogers

Freeland