Bill of Rights for American Veterans (BRAVE)

Bill of Rights for American Veterans (BRAVE)

By signing this petition I agree that we need to:
1. Properly treat mental health issues
2. Prevent homelessness among veterans
3. Give disabled vets the benefits they've earned
4. Fully fund our veterans' hospitals
5. Compensate troops made to serve longer

Veterans' groups across the country have worked together with MTV to identify top issues impacting young veterans. To mobilize support, MTV is working with these organizations to consolidate these top issues and create BRAVE, The Bill of Rights for America's Veterans. MTV and these Veterans organizations are asking Americans to sign this petition supporting BRAVE to demand our elected officials make BRAVE a reality. Our troops have fought for us, now it's our turn to fight for them!

We need our Elected Officials to:

1. Properly treat mental health issues.
Every troop gets face-to-face screening from a mental health professional prior to deployment and within the first six (6) months of returning home from war.
REASON: Right now a tremendous number of soldiers are returning from the war with mental health issues and brain injuries. The current methods for evaluating and treating such injuries are ineffective and have left countless veterans undiagnosed or without proper treatment. While screening methods have improved since the war began, mandating evaluations, having enough mental health professionals to provide in-person evaluations, and working to eliminate the stigma associated with receiving mental health assistance while in the military is needed and still hasn't happened.

2. Prevent homelessness among veterans.
Prevent young veterans and their families from falling into homelessness by creating 20,000 more permanent supportive housing units for very low-income veterans by December 31, 2009.
REASON: Right now on any given night there are 150,000-200,000 American veterans who are homeless. Men and women who have served our country are coming home and being forced to sleep on the streets in many cases due to mental and financial problems that often times are a result of their service to our country. Permanent supportive housing units offer young veterans and their families not only a home, but a support structure to help them get the help they need finding food, clothing, job training, jobs, legal aid, and health services.

3. Give disabled vets the benefits they've earned.
The number of troops with physical, psychological, and neurological wounds waiting for their benefits should be cut in half by December 31, 2009.
REASON: Right now soldiers are coming home from the war with injuries that leave them disabled and in many cases unable to function as they did before the war. They are entitled to disability compensation to help them get on and stay on their feet. Currently the wait for such compensation is 6-8 months and puts an unnecessary burden on our injured veterans which often leads to additional problems like debt, mental health issues, homelessness, marital crisis, and suicide. To date, it is estimated that there 600,000 to 800,000 claims from our veterans that are still waiting to be processed by Veterans Affairs.

4. Fully fund our veterans' hospitals
Veterans' hospitals should be fully funded for the 2010 fiscal year by September 20, 2009.
REASON: Right now Veterans hospitals, whose job it is to take care of our wounded warriors, are underfunded or not funded in time so they are unable to provide the proper personnel or services needed to treat our veterans. Taking care of our injured veterans is a cost of war and the facilities to do so need to be funded. Veterans' organizations all agree that funding for veterans hospitals needs to be sufficient, timely and predictable in order for the hospitals to be able to provide our veterans with the services they need and deserve.

5. Compensate troops made to serve longer.
Troops on Stop Loss orders should receive an additional $1,500 / month in pay.
REASON: Right now soldiers who should be veterans and have fulfilled their term of service to our country are being made to serve extended tours. Despite the fact they are being told to serve longer than they agreed to, they are not given any compensation for this extended service which takes its toll on soldiers and their family's mental, physical, and financial stability. $1,500 is a number that was determined by veterans' organizations as a fair increase given the service being asked of these soldiers and similar compensation that is given to emergency responders at home during their time of extended service during a crisis.