The Walter D. Ehlers Community Recreation Center in Buena Park was buzzing with commotion on Saturday, July 12, as Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva held a huge event honoring Orange County’s veterans. She was also there to talk about several key issues that pertain directly to the vets, and were topics that they were quite curious about as well.
The main issue that received the most attention was the one concerning Assembly Bill 1453 and the push for the state of California to further authorize the building of a new veteran’s cemetery in Orange County.
The Walter D. Ehlers Community Recreation Center in Buena Park was buzzing with commotion on Saturday, July 12, as Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva held a huge event honoring Orange County’s veterans. She was also there to talk about several key issues that pertain directly to the vets, and were topics that they were quite curious about as well.
The main issue that received the most attention was the one concerning Assembly Bill 1453 and the push for the state of California to further authorize the building of a new veteran’s cemetery in Orange County.
“The Orange County Veteran’s Cemetery Act has very personal and sentimental value to me,” says Quirk-Silva. “I have a connection with it because I have a father who was in the United States Air Force and a brother who was in the Coast Guard. Both have passed, and they are not buried close to home, so I understand just how hard it is on these veterans and their families.”
Several veterans spoke up on behalf of Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva, and showed their support
in means of her push to have Assembly Bill 1453 ratified. Jesse Nauta, age 67, is a retired member of
the military and has served in both the Korean and Vietnam War. He so far likes what he sees in regards
to how Quirk-Silva is treating the veterans as a top priority.
“I think that she is doing a good job helping the veterans and is lending out extra efforts for them. She is lending more awareness to their needs.”
Nauta’s wife seconds this notion, and is thrilled that the local veterans of Orange County are now being
given the opportunity to have their own home cemetery for their brothers and sisters in arms.
“It’s nice to hear about their plans to build a veteran’s cemetery. The one’s in Riverside and Los Angeles are both too far, and the other is all the way in the Miramar, San Diego area. It’s great that Orange County is finally getting their own,” says DorthyNauta.
Another focal point of the morning’s festivities is how both big and local government plans to
solve the problems regarding veteran homelessness, and suicide. According to the Department of
Veteran’s Affairs, every 65 minutes a military veteran commits suicide. This horrible outcome has been
a pandemic over the past several decades.
(It was also found that 18 to about 22 veterans end their lives every day, and about 69 percent of them are 50 years of age or older; while 31 percent are age 49 or under as reported by Melanie Haiken of www.forbes.com.)
Quirk-Silva had this to say about the misfortune of America’s vets:
“Much more work needs to be done to stop the fast growing homelessness and suicide rates that plague our veterans,” Quirk Silva said. “Once they come home, around 6 to 12 months of their arrival; that’s when the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sets in. Many of our returning soldiers are not accessing their benefits mainly because they don’t thoroughly know how and need some extra guidance.
They are sent to go multiple tours, some from 3 to 5 even and its effecting them.
“Then, we try to bring them back and have them integrated back into normal civilian life, when they haven’t been a normal civilian since the time that they were 18 years old. In the military, everything is so structured and planned out for them, and then when they come home; they are forced to fend for themselves.”
Quirk-Silva and her cabinet plan to help combat these situations that are afflicting our nation’s
veterans by partnering with the Employment Development Department to host two upcoming events in
September and November titled “Hire A Hero” to help in aiding veterans both past and present find jobs
and get help with other benefits.
Seventy-eight-year-old Les Shobe, who did a stint in Vietnam as a member of the U.S. Air Force, said addressing one or two issues at a time would prove to be beneficial to veterans.
“As long as they focus on one or two pushes, they will be effective,” Shobe said. “They got to hit single causes patiently one step at a time. I support her and her pushes for the new cemetery along with the push for more help for veterans.”
