Veterans court: An overdue service for those who served

In about two weeks, America will pause to honor our veterans. And then the moment will pass. After a spurt of parades, political platitudes and paid days off, most people will go back to their daily grind.

Unfortunately, for many of the men and women who served this country, that grind includes homelessness, substance abuse, untreated mental illness — and jail cells.

Fortunately, Orange County is taking a big step to address that problem today when it holds its first session of veterans court.

The attempt is to offer long-term help, rather than simply short-term punishment, to those who served this country.

And for Judge Jerry Brewer, who will preside over this afternoon’s docket, the endeavor comes none too soon.

“If you spent every day at the jail like I do, you’d see veterans charged with the same stuff over and over,” he said, noting that many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s just PTSD after PTSD after PTSD. “They are just lost out there in the world.” Veterans courts attempt to help diagnose the root causes and treat them with resources that already are available — but underused — at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Most of those eligible will be first-time, nonviolent offenders who have been charged with misdemeanors. If the case has a victim, that person also must agree.

Willing offenders can enroll in diversion programs that involve everything from mental-health and substance-abuse treatment to community service and mentoring.

Seminole County Judge John L. Woodard, who presides over a similar program in Seminole County, says he has seen it not only transform lives, but save them.

One former soldier’s cancer was discovered — and treated — only after he entered the program. Another, once homeless, found housing.

“A lot of good can come from this,” Woodard said.

America has been slowly waking up to the ugly reality of life after combat.

We have been a nation that dispatches service members with ease but doesn’t do enough to provide after-care.

A few years ago, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he began every day by reminding himself that veterans led the nation in homelessness, depression, drug abuse and suicide. We owe them better. As long as three years ago, Florida politicians claimed to agree. In a column I penned in 2010, everyone seemed to think veterans courts were a boffo idea. But then … nothing. State Rep. Bryan Nelson, R-Apopka, filed legislation to try to make them happen. But it stalled.

It’s amazing how quickly bad ideas can become laws in this state, while good ideas languish.

Finally, in 2011, legislation authorizing the veterans courts passed. Seminole and other counties got started. And now Orange is ready to take its first step.

Ideally, Orange will one day have a designated prosecutor and public defender to handle these cases. That’s the way it works at other, successful programs — some of which have seen repeat-offender rates plummet. Designated funding or grants also would help.

But for now, Judge Brewer and Chief Judge Belvin Perry thought simply getting it started was most important.

I agree. In a county where about120 veterans are arrested every month, delays are costly.

Both Brewer and Public Defender Bob Wesley, an early advocate of the program, said the program’s overall goal is to break the cycle of criminal behavior — rehabilitate instead of simply incarcerate.

It’s something our entire justice system should to do better.

But it makes sense to start by helping people for whom existing resources are ready.

People who have similar problems and who have made great sacrifices.

People who, in many cases, were abandoned by the very country that asked them to serve.