Northwest now is supported in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

veterans are facing an unprecedented dismantling of the supports they've come to rely upon, including employment across a wide swath of federal agencies and the medical services provided by the Veterans Administration.

Tonight, we hear from nine lined veteran services founder Shawn Durnen, trying to help local veterans deal with the problems of their past, all while the future looks increasingly murky as the Trump administration makes cuts at our Steve Kiggins with more on the challenges being faced by those who serve veterans.

Are the focus tonight on northwest now?

Music I want to start this program with an important note, and that is that not all veterans have problems.

It's easy sometimes to wrap all veterans into one big group as we talk about the problems some of them face.

With that said, there are a lot of veterans who face particular issues associated with PTSD, disability, substance abuse, homelessness, suicide, and making the transition into the civilian world.

Shawn Durnan is an Army veteran, a lifetime Achievement Award winner at Tacoma, his recent city of Destiny awards, and a person on the frontlines helping veterans navigate an ever shrinking system of support and employment.

As the president and CEO of nine line veterans services right here in Western Washington.

Our Steve Kiggins starts us off At first.

Look, this office lobby looks just like any other.

But take a moment to notice what's hanging on the walls will tell you this space is anything but ordinary.

We are filling a gap that can only be met with the need of support and love that these people deserve.

Sean Durnan founded and leads the nonprofit nine Line Veterans Services.

He's a veteran who served in Iraq, and he isn't shy sharing his challenges about reintegration, homeless, living out of a car, raising a child, going to college.

He escaped his troubles thanks to a lifeline thrown by peers.

It's what spurred the launch of his nonprofit.

For more than a decade.

Nightline has been serving veterans who need housing, peer mentorship and mental health resources, and more since its start.

Nightline has grown to offer career and job training, partnering with companies like Boeing and the Seahawks, supporting veterans in 15 Washington counties, and coordinating with similar nonprofits from 44 states across the country.

So if we have a veteran or a family member who's just down on their luck and are having a bad time and they're like, hey, we don't want to call Michigan home anymore, we're headed to Washington.

Within 24 hours, we can have a consistent safety plan built out for them.

So when they arrive, they're connected with all those local resources.

Late this year, Niland received a major community based grant from the U.S.

Department of Veterans Affairs targeting suicide prevention.

With my team and this funding.

It's allowed me to broaden our case management engagement to those most rural counties who historically and statistically reported by our U.S.

Department of Veteran Affairs, the state of Washington, who have these high numbers of suicides.

The work that you do in Pierce County is not unnoticed.

Nightline and other veteran service organizations, or recently recognized by the Pierce County Council for their work supporting veterans transition toward civilian life.

Serving your country leaves an imprint and leaves a legacy and a family, and you never know who has felt that legacy until you open up.

And so many of our veterans.

Even still, with everything we're doing, continue to just sometimes not ask for help till it's too late.

Yet less than a year after federal DoD's budget cuts, Durnan worries the need to support struggling veterans and their families will continue needing help from nonprofits like Nightline.

All of these people are going to have to come together to do what we can.

I don't think there's a good answer for the next couple of years, because we're going to continue to see these reductions happen while we're heading into a recession in Pierce County.

Steve Higgins, Northwest.

Now, I'll Federal spending cuts are hitting two important areas the Veterans Administration and the benefits it provides, as well as a reduction of the federal workforce, where some veterans sometimes receive a legal hiring preference.

Those are two big areas of change, but really, it's the entire infrastructure built around veterans services that's in crisis as the Trump administration makes cuts.

Sean, thanks so much for coming to northwest now.

Great to have a discussion about veterans and veterans issues at such an important time right now, not only as we head into America 2050, but we've got the Trump administration making a lot of changes at the national level and a lot of issues that just continue for veterans as they march forward in their lives.

Let's start, though, with a little bit of a of a bio.

Tell me a little bit about your your background, your education, your service history and how you got involved with Nightline.

Working with veterans.

So I'm glad you ask.

I am the product of a really bad military transition.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm the poster child who slipped, tripped, and fell, and every bad choice you can do post service.

Now, that said, when I went into the Army back in 2006, my sole purpose was to, you know, get out of Detroit.

We were facing one of the world's largest economic downfalls with, you know, big three going belly up.

Especially for me, a kid who is like third generation General Motors family.

So it really was following my other grandpa, his footsteps, World War Two veteran and just carrying on that proud service.

So when I went into the Army, it really was about, how do I how do I grow as a person?

What's my next steps?

Things along those lines.

During that time, I had the real great opportunity was traveling, you know, Middle East.

You know, I served in Iraq.

But then in Germany, Ireland, you know, I just really got to have that full world to experience and to meet other cultures and to understand the world.

So when I came back home and there was such a disconnect between, like, that military culture, when you get out of the service because, you know, they say in the military, you do more by 9 a.m.

than most people do.

All day.

And that's, you know, it's the truth.

So when I got out, there was such a disconnect.

I lost my tribe.

I lost, you know, my connection, everything along those lines.

So I had to go through this healing process over a couple of years.

And what that really led to was, okay, I started here.

I was in all these bad things.

I got a lot of support from the VA, a lot of friends.

I built this amazing network of people who genuinely cared.

And so it allowed me to grow as a person.

So then I thought to myself, me and my buddies are sitting in a garage one day and we're like, what can we do to make this process better?

There's a disconnect between veterans access and their benefits, accessing their care, getting services.

It was just such a it was very catty Wampus, I guess is the best way to put that.

So we started coordinating how we could get, you know, resource a resource be without you know, that stereotypical.

Here's a piece of paper with all these numbers call and good luck and God bless.

Wow, that didn't work.

So that very same year, we hosted the Veterans Resource Fair, the Tacoma Dome, which is one of our biggest annual events, the largest in the state.

And it really pushed forward and catapulted our goal of creating an agency.

So me and for my colleagues built Nightline.

At the time, we had nothing.

It was just a small little nonprofit space out in Thurston County at the veterans home.

And we built that from what it was then to now, housing four different programs, servicing over servicing thousands of veterans a year with very comprehensive support services.

I mean, not only do we have our own internal business model, but we also have grant funding similar to other program.

Give me the website so people can learn more and get involved.

And also tell me what nine line means.

Perfect.

So our website first of all is Dot, the number nine line vets.org.

On the website itself is very integrated.

So it's not one of those super complex platforms.

Go there.

You can access the services, connect with our resources, talk to our team.

It's very, very user friendly.

One of the things to I want to do address with you early on here, and I said this into the intro running into this segment, I think it's very easy a lot of times, particularly in media, to sweep all the veterans into one big pile, and they all have terrible problems.

They all have PTSD and drug addicts and all the things.

Now, that's not necessarily true.

And I want to make sure that we acknowledge that and and tell folks there's a lot of veterans who did their thing come out doing fine.

And, and I think that's important to to mention talk a little bit about that.

And, and, and do you kind of serve a subsection of the veterans population?

And do you feel that that subsection has grown or shrunk over the years when it comes to particular problems and issues that are being experienced out there?

So there's I mean, it's no secret to anyone in the country currently that that we are facing some serious socio economic issues, affordable health care, affordable housing, supportive services, case management, reduction in federal dollars, things along those lines.

What I'm seeing in the population that we directly serve is really that mild to moderate symptomology.

Right.

So these are individuals who are to your point, right.

Mislabeled, right?

Yes.

It is an absolute fact.

You don't go to war and come back unscathed.

That is a fact.

But that doesn't label you for life.

There's a healing process.

You know, I spoke to it a little bit ago, but there's a healing process in that.

You're you're coming into your worst time, you're trusting your peers, you're building out what your future looks like.

And for the young man who enlisted, or the young woman who enlisted at 18, and all they've known is where to be, when to be, how to dress, how to act to.

Now you have to be completely self-sustained.

It's just unrealistic.

Right.

So the programing we've developed at nine line meets those immediate needs, whether it's our, you know, contracting business side where we partner with our friends at Boeing selfish Plug.

But where we're actually contracting with them to provide jobs for our veterans.

So we are refurbishing respirators.

We're doing these things, which in turn creates jobs for our recently homeless veterans, a chronically homeless veteran, or again, the young man or woman who straight out of high school into the service and no secondary education.

Now we're giving them incredible job skills.

And a lot of that is supportive through our different sites, our warehouse operations, things like that.

But in turn, also we have our housing here in the Puget Sound, where it's transitional, permanent, supportive, a little mix of both where we can house them, we can employ them, we can offer them the additional job training, which is, again, separate to that.

But that job training sets them up for what's next.

Do you think thought experiment for you?

I see problems, obviously somebody coming off the point of the spear who saw combat.

That to me is a group of people.

And another group of people are running the military.

Yeah, but weren't neces and essential, but not necessarily at the point of the spear having to do some of the same kinds of healing that the folks at the point were with.

That said, do you think the military, in some ways over promises young people about cradle to grave care a job?

You can learn how to load this missile battery, and that applies beautifully in the civilian world.

Have they over promised?

And is that necessary for recruiting?

I sometimes wonder if people go into the military with a little bit of an idea that, hey, this sets me up for life.

Now, the four years you do, in a rearward area or I'm not saying it's not important, but that it doesn't seem that that should equate to me to a lifetime of being a veteran and and having that carry me for the next 30 years.

You're going to have to reinvent.

You're going to have to learn a skill that's applicable in a subdivision in terms of doing Hvac or whatever it may be.

Oh, absolutely.

But test me on that.

Am I thinking right, or no military needs to come through or hit me?

So I think I don't think it's a black or white answer.

Right.

There's there's plenty of layers, there's plenty of nuance.

I'm not going to work on television.

Shine.

We need black or white answers.

Fair enough.

I'm getting so so look at it like this.

Right?

When we have individuals who are part of a system of rote.

Right.

So we're familiar with how Cogs interact and how one makes the other move.

That's similar to the military concept, right?

You're programed you are there to do mission purpose and drive the military promises you the moon.

Yeah.

Now they may deliver the stars depending on what happens.

To your point, though, if you're not a combat veteran or if you are a combat veteran, your experiences are very different and based on those experiences is really where your outcome drives you.

And a lot of those military certifications may not carry over right now.

Again, for us locally, we work with work Source, our good friend Shelly Willis, who was an amazing advocate.

But even with those systems, they have to carry over some of those credentials and, you know, joint service transcripts or education and things along those lines.

It doesn't create any promises.

The U.S.

is really great at creating soldiers.

They're really great at war time.

They're really great at defending.

And that's wonderful.

That should be our purpose.

And mission, and there's nothing to follow.

It's the next 30 years that are the problem, right?

Because there's you can program a soldier, right.

And there's honor in that.

And as someone who served, I take great honor in that.

But when I came out, the mechanisms were not similar.

So you have two separate concepts of introduction service.

And then on the back side of that you now see the fall off.

Yeah.

Good luck.

Yeah.

Right.

Thank you for your service.

Good luck God bless.

And out the door you go.

Yeah.

And then here comes nine line which you outlined earlier.

Yeah.

But what you're trying to do there, let's talk a little bit about the VA.

Treats 9 million veterans at 170 medical centers and a thousand outpatient clinics.

It's obviously we all know it's a huge system.

There's a big whistleblower complaint signed by VA, VA doctors who are talking about the loss of mission critical health care workers as cuts are made to the VA, outsourcing veteran care to the private sector that's ill prepared to deal with the issues, losing integration of many specialties for many issues.

The private side is just too fragmented.

That's some of the critiques I've heard.

And a VA hiring freeze talk a little bit about what's going on in the VA and what your people's experiences with the VA and as the VA in crisis.

Well, the VA is no different than any other medical system, right?

It just happens to be the largest one in the world.

Right?

I mean, you know, little details.

So what it comes down to is, you know, we've talked previously about this and, you know, other concepts, but realistically, we're losing VA personnel.

If you can't maintain a competitive edge, if you can't maintain, you know, the support of your staff who are serving our nation's heroes, they're not going to want to stay.

And so people have asked me this recently, like, what is the failure here?

And the failure is of government.

That's a reality.

We just have to face.

It's not, you know, red, blue, green.

It's government period.

You can paint that whatever you want it.

But when you have a system and people don't see the VA for what it is, it's not just providing direct health care or support services to veterans.

They are.

The VA has been part of medical advancements for the last yep, hundred years.

The pacemaker wouldn't exist.

Insulin for the most part.

The modifications that wouldn't exist, medical advancements that not only help veterans and their families, but it's a national footprint.

In fact, it's a worldwide footprint.

So right now when we look at, you know, whether it's the current administration in the absence of, you know, action, when, you know, the, the, the veteran population is having longer wait times where, you know, there's provider burnout and it's tied to catastrophic amount losing specialists, losing support anywhere.

Yeah, everywhere.

And so it's not the VA as a system comprises of very good people.

And I know several of them.

And I have the blessing of working with a lot of them.

It's the administration and the government not looking at.

We need to put our money where our mouths are.

Again, it comes back to the back end, right?

We're sloughing off 15 years of work, 20 years of work, 30 years of work is now being dropped off in the advancements of supporting not only, again, our military veterans and their families, but medical advancements that serve the entire world.

Right?

I'm thinking about artificial limbs and robotics and the integration of, some of the wonderful things happening at Walter Reed and other places that are not only service providers.

Their research centers.

Yeah.

I mean, earlier this year, I absolutely want to give kudos to, you know, VA Puget Sound.

They opened a satellite clinic over in Navi region, Northwest Island County, for access for our sailors.

It was a huge, huge opportunity and step forward because previously they had to take the ferry or they had to spend their day going to the VA just to have to sit and wait.

So again, I think locally and, you know, I don't speak for the rest of the VA, but you know, locally they're doing advancements and supporting their populations.

But we're seeing a national drop off because of lack of funding and grant, grant support and things like that.

And that's that's huge.

Another big another big piece of of support for veterans that appears to be fading away are federal jobs, federal jobs, you know, really they did kind of deal with that next 20 years.

It was a real, opportunity for somebody coming out, with a certain set of skills that could be augmented and fit nicely into a lot of federal jobs, sometimes preferences, sometimes not necessarily.

But what is going on with the federal workforce and our veterans being disproportionately hit by the reduction in federal workforce?

What's going on there?

Well, so, I mean, it's no secret to people, veterans are defined by service, you know, and when you talk about government jobs, it's it's selfless service.

You know, you don't get into government work to become a wealthy or well-off human being.

You get into it because you find mission and purpose and everything you do.

And, you know, our core values as military service members is literally the ability to serve others.

So naturally and organically.

The federal work system is made up of a majority of military service members.

Big surprise right?

The problem we see is as this reduction in force continues to happen, not only are we losing critical services, we're losing hundreds of thousands of employees who dedicated their lives to service.

So we made a promise to these service members.

We made a promise to their families.

And now, I mean, at the end of the day, we're spending their face.

Not only that, but now we're reducing the support services for our most vulnerable populations.

Yeah.

And so you could theoretically be a veteran, lose your job in the federal service and also have your VA benefits, having access problems and having those benefits starting to fade away.

I mean, you're really a lot of those supports just kind of melting away.

Absolutely.

And it's just it's a horrible, you know, composition of things.

And when you look at, you know, the local footprint that we're already seeing and again, we're just speaking to Washington.

Right.

You're seeing the issues with affordable health care, affordable housing.

You know, our homeless population growing exponentially.

And then, you know, the left hand side, I'm talking on the right hand.

And it's it's compounding.

We've been talking about veterans as a whole.

I want to move over back to that, that that smaller piece of them, when we're talking about things like mental health and suicide, homelessness, some of the big high profile issues, that, again, is not the bulk of the majority of veterans by any stretch, but they're very high profile.

When we talk about homeless veterans and veterans suicides.

And a lot of those problems is that do you feel like that problem is, is getting any better?

Are we learning more?

Have have things gotten better with time or.

No, there's still a lot of crisis in there.

Give me a sense for somebody who's not in this issue like you are every day.

What's going on with that?

No, absolutely.

And in again I come back to programing.

Right.

So I'm going to use Nightline is just an instance here.

So our staff Sergeant Fox program that is funded through the U.S.

Department of Veterans Affairs actually targets early intervention.

So when we talk about suicide prevention and what that means as far as statistics data, it's really using evidence based practices, leveraging peers, because who can relate better to a veteran than another veteran.

And that could be spoken for anybody in any situation.

Right.

But in this instance, we have seen a very small reduction in suicidal ideation.

The problem is when we talk about rural areas and I'll go back to Ireland, what comes to home is, whether you're further down South Thurston, all the way to Spokane, these are rural areas and access to services are very limited.

Yeah.

So how do we how do we look at that for what it is?

So even with the reduction in force and the things that are actively going on, what is happening is teams similar to mine are going out and they're engaging with these rural communities.

So here's a chance I would I want to know what keeps Sean Durnan up at night.

And with the opportunity to sit here and talk to lawmakers, what would you say?

Well, what keeps me up at night is access, right?

We we we constantly preach.

And, you know, we use powerful words like equity and inclusion and things along those lines.

But they're that's what they are.

They're words.

The practical application is missing.

And if if I could be able to tell our legislators locally or even our government officials nationally what the biggest problem is stop waging a war on poverty, stop waging war on our most in need, stop attacking our veterans and invest in your community.

Now, maybe I can be slow sometimes.

But here's the thing.

33 developed countries in the world, 32 of them have kind of mastered universal health care.

So, I mean, I think it's a doable thing.

But it's access.

We have community members and in it and it breaks my heart, I really does who truly don't aren't trying to, you know, milk the system, as it's been stated recently, who are working 40, 80 hours a week, barely scraping by, and they're dependent on those services to support their families.

I'm glad you mentioned that, because The Washington Post came out with a big series of articles about milking the system.

This is a cottage industry on YouTube.

This guy in Idaho, here's how to get 100% disabled.

You may be 60.

We're going to take you to 100.

And here's how to do it.

Here's all the kind of squishy, weird diagnosis.

Here's how you need to go in and play act in front of your doctor.

That's a thing out there.

I don't imagine that helps your cause to see that kind of thing possibly happening.

Well, you know, but there's an answer to that.

There really is.

And again, it comes back to what keeps me up at night.

There's an answer to that.

Maybe politicians should fight their own wars.

Just to be frank, you know, if you don't want, people to file for disability claims and be injured in combat or to be injured, even if you're not a combat veteran stateside or on European command.

This wasn't a discussion about people who were in combat in need.

It is a discussion about a lot of guys who were doing KP duty and in Portugal, right, trying to get 100% disabled.

Well, but, you know, in turn to that and that can't help the people who really do need it.

This is my point.

Well, but who needs it is the question.

And that's where that evaluation period comes in.

Yeah, right.

Because someone could have like let's say you're in Portugal, who's to say you weren't, exposed to a, you know, a bug or, a bacteria or, you know, your food was undercooked or it is a responsibility.

And, you know, this argument is funny to me because in that contract, we promised our service.

In return, we were promised support.

So, you know, the veteran over there, I'm not going to say it's a perfect system, but I will say you asked us to serve.

So now we're asking you to keep your part of the deal, or at least making a fair evaluation of that deal.

Absolutely.

And and the VA math, it goes back to that old oxymoron military intelligence.

VA math is is just so backwards.

And to be evaluated accordingly, you have to go to a doctor who may not be in your town.

You may have to go six towns over.

And if you have all the points system and everything and it's and it's it's a system developed to work against the people they're supposed to be serving to.

Bureaucracy by design.

Oh, terrible.

Sean, thanks so much for coming to northwest.

Now, a great conversation.

It is my absolute pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

Here's a fact we just can't avoid.

The United States is $38 trillion in debt.

The bottom line while cuts are painful, veteran services have to remain a priority, especially among those who were on or near the proverbial point of the spear during conflicts.

That's why helping the bulk of the veteran population make successful transitions to independent civilian life is so important.

so that the promise made during President Lincoln second inaugural address can be kept.

When he asked the nation to, quote, care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.

We thank Shawn and others like him for their efforts.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

You can find this program on the web at kbtc.org, streaming through the PBS app, or listen on Spotify at Apple Podcasts.

That's going to do it for this edition of northwest now.

Until next time, I'm Tom Layson, thanks for watching.

Music