Editor:
Re: Help those who suffer in silence, March 4 editorial.
After reading the above-mentioned editorial, I felt a wonderful sense of pride that I was a member of the Rotary Club of White Rock.
Our Rotary club has been working closely with the management of Honour House in New Westminster. Using their requirements, we will provide funds to completely furnish a small house on the Honour House property. This ‘home away from home’ will be used primarily for post-traumatic-stress sufferers. Honour House provides this service at no charge for first-responders: police officers, firefighters, paramedics, sheriffs, border guards, search-and-rescue workers, Coast Guards members, correction officers and their family members in times of medical need.
I have personally lived, as many of my generation, with relatives and fathers returning home after many years in the Second World War. They were expected to take their place in our communities. No help was given with their emotional problems caused by what they were expected to do to protect their countries.
We lived with the ‘silence’ that we had to endure and tried to understand, while the returning vet had ‘the problems’ and ‘the war’. Many did not survive the ‘problems’. Nor did their families.
Thank you for bringing forward the need for this sort of service.
Honour House, which does not receive provincial or federal funding, can be found on the Internet. It is always in need of help.
Bonnie Goodwin, Rotary Club of White Rock director of community service