Thanks to my receiving the Whistleblower “Pillar” award at the National Whistleblower Summit and Film Festival this week in Washington, DC, End Veteran Debt and I have been outed for who we are, what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. 

We rabble-rouse, say something when we see something, join shamelessly with civilian, military, and veteran camps to right wrongs, and make sure, through a growing community of independent press, that people hear about it.

Because if people don’t know about you, they can’t do anything about you. No matter how important your cause, how consuming your fight, or how necessary to bring about change, nothing happens until public outrage is ignited.

As EVD staff writer and Veteran Mission Possible Meta Mereday points out smartly in this newsletter, mainstream media will not be the megaphone. 

It will be the efforts of the free press, independent journalists, and the drumbeat of incessant social media and its myriad of journalists and whistleblowers that will raise awareness to bring America back from the precipice.

Not to forget the “factions”

Even with growing awareness, nothing’s gonna happen if we don’t get out of our silos (reinforced by algorithms to keep us in that bubble), away from our VFW/Veteran halls, our Rotary/Kiwanis/et al lunches, separate, competitive charities, and start working with others to supercharge our effectiveness. 

Just how that can, and will, be done will be the subject of many editorials and stories to follow here in Now Hear This, along with EVD’s increased co-fundraising campaigns with sister charities and sponsoring businesses. The best to date being “Operation Debt-Day,” in which we are partnering with the Staten Island Veteran Task Force, led by a civilian. Michael Matthews. 

(Wait ‘til he and I reveal our Civ-Vet approach to ending veteran debt as a social determinant of suicide and an upcoming micro-summit on veteran issues at Fordham University on September 9. Request info here.)

Roll the (internet) presses!