On Tuesday, September 9, in concert with their Office of Military and Veteran Services, the Manhattan Campus of Fordham University will host the Inaugural launch of an End Veteran Debt Summit that will address the seemingly intractable socio-economic challenges faced by veterans and their counterparts in the civilian sector.

This intentional inclusion of civilian individuals, charities, and businesses to share the research, tools, education, and skills that veterans, active-duty, and the VA industriously apply to our world. We are pioneering that effort, appropriately, with The Staten Island Service Member/Veteran and Family (SMVF) Taskforce – launched by the Staten Island Performing Provider System, which includes 70 military and civilian entities

The motivator? After a particularly productive fundraising launch with EVD to fund civilian and veteran financial issues in that borough of NYC, Michael Matthews, Director of Veteran Programs and I agreed that cooperatives such as ours needed to be replicated.

We both felt it was long past time to step outside our military and civilian bunkers, silos, and bubbles and face our shared problems. Challenges that have historically resisted Us (separately) must yield to the power of We. We, the people. We have a lot to learn from Us. Michael and I are calling it the Civ-Vet approach.

Civilian-Service-Civilian

Long before I served, I was a civilian. Long after I served, I returned to life as a civilian.

The difference is that I earned a designation as a “veteran.”. An honorable one; one that I wear with pride. But also one that makes me somehow separate from others who have not had that baptism. 

This ground-breaking summit, although titled in part “Veteran Wrongs,” is an opportunity for its attendees to experiment with leaving rank and title at the door to address wrongs that haunt every American: homelessness, isolation, PTSD, legal injustices, and healthcare failures. Using military and veteran debt and suicide is just a starting point.

The goals of End Veteran Debt (EVD), as it was with the earlier charity I co-founded, RIP Medical Debt (now called Undue Medical Debt), are to create the maximum amount of impact possible through strategic public-private partnerships. If my experience with RIP can be duplicated (RIP to date has abolished over $21B in medical debt for more than 10 million Americans), and it will be, the world will be a better place.

In this Fordham event, within the framework of thinking globally (abolishing millions of dollars in veteran debt nationally) and acting to meet the immediate needs of individuals and families in distress locally, our efforts will not stop at abolishing veteran medical bills, but in searching out and erasing any form of life-crushing debt that impacts our community. 

Let’s enter into that conversation or, better yet, roll up our sleeves and meet personally at the 9/9/2025 NYC Summit. Click on this link for more details. 

Oh yes, Part II? That newsletter will follow in one week with a full itinerary, list of organizations attending and invited, and a “reveal” of a unique and creative approach to understanding and solving the problems being addressed.