SAN LUIS OBISPO - Disabled Army veteran Darren Thoreson talks about the military awards he has on his living room wall that he received as a paratrooper and combat engineer with the 82nd Airborne Division.
A neck injury ended his military career which included deployments to Panama, the Balkans and the first war in Iraq, and Thoreson has also been diagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
"The Veterans Administration has been great to me", Thoreson says, "they have done everything, I am very blessed when it comes to that."
But Thoreson wonders why, with a growing number of veterans coming home from war, and the many issues they face re-integrating with society, why this has not been a subject of discussion among the candidates in the national election debates.
"The suicide rate and what's going on right now with the military services, concerns me very deeply", Thoreson says, "I must say I am very disappointed."
One new service Central Coast vets have to look forward to is a collaborative effort by the private and public sector to provide free shuttle service to local VA clinics for regular medical checkups.
Four new vans provided by the VA and driven by volunteers will soon begin picking up home-bound vets between San Miguel and Lompoc and the Santa Ynez Valley.
"Fill the gap that has existed for forever actually", says shuttle coordinator Milt Batson, "because I'm not aware of any other program that's five days a week, 8 hours a day."
Homebound veterans like Darren Thoreson applaud the new shuttle service saying it will be a tremendous benefit for Central Coast veterans.
But Thoreson says he and many other vets are struggling to survive on military benefits of about $2,500 a month which he says have not kept up with inflation.
Thoreson says he worries what will happen if proposed steep cuts to the military go through.
"When that does happen I hope the American people realize that defense spending just doesn't deal with ammunition and that", Thoreson says, "it deals with our services at the hospitals and being taken care of that way."
Coordinators of the new Central Coast Veterans Shuttle service have just begun collecting information on local veterans that need the new transportation service and plan to begin running the new vans next week.
