There’s a growing “disconnect” between Americans and their military, which will require increased support and public awareness to solve, actor and military advocate Gary Sinise said Tuesday.
Sinise, the Emmy award-winning actor from “CSI:NY” who also starred in “Forrest Gump” and “Apollo 13,” said studies show that more than 50 percent of veterans feel disconnected from the average citizen.
“There’s a serious disconnect between the average American citizen and their military,” Sinise said, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington.
It can be solved, Sinise said, but will require communities to rally around their military members and veterans in an effort to raise public awareness about the issues they face.
Chief among those issues is the 50,000 veterans suffering from the physical and mental wounds of war, Sinise said. He labeled post-traumatic stress disorder an “epidemic” among veterans.
Sinise highlighted the support nonprofits can provide, adding that military nonprofits are needed more than ever, highlighting the problems undercovered at Veterans Affairs hospitals nationwide.
“Government alone cannot possibly fill the needs,” Sinse said. “We all know the challenges the VA has. Thank God there are these military nonprofits.”
Education that highlights the rigors and reality of war and military deployment is the best path in raising public awareness, he said.
He emphasized the role memorials and museums can play. Sinise pointed to the future Medal of Honor Museum, slated to open in South Carolina in the next few years, which will highlight the heroic veterans who have received the Medal of Honor, a distinction awarded to fewer than 2 percent of veterans.
The museum will include a “character development” program that Sinise said will allow youths to learn more about the military and service members’ heroism.
Sinise said he became an advocate for the military and its veterans in the 1980s, after realizing the “shameful” treatment Vietnam War veterans received.
He established the Gary Sinise Foundation in June 2011, after being inspired to do more after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. While on a USO tour in Afghanistan, Sinise was invited by a general to witness the casket of a dead soldier being loaded on a plane back to the U.S.
“What my eyes saw and my heart felt that day will always remain with me,” he said, adding it was a “painful, sobering reminder of the cost of freedom.”
His nonprofit has helped military and veterans by providing custom smartphones for disabled veterans, assisting veterans and their families financially, and holding festivals and concerts at military hospitals and bases.
Sinise most proudly touted that the foundation has helped build handicap-accessible “smart homes” for four of the the five quadruple-amputees who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sinise said it will take a continued grassroots effort to raise awareness on veterans’ issues, but that Americans owe it to their military members.
“As citizens, we benefit from what they do for us,” he said. “The cost of freedom is high and America has always paid it.”
