First of two parts.

Everybody needs a buddy. Buddies are essential for quality of life. They provide contact with another beating heart. They are our sounding boards that echo lucidity back to us when we are too mired down to possess objectivity. They are Kleenex for our emotions, mirrors for our souls, sunlight for the darkness and the counter-weight on our teeter-totter of life.

In the direst times of life, buddies are literal life savers. This fact, coupled with the phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention,” transports to the fabulous project, The Battle Buddies Foundation. TBBF truly defines the statement, “difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions.”

Kenny Bass, TBBF’s founder and executive director, is a Marine veteran coping with PTSD and a myriad of serious and life-long physical disabilities resulting from a 2003 IED hit in Iraq. In 2012, Kenny was prescribed a service dog, but that prescription was the end of the care.

Buddies are not limited to human beings.

During the quest to find an organization to provide a dog and raise necessary funds, Kenny contacted his good friend Joshua Rivers, who served with him in Iraq. That reunion gave birth to TBBF. These founders would be joined by Bass’s brother, Jon Campbell.

Their goal is simple: “Veterans deserve an organization that can place them with a certified and trained PTSD dog, without burdening them with the financial impact most veterans simply cannot afford, or the geographic restrictions that most of the existing organizations have.”

TBBF’s mission is clear: “The Battle Buddy Foundation is dedicated to promoting a higher quality of life, assisting with the liberty of independent living, and aiding in the pursuit of happiness for disabled veterans as they transition to civilian life.”

It’s important to note that these dogs are not just companions or limited service dogs; they are intensely boot-camp trained with at least 25 specific skills.

The following data will illuminate the importance of and significant need for TBBF.

A compilation of factors brought light to the subject of the woeful lack of medical care for veterans, especially in the field, of PTSD. One was the lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense et al. v. Peake, Case No. C 07 3758, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal. 2007). That case went to the U.S. Court of Appeals, and in May 2011 the victorious VFCS stated why it had to act:

“Veteran suicides have reached an epidemic level with over 120 veterans taking their own lives every week and 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans under VA care.”

The 2007 number of 17-18 suicides per day spiraled to 22 per day in 2010, plus 1 per day among active-service personnel. The Department of Veteran Affairs study findings released in February 2013 were reaffirmed with another released in January 2014.

In the earlier study, Reuters reported, “More than 69 percent of veteran suicides were among individuals aged 50 years or older.” Of the latter study, NBC News reported, “During 2009, the suicide rate for veterans 24 and younger was 46.1 per 100,000, meaning the deadly pace increased by 79 percent during that two-year span.”

These staggering numbers scream “epidemic.” Grievously, the tally does not include the number of related-family-member suicides.

The National Military Family Association and independently, people like Army wife Kristina Kaufman and Deborah Mullen, wife of Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have worked fervidly to urge the Pentagon to track this sect of suicides.

A stunning March 2014 CNN report told of Mrs. Mullen speaking at a 2009 Defense Department conference. Only the Army had any response to Mullen’s questions on tracking suicides among relatives, reporting nine in 2009. She asked the same leaders how many family members had attempted suicide and then reported, “I was stunned when I was told that there were too many to track,” and “If that number is that large just in the Army, we really don’t have an idea of the scope of the problem.”

Recognizing that those inquiries are not limited to only returning wounded and disabled military personnel, this underlying information is presented to expose the seriousness of the home-front battle our afflicted military men, women and their families fight every hour of their lives during and after they leave the first battlefield.

To know that TBBF is the result of three non-celebrity men armed with a vast vision, unfettered eagerness and deep passion is beyond comprehension for most of us.

Details of TBBF will be discussed in Part 2.

Betty Arenson has lived in the SCV since 1968 and describes herself as a conservative who’s concerned about progressives’ politics and their impacts on the country, her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She says she is unashamed to own a gun or a Bible, couldn’t care less about the color of the president’s skin, and demands that he uphold his oath to protect and follow the Constitution of the United States in its entirety. Her commentary publishes Fridays.