LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) – An East Texas veteran launches his own effort to help others.
The need to help veterans with mental health issues is the inspiration of one purple heart veteran to start his own effort called, ‘The Rally Point’.
He was 11 bravo… Army infantry… A veteran of ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.
45 year old Vern Rannier, a purple heart recipient is now the CEO of ‘Oceans Health Care’ in Longview… and now on another mission.
“Every veteran knows what a rally point is. When you’re in combat and you get lost, everybody knows where to fall back to. And that’s where you regroup, you refocus. The military doesn’t teach you how to come home. It causes the depression, and you really need somebody to talk to,” Vern says.
Rannier suffers from PTSD, and because of his experience, wanted to help fellow East Texas veterans with mental health issues and dealing with PTSD.
“Even today if I drive under an overpass, I’m still looking up. Because when I was over there they were dropping grenades on us or shooting at us. We pride ourselves on providing the best comprehensive behavioral health care possible,” he says.
“It was scary at times. You just have to learn trigger, trigger points, how to protect him,” says wife Meredith Rannier.
Statistically, more than 20 veterans commit suicide in the United States everyday.
But part of PTSD awareness and treatment is not just the veterans but their families, which is also a focus of ‘The Rally Point’.
“One of the things I’ve heard from veterans in the past is ‘I don’t want to talk to someone who doesn’t know what I’m going through’. We’re all licensed. We’re going to walk with them every step of the way,” Rannier says.
Mission objective: Using licensed therapists to get the right care to every veteran that needs it.
“We give that safe place, we give that opportunity. 86 percent of the people that come to our groups, they complete our program. Because what we do is effective and it works,” says Vern.
Rannier says ‘Oceans Health Care’ will have an open house over the next 3 Saturdays, and invites veterans and their families to come in.
‘Rally Point’ will begin September 8th.
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