Letter: VA clinic needs public support

I am the current president of Veterans Club at Pasadena City College. I read the Around Town columns in the Valley Sun concerning the plans to open a VA clinic on our campus. I agree with everything that was mentioned and wanted to tell your readers that there are more than 45,000 U.S. veterans living in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, and it is important that we do everything we can to take care of our nation’s greatest heroes.

Unfortunately, despite this significant number, our region is seriously lacking in vital healthcare services for our veterans. For more than six years our veterans have had to travel several miles outside the San Gabriel Valley in order to obtain treatment for service-connected injuries and trauma. This new clinic will finally fix that problem by providing our veterans with easy access to a local health clinic that they can call their own.

Additionally, it will offer veterans the chance to obtain both their healthcare and educational benefits in one location, and provide guidance to veterans transitioning back into civilian life. More importantly, this will greatly help our student veterans attending Pasadena City College. For many student veterans, the choice of doing well in school and taking care of a family supersedes the need to get treatment. As a consequence, these students go to class and are forced to suffer through physical pain and emotional trauma without any help.

We have had much support from the community, and will continue to push for a VA clinic on campus. Please support us and help us push this vision.

Edwin Lopez
Pasadena