Consider the desperation and hopelessness your intended audience faces everyday. Note how quickly and deeply their new lifestyle of pain and deprivation has been ingrained. Apply what you know about learned helplessness. Those in need have shut themselves down out of self-preservation and they’ve shut themselves off from those who have since come along. Many of them are now isolated and are sure they are the only one when in reality they aren’t even the only one-thousandth.

Your intended audience (do stop referring to them as “targets”) is made up of men and women who were contributing members of society and the cornerstones of their families. They had every reason to get up of a morning and they were depended on, not dependent. That shift was their undoing and there was no one there to acknowledge, much less help them navigate, those waters.

They have come to associate any attempt to secure assistance with invalidating humiliation and a call for effort on their part – an effort that often renders nothing and costs them dearly. What a ridiculous thing to ask of someone who is tired and in pain. We would never invite a cancer patient to tell us what they need and how best to meet that need. Why are we still expecting this of our mentally ill - especially those who willingly provided for our defense?

As mental health professionals and those who work with vets, you already know what they need. Tell them what that is instead of asking them questions they can’t answer or answer well. PTSD, anxiety, guilt, and overwhelming feelings of worthlessness are not normal, but these conditions are now the norm for this particular group of people. Tell them what you can do for them instead of soliciting their advice on a matter that has both confused and enveloped them.

If you really want to help, you’re going to have to check your titles at the door, remove your neckties, kick off your high heels, and get your hands dirty. That’s going to mean more than the nice, neat, and safe effort that is throwing around millions of dollars from behind a podium.

You’ve racked ‘em up. Now come to play or go the hell away.