The Civics Project showcase takes place yearly during the seniors’ last week. Although it’s a state requirement, the Civics Project is an opportunity for junior students to showcase issues they deem important. It can be a school-based issue, local, statewide, national, or even international. It became a state requirement to increase literacy rates and emphasize the importance of civic action among younger generations.

For Lena and I’s topic, we chose veterans’ mental health. This issue is important to us because we both have veterans in our family. Lena was inspired by her grandparents’ stories. Her grandfather fought in the Vietnam War, and he still remembers and talks about his experiences. Meanwhile, her grandmother tells stories about how she was encouraged to break up with her grandfather while he was deployed, putting a strain on their relationship. They prevailed, but if they had not, Lena would not have existed. Both of her grandparents now help out the Salvation Army through food and clothes drives. Lena has assisted them in their personal goal, leading to her own connection to the cause. My great-grandfather was a World War II veteran who was awarded two Purple Hearts. He also personally fought on Operation D-Day. A distant cousin, Edward James Andrade, fought in the Vietnam War and is on the Vietnam Wall of Remembrance. My dad, as well, was a veteran, and he fought in the Iraq War. Growing up, I always saw that my dad struggled with depression.

Due to the mentality being perceived as either pointless or weak, numerous military members suffer in silence. They turn to drugs or other substances in order to deal with their struggles, which leads to more issues in the long run, such as incarceration or homelessness. The hierarchy and mentality also set up a system of victim blaming for survivors of sexual assault. The majority have stated that the process of filing reports often makes the issue worse. The silence is one of the reasons why veteran suicides are so high. Out of the 22 veteran suicides that occur every day, only 12 are related to combat trauma.

Moreover, numerous soldiers have trouble transitioning from strict regimens to the freedoms they have outside the military. I started a petition for there to be more government funding allocated to post deployment since the majority of the military funding goes towards active employment. To raise awareness, we started an Instagram account, a petition, and creatively tied poetry and art into the issue.