Andrew Berry, a psychologist who works with veterans, speaks at Saturday's resource fair. More photos here.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — More than 200 area veterans and their families were connected to a host of resources available to them on Saturday and had dinner, too.
Local restaurant Biggins Diggins served up smoked prime rib, Cajun-smoked pork chops, smoked chicken, baked potatoes, and seasonal vegetables
The Freemasons hosted the inaugural Veterans Dinner and Resource Fair at their South Street lodge with hopes it will be replicated elsewhere.
Lodge Master Bernard Tremblay said these resources had never been gathered in one place before.
"We keep copious records of what events and things that go on during the course of our history here, and the last time we had any type of event like this for veterans was at the end of World War One that I can see at the Dedication of the Memorial Plaque up in the lodge room upstairs," he said.
"So, this was very unique. I talked to the veteran services group around the perimeter, and they themselves said they haven't seen anything on a local level like this."
The idea for a resource fair came from Kyle Kuffel, veteran officer for Masonic District 31 of Massachusetts, which consists of four South Berkshire lodges. Kuffel is a retired Army sergeant who also works with Hope for Warriors.
"The thought occurred to me that I wasn't aware of all the things that are available to veterans. And so I thought, let's have resources fair with it, so that people can come and figure out and find out the information about these organizations," Kuffel said.
Kuffel and Tremblay want to create a roadmap to repeat this event down the road and in other Masonic communities across the state after they meet with the Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts
The lodge presented Biggins Diggins owner Terry Bishop with a 2024 Veterans Ally Award for his dedication and support to all veterans.
"You served us, and now we serve you," Kuffel said.
Bishop said an event like this is important because it shows veterans that they are truly loved and appreciated.
"It's something that they'll never ask for, but it's something that they absolutely deserve. As a business, we love to give back when we can. It's just our way of showing our appreciation to the community," he said.
"The environment this evening was absolutely incredible. There was lots of smiles, lots of happy faces, and I'm hoping lots of full bellies."
Speakers at the event emphasized the critical need for open dialogue, community engagement, and ongoing support to address the challenges veterans face transitioning back to civilian life.
Psychologist Andrew "Doc" Berry spoke on the profound changes that combat can have on a person's identity and mental well-being and the importance of open dialogue and community support to help veterans in crisis.
"The goal of me talking to you guys tonight is to get a conversation going, to get a real, meaningful conversation going. Let's make talking about this the norm instead of the exception. What am I emphasizing when I say that [is] simple — veterans and first responders are trained to think of everybody else around them absolutely first and themselves absolutely last, if at all," Berry said.
"That's necessary for mission completion, and I get it, but there is a time at the end of the mission, at the end of service, to start having a meaningful discussion about whether or not our veterans are okay. Folks, many of them are not, and many are hanging on by a thread."
He highlighted this with several stories, such as a Vietnam veteran who had a history of alcohol-related crimes and had essentially "drank his weight out of his own life."
His first and second wives would not talk to him, and his kids hated him. His story was "a gothic horror tale that we have heard many, many … too, many times," Berry said. When he asked the man what he missed the most, he burst into tears, saying, "I miss me. I used to be a nice guy."
What civilians don't understand is that when veterans return home, they are not the same person. Combat changes the central nervous system and the biochemistry and physiology of the brain, Berry said.
"Combat is comprised of adrenaline blasts that go on for hours, nonexistent sleep that goes on for days or even weeks, terrible food, those god awful sounds, those god awful screams, and they come back, and they are expected to just live their lives. It doesn't work that way," he said.
How can our society reduce the 22 veterans who commit suicide daily in the United States down to zero — by talking about it, Berry said.
"This formula is very simple, and I'm going to say it twice because it has to register with everybody in this room: You open your mouth, and the pain comes out," he said.
Mayor Peter Marchetti also highlighted the importance of open dialogue and communication about veterans' experiences by drawing on his own personal regret of not having those conversations with his father.
When his father passed away, he had to call city veterans office to know what to put in his father's obituary.
"I knew my dad served. I saw pictures of my dad in uniform, but we've never talked about it. And so, how did I know that my dad enlisted in 1965, and how did I know he was honorably discharged in 1970? I read out a piece of paper that came from the city of Pittsfield veterans office because we never talked about it," Marchetti said.
"I feel cheated that I need to get to have conversations with my dad about an important time in his life because he didn't want to talk about it. And so for me, as I've become mayor and become more involved in the veterans issues, it's really because I've missed an opportunity, and I don't want others to miss that same opportunity."
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Op-Ed: If Trump Really Wants to Help Working People He Won't Kill This Federal Agency
By U.S. Sen. Elizabeth WarrenGuest Column
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to protect regular people from abusive banks and other businesses. Isn't that what Trump said he wants to do?
When a bunch of billionaires tell you they know what's best for you, hang onto your wallet. Over the past few weeks, Republican politicians and billionaires have come out swinging with lies about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, hoping they can pave the way to "delete" the agency. But if you have a checking account, credit card, mortgage, or student loan, you might want to know what it could mean for you if the CFPB disappears. That's the dangerous promise of Project 2025.
Suppose you take out a car loan with Wells Fargo. Month after month you make your payments, but the bank messes up. Maybe they piled on fees you didn't owe or charged you the wrong interest rate. On their end, it looks like you've fallen behind on your payments, so they repossess your car. Now you can't get to work or take your kids to school. What are your options? You can't afford to sue. The police won't help. Before the CFPB, about all you could do was reach out to the bank's customer service and beg them to solve the problem, get left on hold, transferred from department to department, and end up nowhere. That was it — until the CFPB.
That's not a hypothetical. The CFPB received thousands of complaints that Wells Fargo had unlawfully repossessed cars and wrongfully foreclosed on homes. Wells Fargo illegally injured the owners of more than 16 million accounts — you may have been one of them. That's where the CFPB comes in. The agency took on the giant bank, stopped the repos, and ordered the bank to pay back more than $2 billion to those customers who had been wronged. No need to file a lawsuit. No need to spend hours on the phone. That's the power of having a cop on the beat.
While CEOs and right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation try to get rid of the CFPB, it's worth remembering that the agency didn't appear out of thin air. The CFPB was created in 2010 in the aftermath of a huge cheating scandal that led to the 2008 housing crash. Shady lenders were tricking and trapping people with complicated mortgages that eventually crashed our economy and cost millions of people their homes. In "never again" mode, Congress created the CFPB as an independent agency with the power to stand up to giant corporations intent on cheating American consumers. Congress even funded the CFPB through the Federal Reserve to insulate it from everyday partisan politics. And it worked: The agency set standards so that people didn't get fooled, and those rules drove the seedy, fly-by-night companies out of our markets.
In the years since the mortgage crash, the CFPB has taken on aggressive junk fees that make price comparisons impossible. When servicemembers and veterans were being tricked into paying interest rates that surged up to 200 percent on pawn loans, the CFPB beat back the predators. And when it became clear that some medical debt collector companies were double billing patients or even charging patients for services they never received, the agency stepped up to try to right those wrongs.
Navient, one of the companies that doles out student loans, exploited students, lied to borrowers, overcharged service members, and conspired with fraudulent for-profit schools to trick students into taking on more loans they couldn't repay. In September, the CFPB delivered over $100 million in relief to Americans and permanently blocked Navient from the federal student loan system. Without the CFPB, Navient would probably still be cheating students.
The election made clear that working people want the government to unrig the economy. The CFPB is doing that work — and that's exactly why these billionaire CEOs don't want the agency around. When the CFPB stops a big bank from cheating you, that's one less chunk of change that goes into its pockets. These CEOs have made big political donations hoping to buy a Congress and a president who will "delete" the agency.
For years, when big banks would say "jump," too many politicians would ask, "How high?" Trump promised change. He pledged to cap credit card interest rates at 10 percent — it will take a strong CFPB to make that happen. He promised to rein in the influence of big tech — the CFPB is tackling that right now. He promised to make government work better for working people — the mission the CFPB delivers on every day.
Trump's first big decision on the CFPB will be to settle on a director — someone who will help the CEOs try to destroy the agency or someone who will keep the CFPB true to its mission to unrig the system. Will Trump decide to stand up to giant corporations to help the workers who voted for him or will he cower to the corporate billionaires? We should know soon.
This op-ed also ran in The Boston Globe on Dec.11, 2024. Warren helped create the CFPB before she was elected to Congress.
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