Thank You for Your Service” As America Ignores Its Veterans’ Mental Health Crisis With Blissful Ignorance
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We say it like a reflex.
"Thank you for your service."
But when veterans come home from war mentally broken — and become the ones pulling the trigger in mass shootings, or turning the gun on themselves — our country looks the other way.
In this extended breakdown, we dive into two recent mass shootings committed by combat veterans, one at a church in Michigan, the other at a bar in North Carolina. The headlines said they were isolated tragedies. The truth? They're part of a disturbing pattern we rarely acknowledge.
🔺 Veterans make up 6% of the U.S. population, but 26% of mass shooters.
🔺 In 2022, 6,392 veterans died by suicide — nearly three-quarters using a firearm.
🔺 The VA reports over 4,400 severe staff shortages, with psychologists in highest demand.
This isn’t about dishonoring service. It’s about confronting the deadly consequences of neglecting mental health, ignoring red flags, and refusing to talk about veteran perpetrators because it makes us uncomfortable.
We don’t stop to ask:
– Why are so many veteran shooters known to law enforcement before the violence?
– Why is the VA failing to provide timely, consistent mental health care?
– Why do we thank veterans for their service, then fail them in crisis?
This segment is a call for accountability — not just for the shooters, but for the institutions that looked away. If we want fewer headlines like these, we need more than symbolic patriotism. We need real help, real care, and real conversations about who we’re losing — and what it costs when we stay silent.
🔗 Veterans Crisis Line: Dial 988, then press 1 | Text: 838255 | Chat: veteranscrisisline.net
Hashtags
#Veterans #MassShootings #GunViolence #MentalHealth #VAHealthcare #PTSD #VeteranSuicide #HiddenKillers #TrueCrimeNews #AmericaFailsVets
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Transcript
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| 1:10.8 | podcasts. The weather. Tomorrow, expect a biting cold front. Mmm, how naughty. I wonder what |
| 1:20.7 | I'll be wearing or taking off. The night will be wild and untamed. Expect heavy, lashing rain |
| 1:27.1 | that'll soak you to the skin. |
| 1:29.3 | By Monday, temperatures will rise slowly but surely reaching their peak in the afternoon. |
| 1:35.4 | Not in the mood for miserable weather? |
| 1:37.6 | Fly cheaply to Turkey with Sun Express. |
| 1:40.4 | Sun Express, nonstop sunshine. |
| 1:45.3 | Hey there, true crime podcast fans, it's Patrick and Jillian from True Crime Obsessed. |
| 1:49.8 | Each week on TCO, we recap a true crime documentary everyone's talking about, |
| 1:53.8 | and we do it with hearts, sass, and just the right amount of humor. |
... |
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