no choice of their own. homeless, or in trouble with the law, because of their lack of resources, whether it be mental et i health issue, access to jobs or even simple access to a roof over their head, and i was really excited to hear about this program. our next speak sir actually matt steiner. he's the director of development and outreach for justice for veterans. matt is a fourth generation marine who received combat action ribbons for his service in "operation iraqi freedom." following an honorable discharge from the marine corps attended oklahoma state university where he receives a b.a. in political science. he received and m.a. in public administration from the university of oklahoma. matt is here to talk about veteran treatments court, and how they are impacting lives in our communities. i know actually in the state of florida, tampa has rolled out

their veterans court as well as broward county also the hometown where i'm at, hallandale beach in florida, they're moving forward with this program. endorseed by acts of resolution and we're here at mayors to partner, hopefully, to again build a public awareness and actually use our positions in local government to encourage local court systems in our communities to implement this type of diversionary program to help prevent the encarseration of veterans that have served our country, more importantly get their services and get the links of the services that are out there. so let's welcome mr. steiner and i'll turn it over to him. >> thank you very much, mayor cooper, and mayor mcelveen for

hosting around lew pleeg to speak. like mayor cooper said, four years in the marine corps as a grunt. received the combat ribbon. after oklahoma state worked for the mayor, tulsa mayor kathy taylor, actually a part of this distinguished group and presented many times. i can tell you i definitely have firsthand experience what it's like to work in local government and i think several times in the mayor's office i felt like i was back in combat in iraq with some of the issues we were dealing with on the local political level. but it really was, and i work ford mayor kathy taylor that she implemented the third veterans treatment corps in the nation. she used the power and being the chief executive of the municipality of the community to rally the support of the district attorney of office, court judiciary, veteran service organization, the v.a. to put a stand to stop having veterans becoming homeless, suicidal, ending up incarcerated. that's how i fell into this role. after i worked for the mayor of tulsa, kathy taylor i actually coordinated the stauls veterans

treatment court and we became a national model. i can tell you while i went to grad school at the same time i can tell you getting out of the marine corps i never thought this would be my bishgs but it's something i'm passionate about and certainly something every mayor here can implement in their community and today i'm going to go through my power point. everybody's busy. i'll try to keep it short and brief. my contact information is in my folder. please, feel free to contact me anytime. we know the issues. we've been at war about ten years now. we've never deployed our military like this before in the histories of our nation. units have gone, like captain cooper says, seven tours. unprecedented. my grand father went to world war ii, stayed in the pacific until it was gone and came back. a lot of my friends have been on many tours. traumatic brain injury, you can be simply on a convoy a bomb hit inside maybe a dead dog or daisy

chain underneath the ground, cell phone detonating explosion will happen, and it rattles the brain to the service member. that causes traumatic brain injury. slightly less than 50 percent of our service members with tbi also have post-traumatic stress disorder. a lot of our veterans come bag strengthened by their military service, quite a few of suffering. so because of that problem, one in six veterans have a substance abuse disorderone in six coming back 2340 your cities and communities have a substancy bus disorder. one in five a mental health condition. as result, some turn to drugs or alcohol because a result of their service. you can literally have all the resources out there, but such a macho environment being in the military, nobody's going to raise their hand and say, hey, corporal, can we hug it out? i'm having mental health issues simply isn't going to happen and

as result sadly they turn to drugs or alcohol. because of that, some end up in the criminal justice system like we're seeing and like with this phenomenon. instead of incarceration we want to give them rehabilitation which the solution is, veterans treatment courts. now, veterans treatment courts a history of these. they fall into the history of drug courts. the first drug court began in 1989 in miami-dade, florida. at the time miami was experiencing, miami-dade county, too many drug non-violent offenders coming through the criminal justice system. recidivism was extremely high. a judge down there by the name of stanley goldstein created drug court. today about 2,500 drug dmorts all 50 states. they save money, cut crime and are serving veterans. 75% of those who graduate a drug court never see a pair of handcuffs again. so sending somebody to jail or prison which costs the state about, in oklahoma, for example,

$23,000 a year it costs about $5,000 to $6,000 to send them through a drug court. they're working. so because of that infrastructure drug courts were able to veteran treatment courts. the history of veteran treatment courts. a good friend of mine in buffalo, new york had an amazing idea. saw so many veterans coming through on mental health doctrines and wanted to do something about it. he started the first veterans drug court in 2008 in buffalo, new york. now, these courts are different because they're a hybrid of drug and mental health courts. traditionally you keep those separated. the frequent court appearances, random drug tests and provided veterans with intensive treatment and other services while holding them accountable to the court, they are families and themselves. i want to give the structure of a veterans treatment corps briefly. the veterans health administrati administration, veterans health administration, service organizations that are in your community like the american legion, veterans of foreign

wars, blue star mother, marine corps league. vet center. state department of veteran affairses that participate in these. department of labor. disabled veterans outreach, local veterans employment reps the state county bar associations that also participate. and when i was in oklahoma, a member of an advisory council, the department of defense congressional office would come to help uttous with dd-14s, medical records. and other agency. my point is each city that you live in, that you govern, has a v.a. hospital. you're within reach of a v.a. regional office. you're not necessarily creating a new, another bureaucracy with the veterans treatment corps. allocating all resource that are there anyways. thousand they work. perfect example. when i coordinated in tulsa a gentleman two tour iraq combat veteran there for the surge. post-traumatic stress disorder,

traumatic brain injury, on the second dui, suicidal. never enrolled in the veterans health administration or enrolled in the veterans benefit administration that center any vanchts services. unemployed, divorced and lost custody of his son, however, about six months later, tony, we got him enrolled in vanchts health care. he leads a substance abuse group. we got him service connected with the vept trins administration. he gets about $1,034 a month tax-free which he uses back into the economy for apartment rent. qualified for voek occasional rehabilitation employment as a disabled veteran in his first semester in tuesdlsa. somebody that was suicidal, had given up, now is going to be a college graduate back in the city of tulsa. tulsa community. goes to the vet center regularly and got custody of his son because the local bar association helped him out. what he was most excited about

when he got his disability rating, the oklahoma department of veterans affairs qualified him for free hunting and free fishing. which to me was ironic. no, tony. you get free college. you're set for life. more stoeshged about getting a free fishing license for the state of oklahoma. now there's about 88 veterans courts in the nation. we were third in december of 2008. now there's 88. 100 more planned. just keeping up with demand is pretty tough. it really is changing it's way that our criminal justice system and the v.a. treats veterans. veteran courts today, all over the news. "cbs evening news." cnn. when we launched in tulsa, fox news came down. incredible. we're in tulsa, oklahoma. what's going on here? stars and stripes. the national law journal. military times, marine corps, navy, air force, army time, all covered these. and who we are justice for vets.

a part of the national association, of drug corps professionals. the national association actually was there from the get-go. we started the whole drug court movement. judge robert russell, the gentleman who started the first veterans court was a former board chair and now on the committee. we've been able to implement all of these veterans treatment courts so far. we actually started the veterans treatment court planning initiative funded by the department of justice. we've trained about so far 32 veterans treatment courts with a total of 300 individuals. we actually have another training, a couple days, ten more and a total of 40 veterans treatment courts. veterans mentor court. four veterans treatment mentor courts. one in buffalo, one in tulsa, santa clara county and orange count pi wep actually pay for

folks to visit a veterans treatment court to learn how do one in all-day training. also justice for vets part of the national association of drug court professional, at our 17th an usual drug court training confronts we hosted the largest gathering of professionals in the world across the nation. we had all of the veterans justice youft reach from the v.a. hospital there's, panel sessions, targeting mentoring our national guard, you name it, we hosted it. we trained it. we had a really good friend of mine now who spoke at the conference to over 3,700 veterans treatment court, drug court professionals. nick did two tours in -- afghanistan, one tour in iraq and simply state ford me the battle began when i came home. judge patricia marks and the veterans court team smivd life. he was picked up for prescription drug use.

post-traumatic stress disorder and will graduate this fall with his -- no, no. this spring, excuse me. with his undergrad in substance abuse counselling to help other veterans from the university of new york. we've been on capitol hill several times. we hosted the first senate judiciary committee hearing on veterans teemt courts. been before the house committee on veterans affairs and i'd like to take the time to thank captain cooper for shays port and the first lady's support. our training is mentioned in strengthening our families meeting america's commit by the white house as one of the many best practices to help veterans and their families. mrs. thompson talked about and captain cooper, employment. keeping families together. suicides. veterans treatment courts do solve all of these problems, and they're working. some of our outreach are really the person behind this is general barry mccaffrey who doesn't hesitate to recognize that he outranked me by 23 pay

grades every time we talk. we recently met with general craig mckinley at the chief of the national guard bureau. like ms. thompson said, we've got a lot of our reserve and national guard members deployed in the war on terror who aren't necessarily attached to an active duty military base but are in your city, are in your communities. so in tulsa, for example we opened our doors to take active guard member, active refer members and guard veterans as well. serving those folk whose are your neighbors, that go to school with your children. and to really wrap it up, state legislation, we've helped california, colorado, illinois, oregon, texas, virginia, develop vette trins court legislation. right now we're happying maine, the great state of oklahoma where i'm from, and several other states as well to develop veterans treatment court legislation. when i came your bondard, gain support of the most prestigious

and respected veterans service organizations. the marine corps league, amvets, blue star mother, veterans of foreign war, the american legion, disabled american veteran, national association of state directors of veterans affairs have all come onboard with public support for veterans treatment courts. these organizations are in your communities and they do vote. so veterans vote in the mayor's office. other are support, criminal justice system, national district attorneys association, american bar association, american judges association. our veterans treatment court committee is chaired by general barry mccaffrey and under his leadership implement and get a lot of veterans treatment court, a lot of policy impmented so far, but are really just hitting the tip of the ice, tip of the spear with this. there definitely is a need's in tulsa, 150 veterans arrest aid loan each month. we didn't have an active duty military base.

because we had a high veteran population, getting that many arrested. toned up, thank you very much for your time. if i can ever answer any question i hope i didn't go too fast. never hesitate to send me an e-mail and i really appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you very, very much. thank you to all the presenters. i would like to open it up for are questions now, if anyone has any questions for our presenters. i guess i'll start out. captain cooper, you talked about some centers and where they're at. how do we link in -- for example, my city. we have a human services department. how do we link into that and tell us a little bit more where the centers are or how they're derive and located. >> i think what we're talking about, the department of labor, called one stops. thousands throughout the

country. i am no one stop expert but can tell you with that many, many opportunities in south florida and around big cities throughout the country i've recently gone online and used that mighty google apparatus and they're easy to find, easy to access. manned by great folks, and enabl enablers. people who understand what the local market look likes and can take and recognize skill sets and help individuals, veterans in particular, massage their resume to help it more closely align with that pool that reservoir of opportunity. but easy to find. kind of on a larger scale, also for anyone who's near a v.a., v.a. medical center, folks can go there and help on the educational as well as unemployment side of it. or simply go to google. i'm a little too reliant on them

to the veterans job bank and literally type in, if i'm sergeant cooper, or petty office cooper from the navy and i'm an electrician. type in a great translation piece to type in what my military occupation code is. it will translate that, and i can even type in, or where i'm interested in working. i'm an electrician, interested in montgomery, alabama. it will show me jobs that align with my pay grade, my background and where those, what those jobs are in montgomery, alabama. a pretty sophisticated tool for folks to use. i would say between those couple pieces, we're in a much better place, and they're all new. brand new. only two months old. good opportunities there. >> from new jersey. i was approached several months ago by a young lady i believe

she was veteran, but she wanted to set up a -- a transitional home for returning single parent mothers with the children and have an educational component, plus transition back into the workforce, and she ran into a road block somewhere. is there any place you can recommend she can pick on for contact? would that be the list you were referring to before, the google thing? >> i can -- i can give you an idea. so this is, what i would say, this kind of fits into the category of we like to use, everyone can do something, and do what you do best. if this young lady thinks this is what she can do best, probably go a local v.a. v.a. and housing and hud have teamed to really attack led by secretary shinseki, the head of the v.a., to attack veterans

homelessness. and they've made tremendous progress. try to end it by 2015. we're on a good trajectory. i'd say first go to local v.a. or hud office to help this. and they can arm this particular individual with all the tools they would want from an educational standpoint, employment. because it really is a holistic -- you need to attack this holistically, simply working on education without addressing the homeless component or employment leaves three legs of the stool empty and won't be able to sustain itself. that would be my recommendation for starters. >> if i could add, also go to the small business administration. they have grants for veterans and military spouses for entrepreneur opportunities, and so they could probably help her are with a loan to get started on you know, setting up the home and what she would need to like.

barbara and matt tuchld ouc. this you talked about sensitivity training for our police forces and our mayors. that's our core service to our community. and link between your program and the diversion program and what models we can take home to share with our police departments to either intercede or earmark these programs to say, you know, where can we send them and maybe you both can partner with that question and answer. >> the one resource that i would recommend as a reference point is the defense center of excellence for psychological health and traumatic brain injury has a website that is amazing as far as the resources

about what are the issues facing the military members and their families. they also have the national center for telehealth and technology and called t-2. they have free mobile apps for military members and families that talk about ptsd, mood, how to learn how to deep breathe to offset the stress. so there are a lot of resources out there that address awareness of what are the red flags about mental health and psychological health and traumatic brain injury. so that is another good step for them to take. they can be aware of the impact of deployment on families and on

service members. keep in mind a lot of law enforcement are veterans. many law enforcement persons have served in the military. so they kind of do understand that culture a lot of them. in tulsa, for example, we did a lot of education with the va and the tulsa police department. something we ended up doing with our law enforcement, they would ask at the jail or even sometimes during arrests have you served or you are currently serving in the united states armed forces? we never asked if they were a veteran or not. to me, i thought veterans were old guys like my dad or my grandfather. i didn't associate myself when i first came back as a veteran. i literally thought that was my dad and grandpa. so those are two major points. >> okay. i don't have any more questions. i want to recognize our staff, larry for your hard work putting

together this panel. i want to thank you all for joining us to day. yesterday the pentagon unveiled their budget. coming up in ten minutes, we'll have a briefing looking at the 2013 budget for the air force scheduled for noon eastern. until then, we'll start to show you a briefing from earlier today looking at the army's budget. we'll show you as much as we can until the air force briefing gets under way. >> can we make this a little the

history of the unite army is marked by decisive action and wide range of missions, including regular warfare, humanitarian assistance operations and engagement with allies to build partner capacity and support to civil authorities. we're incredibly proud of the work our civilians achieved in these two countries and elsewhere. we remain a nation at war committed to the mission in afghanistan. we also remain an army that is globally engaged, currently we have 90,000 soldiers deployed in support of operations and another 96,000 soldiers stationed overseas. our nation's army has soldiers

le located in 150 countries aren't world. moving forward our army remain mindful of the primary purpose, to fight and win our nation's wars. this role is nonnegotiable. it is imperative that our army remain responsive to the commanders and is a decisive arm of the joint force. the army provides depth and versatility to the force through the capables embedded in our active guard and reserve components. meeting the challenges of an uncertain and complex interconnected strategic environment requires an army adaptive and innovative, flexible and agile and integrated and synchronized. lethal and discriminate nat. maintain the right capacity to perform a wide range of missions and provide a variety of military options to this

national security leaders. the president recently provided guidance to focus our efforts. the creation of this strategy was inclusive and comprehensive and secretary mccue and i were deeply involved in this unprecedented and collaborative process. we will strengthen our presence in the asia pacific region, we'll remain globally vij ent, especially in the middle east and continue to build and strengthen critical partnerships around the globe. over the last five years, we grew the army to meet the requirements associated with large scale combat and stability operations in iraq and afghanistan. with the successful completion of our mission in iraq, the operations to afghan security force ands let duction of u.s. presence in afghanistan, our strategy calls for us to no longer plan for large-scale stability operations.

accordingly, the time is strategically right to reduce the army's force structure. even given a fiscally constrained environment, our army will accomplish our reductions in a responsible and controlled manner. the secretary and i are committed to insuring we walk down this hill at the ready rather than running our nation's army off a cliff. we will reduce our active force and strength from 570,000 to 490,000 which will include a reduction of at least eight brigade combat teams. we have an army seasoned by combat. we will continue to increase our investment and special operations forces and the sovereign domain. we improved our command and control capabilities.

significantly enhancing mission command. we've modulized our combat teams to make them more capable and lethal. we increased our aviation assets, national allege guard and reserves are truly an operational reserve giving us increased depth and capacity. finally, we'll leverage the lessons learned from ten years of combat as we look into developing what our future force might look at. going forward, we have three roles, prevent, shape and win. we prevent conflict. we do this by maintaining credibility based on the army capacity, readiness and modernization to prevent mitt calculation by potential adversaries. moreover, the army has a critical role in shaping the environment by sustaining strong military relationships with allies, building capacity of partners to maintain internal and regional stability and operating alongside our joint

forces to facilitate access around the world. and we stand ready to win our nation's wars when needed. if all else fails, we'll always be ready to apply the combined arms capabilities to dominate any environment and win decisively as part of the joint force. as we look ahead, the secretary and i have several priorities. foremost, we'll provide training to ready forces to win the current fight. second, we will develop the army for the future as part of joint force 2020, a mix of capabilities, formations and equipment. we must sustain our high quality all volunteer army. we will continue to transform the ways we modernize equipment by better aligning requirements, resources and the acquisition process. we must invest in energy initiatives in order to reduce the cost of energy within our budget. we will adapt leader development to