Let’s not forget on this important day that Disney Media Networks and ABC Television executives referred to our veterans, who developed Post Traumatic Stress and other mental issues while defending our freedom, as “nut jobs” and “wackos.”
That’s right. Just last month, Paul Lee, the head of ABC Entertainment Group, which oversees the television network ABC and its production arm ABC Studios, ignored requests by the nation’s six largest mental health groups to not broadcast an offensive Halloween episode of Modern Family that belittled Americans with mental illnesses.
Instead, Lee and his cohorts promoted stigma, which often keeps veterans from seeking help. Lee’s answer to serious mental health issues, such as PTS, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was to give a person a “box of Cap’n Crunch and let (him/her) stare at a fish tank” or send them off to a “looney bin.” Hilarious!
Although national tracking of veteran suicide rates is unreliable at best, the VA estimates that 22 veterans commit suicide each day. This means approximately 8,030 veterans kill themselves every year, more than 5,540 of whom are 50 or older.
I can’t wait to see how Lee and his screenwriters turn that ongoing tragedy into a comedy.
On this Veteran’s Day, do something to honor our vets. Share your disgust with ABC through social media. Make your voice heard!
Spread the word on Facebook that ABC stigmatizes our wounded warriors. Honor our veterans by telling Paul Lee that our nation’s veterans with mental illnesses should not be the butt of tasteless and dehumanizing jokes.
Shame on Paul Lee. 
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