My name is Dominic Castro, and I am an Army Veteran and the director of Veteran's Crisis Line. It tells the story of a broken marine veteran trying to share a  powerful message to bring awareness about neglected veterans. As a veteran myself and being a part of a family of veterans, I am familiar with the struggle we have had to go through. Having the VA shove pills in your face every time you have a problem or deny you health care or compensation for combat-related injuries is not how veterans deserve to be treated. This film will shed light on what goes on with veterans when they attempt to get help and why saving our "22" is so important. This film will tell a very truthful and important story about our combat veterans who deal with suicide due to the lack of care they get from a system that was put in place to help them in the first place.

I'm Gloria A. Downey, an Iraq War veteran and a filmmaker. I wrote Veteran's Crisis Line because people need to know that we aren't killing ourselves! After 14 years of begging for health care for my combat-related conditions, I found myself sitting with four duffel bags full of empty VA pill bottles. At that moment, I realized the VA would be just fine with me dying from those pills. They would merely write me off as just another one of the 22 veterans a day who finally accepted the endless VA message that we should want to kill ourselves.

Veteran's Crisis Line started as The Form – about an official VA form with 22 empty lines, a blank one issued daily to be completed before the VA staffer in charge could go home for the day. While fictional, such a form does not seem so far-fetched to me because this is exactly how our treatment feels. The apathetic, fractured, and deadly VA system - which insists we live as diminished versions of ourselves, has no accountability, and is completely beholden to drug companies - is itself the biggest threat to veteran lives.

I begged for care, only to be drugged and neglected. I want people to know the truth about it because I genuinely believe that if people only knew, things would change. My platform is filmmaking, and I intend to do all I can to speak on behalf of those who cannot. Drugged and left for dead no more, having rejected the VA pill death march, I am here to demand the care we have earned and that civilians would expect for themselves.

Crippled by pain and guilt, Vince, a four-time Iraq veteran, faces another miserable day of incoming calls at the Veteran’s Crisis Line. But today is exceptional - a caller named Timmy reaches out to Vince, paralyzed by fear of becoming yet another stat in the veteran suicide epidemic. Even as Vince reluctantly prepares to throw out the first pitch at the baseball game tonight – an honor meant to bring attention to the problem - Vince knows it will mean as little as it did last year. He has come to realize that an entire system is driving the suicide numbers – a system that continues to betray him too, a system that he is now the face of. As the day marches toward game time and then the dreaded arrival of yet another tomorrow, the unthinkable unfolds, forcing Vince to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a statement.

This project is valuable to the world because it raises awareness of how veterans are treated behind closed doors. The veterans served and protected the country, risked their lives to protect people, and yet when they retire from the army, they are not treated with respect and appreciation for what they did for the country. Here are some facts about what veterans go through after serving the country for years. 

• 2019:  12,987 living veterans served through WWII, the Korean, and Vietnam Wars.   
• 2018:  the unemployment rate for veterans who served post- 9/11 was 3.5% a low  
• 2019:  11.7 million veterans are over 65, which is about 61% of all veterans. 
• Veterans make up roughly 11% of adults experiencing homelessness.                       
• 70% of veterans experiencing homelessness also experience substance abuse.
• 50% live with mental illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

                         People need to know how the veterans are being treated in reality,                       and we need to change this.

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We are thrilled to accept any of the following instead of a cash donation:

• CAR USAGE
• CATERING
• OUTREACH/PROMO SUPPORT
• RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT
• SHARE OUR CAMPAIGN ACROSS YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

Risks & Challenges

We are student filmmakers, and this is our Thesis Project at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. We are grateful that you are helping us break through the challenges of realizing our dream. We appreciate everyone's support. We will not let you down.