I've had several okay interactions with Washoe County Sheriff's Office "WCSO" over the years at…read moreeach years National Championship Air Races and Sun Valley Nevada Annual Veterans Appreciation Breakfast https://www.yelp.com/biz/sun-valley-neighborhood-center-sun-valley. At one or the other I've met the elected Sheriff, several sworn Deputies, several volunteer Reserve Deputies, and several administrative staff. Their Press Releases on their website are well-written (FAR better than Reno PD or Sparks PD press releases).
I have no complaints.
Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. WCSO has stepped up to help out Veterans. WCSO is now on the front lines of fighting to reduce the staggering and horrifying number of Veterans who daily succumb to suicide at the rate of more than twice that of non-Veterans.
In 2000, WCSO recognized the special burdens of alienation and terrible toll Veterans carry from their military Service and created Veterans Barracks to house up to 60 male Veterans. Program includes the addition of Veterans' familiar resources from the US Department of Veterans Affairs and Veterans organizations.
WCSO staff works to help Veterans in jail get out of jail and stay out by acknowledging their military Service and building programs centered on Veterans' shared experiences. "The ultimate goal is to reduce recidivism amongst our Veteran population in Washoe County," said Sgt. Andrew Venn, who is part of the Inmate Management Unit at WCSO. "We bring in very specific targeted programming just for those Veterans, so the classes they'll have available, for example, anger management, domestic abuse, substance abuse, and parenting are four major ones."
Deputy Shannon Aller, who has a degree in psychology, said "The reason that we're doing that -- not only for us as an agency to track recidivism and see what's working, but to make sure that what we are putting in this unit is what they need."
Venn said once he introduced himself as a Veteran to the inmates who are Veterans, "the change was instantaneous. They went from being standoffish and protective of their personal space to unifying under their shared identity as Veterans. The idea of peer support came up almost immediately and that is not something you hear walking around a jail," said Venn. An inmate told Venn, 'We're Veterans first.'
WCSO partners with Truckee Meadows Community College to offer education for inmates along with representatives from Reno Job Connect, who visit biweekly to prepare inmates for a job search once released.
Since 2020, WCSO have partnered with Northern Nevada State Veterans Home with their 'Operation Gift A Vet'. Some 86 female and male Veterans living at this Veterans Home are asked to write down three things they want for Christmas-- and their wishes are hung on the tree for the WCSO employees to collect and grant. Requests have been for slippers to blankets to compression socks to robes.
According to Yelp ratings' definitions, 3 Stars is "Ok". That to me is an acceptable rating of a business that does day in and day out what they are in business to do. WCSO gets another star for their work with Veterans.
On Christmas Day in history:
1776, General George Washington and the Continental Army famously crossed the Delaware River.
Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it. Christmas Day 1862, a grateful nation showed its appreciation for sacrifices of the US Army and Navy with dinners for some 35,0000 sick and wounded soldiers and sailors in hospitals in and near the nation's capital. President Lincoln and the First Lady attended the event--one of the more extraordinary of its kind during the American Civil War.
"Nowhere else in the world than in America," a New York newspaper wrote, "could have been the sight which has made this holiday in Washington remarkable and memorable - spread by the hands of individual benevolence."
Elizabeth Smith, wife of Lincoln's Secretary of the Interior, was a driving force behind this Christmas Day event.
Financial contributions for the event poured in from individuals, businesses and states. (Indiana contributed $700, and $2,500 was collected in Philadelphia.)
Food came from throughout the Union. Pennsylvania and Maryland shipped an "immense amount" of poultry. "Ever-generous" Albany, NY provided 300 turkeys, "cooked and ready to eat." Four carloads of poultry arrived from Chicago. Volunteers served the dinners in military hospital wards that volunteers had lavishly decorated.
Christmas Day1896: Lieutenant Commander John Philip Sousa, US Marine Corps and US Navy Veteran, a "rock star" of his era wrote "Stars and Stripes Forever". The iconic song officially became America's National March in 1987.
