8 MARCH 25, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Glendale resident works to raise awareness about veteran
suicides and how to support charities addressing the issue
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
AACEVEDO@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
Mike Porcelli, a long-time Glendale resident
and U.S. Army veteran, is on a mission
to end what he says is the “national
disgrace” of veteran suicides, as chief of staff of
The Gold Shield, a fairly new organization advocating
for veteran support services and cancer
research.
On average, there were nearly 18 veteran suicides
per day in 2018, according to a 2020 report
by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA)
— an increase from years prior. The department
has yet to analyze COVID-19 pandemic-era suicide
rates among Veterans.
“So far, in my experience, the people I’ve talked
to have all said they had no idea how many veterans
were committing suicide and when they
heard the number, they said, ‘That’s disgraceful,
we can’t let this continue.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s
why we’re here, to make sure it doesn’t continue,”
Porcelli said.
The Gold Shield, an organization of businesses
both large and small in New York, New Jersey
and Delaware, is working to raise awareness
and funds for veterans charities addressing the
issue of veteran suicides, PTSD and other maladies,
such as A Matter of Honor, Reining Liberty
Ranch and Dryhootch.
They operate with a membership, and are
enlisting the support of businesses who pay a
tax-deductible, nominal membership fee to fund
their media campaign, which will feature radio
and TV spots, columns, and other public service
messages.
In turn, members are identified locally and
on their platforms as supporters of veterans’
needs. The members in their network are then
encouraged to donate directly to a variety of organizations
and programs that deliver services
to veterans, which Gold Shield verifies.
“There are so many scam charities around these
days, and a lot of people are afraid to donate because
maybe they’ve donated to a group one day
and they found out the next day that they were
scammed,” Porcelli said. “We provide a method
where they can be sure that any charity listed
on our site is a bonafide veteran-supporting
charity.”
He added that they hope to eliminate the
need for those charities to spend donations on
advertising.
Individuals may also join The Gold Shield as
ambassadors at no charge, in order to help enlist
support of businesses, demonstrate support of
veterans by patronizing those businesses and
help spread their mission.
Porcelli first learned about The Gold Shield
about two years ago when they advertised on
AM 70 The Answer station, where his radio show,
“The-Autolab,” airs.
Porcelli currently teaches automotive technology
at The City University of New York and has
served as a member of Queens Community Board
5 for 30 years.
He comes from a three-generation family of
veterans, and, as he said, “basically majored” in
ROTC while pursuing his undergraduate degree
at Pratt Institute. He later became a U.S. Army
Infantry and Counterintelligence Officer.
But Porcelli said that although he tried to get
U.S. Army veterans at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth in September 2020. Photo by Dean Moses
assigned to the Vietnam War, the “opportunity
never came up.”
“I never suffered any of the traumatic experiences
that a lot of my brothers and sisters have,”
Porcelli said. “So I feel an obligation to help them
recover from whatever bad experiences they
had.”
He said that while veteran suicides is a pressing
matter, the country is failing veterans in
several other ways, too.
“Doesn’t it really bother you that we have
veterans that are homeless? It’s bad enough
that anybody should be homeless, but for this
country to allow veterans to go homeless, when
we owe them so much,” Porcelli said. “We owe
them so much but we give them so little. That’s
the problem.”
Porcelli said they’ve already received support
from almost a dozen businesses and groups,
including the Glendale Kiwanis Club (of which
Porcelli is also a member) and a Bayside car dealership.
They hope to grow the network to support
The Gold Shield’s mission.
“I know a lot of veterans who look fine, they
sound fine, but they’re really not fine. And those
are the ones that one day, they just give up. I
know several people who function well enough
that nobody realizes that they have a problem —
and some don’t have a problem until one day, all
of a sudden, something triggers a memory and
then they’re in trouble,” Porcelli said.
Porcelli said that while symbols like the POW
MIA flag, which asserts soldiers “are not forgotten,”
the problem is that too many veterans do
feel forgotten.
“We promise not to forget the vets that don’t
come home, how can we neglect the ones that do
come home?” Porcelli said. “We as a society, have
to do everything we can to take care of the people
who risked everything to defend us.”
To learn more about The Gold Shield, visit
www.thesimpletruth.us.
Mike Porcelli, chief of staff of The Gold Shield,
wearing his current U.S. Army Veteran uniform
with a Vietnam Veterans Chapter 32 jacket.
Photo courtesy of Mike Porcelli
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