A Bit About Us

June's Second Chance Ranch begun with the passion to fulfill a legacy of a life of a beloved pup taken too soon in a tragic accident, Punta June. With the fuel from a broken heart, June's Second Chance Ranch founder came upon fellow animal lovers and volunteers that share a desire to help our service memebers to create this non profit animal sanctuary and equine therapy program. With personal experience with PTSD, a life long love of horses and a deep desire to provide help and place to help our beloved service members, JSCR developed the idea of starting an equine therapy program to catered specifically to our Veterans and service members (Police Fire and EMT). 

Here at June's Second Chance Ranch Inc., we believe every animal and person deserves a second chance and a beautiful life. We want to be a catalyst for positive change, and make a positive impact on the epidemic of homeless animals and decrease the number of animals euthanized in shelters every year. We are a group of animal lovers, but are passionate about people also. We love our veterans and service men and women and are passionate about helping them in areas they struggle with when adjusting to civilian life and coping with the results of witnessing trauma everyday. One of our main goals is to help put a stop to veteran suicide. Equine therapy is an amazing way to promote healing by creating emotional awareness, self esteem, purpose, confidence, trust and empathy,  and so many other benefits that working with horses offer.

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The following excerpts from a paper written by one of our local veterans explains how PTSD and veteran suicide is an alarming problem in our country:

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 "According to a study by the Department of Veteran Affairs an “estimated 22 Veterans will have died from suicide each day in the calendar year 2010”. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been named the primary source of such alarming suicide rates, but has been either dismissed or misunderstood in the past. 

 Increased unification in a group translates to feeling a sense of self-worth and belonging, which means its members are less likely to commit suicide. Just like religion, the military also acts as a well-integrated society with high group attachment. Members of the U.S. military are enveloped with feelings of comradery, a sense of self-worth and patriotism. The increasing suicide rates among veterans could be explained through Durkheim’s perspective of collective effervescence. 

Upon discharge, the former members of the military are thrown back into a society that emphasizes individualism, after their service, veterans lose group attachment and the traditional ritualistic aspects of the military. In some extreme conditions of “high group attachment, people are more likely to commit altruistic suicide- giving one’s life for the sake of the group” (Allan 145).

While the Department of Veteran Affairs do what they can to promote smooth integration into society from military service by providing crises lines to call or text and a website the Veterans Crisis Line, according to their data report of 2012 “more than 69% of all Veteran suicides were among those aged 50 years and older” and are more than likely not texting and using the website.

We have just recently started to see the consequences war has on our society. Veteran suicides not only destroy families, they disrupt and weaken society as a whole. Social reform calls for better tools for veterans to utilize in order to properly intergrade into the vastly changing and growing modern society. According to National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics there are roughly about 22 million veterans in the United States and 22 suicides a day is unacceptable.  

-Written by Chris Britz, Marine Veteran       

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Due to much research and explained by this paper above, it appears that a sudden loss of camradery and purpose, along with PTSD after discharge from the military causes veterans to suffer immensely. We hope that through the use of equine therapy and equine services, our service members can find a sense of purpose and belonging again.

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Sources:

Kang, H., & Bullman, T. (2009). Is there an epidemic of suicides among current and former U.S. military personnel?. Annals Of Epidemiology, 19(10), 757-760 4p. doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2009.05.004

LeardMann CA, Powell TM, Smith TC, et al. Risk Factors Associated With Suicide in Current and Former US Military Personnel. JAMA. 2013;310(5):496-506. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.65164.

Department of Veteran Affairs 

http://www.va.gov/opa/docs/Suicide-Data-Report-2012-final.pdf http://www.va.gov/vetdata/docs/quickfacts/Population_slideshow.pdf

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

http://report.nih.gov/nihfactsheets/ViewFactSheet.aspx?csid=58

Durkheim, Emile (2005-08-04). Suicide: A Study in Sociology (Routledge Classics). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition. 

Allan, K. (2013). Explorations in classical sociological theory: Seeing the social world (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.  

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