NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, January 9, 2020
McDermitt outpost offers tribute to veterans lost to suicide
By YADIRA LOPEZ
Malheur Enterprise
McDERMITT — Right
along the Oregon border
with Nevada, near one of the
oldest houses in Malheur
County, stands a tribute to
veterans who have commit-
ted suicide.
There, Joe Vaneeten
has covered a three-story
wooden water tower with
animal skulls to represent
these deaths. He has over
200 of them.
“I wanted to make a state-
ment about how serious this
problem is,” said Vaneeten,
a Vietnam War veteran.
Recent statistics from the
U.S. Department of Veter-
ans Affairs say the number
of veteran suicides across
the country exceeded 6,000
each year from 2008 to 2017.
Veterans in 2017, according
to the VA’s report, commit-
ted suicide at a rate of 17 per
day. That’s 1½ times the rate
for other adults.
It’s not news to Vaneeten.
He lost war friends to sui-
cide. He’s also been on the
brink himself.
He said his use of horse
and cow skulls is meta-
phoric. The animals usu-
ally died after suffering for
some time. Vaneeten buys
the skulls from local cow-
boys and Native Americans,
who know about his project
and think of him when they
Photo contributed by Kristine de Leon
Joe Vaneeten stands at the entry to his rock shop in remote McDermitt.
come across the skulls in the
desert.
Vaneeten said he was
lucky. His father and broth-
ers were also military.
“I had somebody in my
family to talk to about a lot
of things, which made me
not commit suicide at a lot
of different times,” he said.
Vets aged 18-34 are par-
ticularly at risk, according
to the VA report. From 2005
to 2017, the number of sui-
cides among veterans in that
age group increased by 76%.
“Parents don’t want to
talk to their kids about what
they had done over there,”
said Vaneeten. “It’s like
‘You did good, you made it
home, now let’s get you a
job.’ What we should really
be doing is sitting down
and talking to them, ask-
ing them, ‘What happened
to you?’”
Vaneeten has made it his
mission to create a safe space
for veterans. For years, he
operated Base Camp Bravo,
a retreat for veterans on the
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
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a shower
Periods of rain in
the afternoon
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showers
Mostly cloudy with
a little snow
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ice late
40° 29°
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PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
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OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
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PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
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LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
44/37
33/23
43/27
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
41/31
Lewiston
45/36
46/31
Astoria
46/39
Pullman
Yakima 41/27
42/35
41/26
Portland
Hermiston
46/37
The Dalles 46/32
Salem
Corvallis
46/35
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
35/22
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
47/35
38/24
35/23
Ontario
43/25
Caldwell
Burns
50°
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40°
28°
65° (2002) -20° (1937)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
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Albany
46/36
0.00"
Trace
0.32"
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Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
45/31
By GARRETT ANDREWS
EO Media Group
BEND — A Deschutes
County Sheriff’s Offi ce dep-
uty responding to an emer-
gency call on U.S. Highway
97 on Sunday night collided
with another driver in a three-
car crash that sent the drivers
to the hospital.
Deputy Clint Baltzor
and the other drivers suf-
fered injuries that were
nonlife-threatening.
Baltzor was driving north
on Highway 97 Sunday eve-
ning, headed to a SWAT call
in Terrebonne in his Dodge
Durango patrol vehicle with
his lights and siren activated.
At about Clausen Drive
on the north end of Bend,
the driver of a black Nissan
Fri.
WSW 6-12
WSW 7-14
SSW 8-16
S 8-16
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
38/19
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
Rogue, Scott Senn, attempted
to pull over to the right, but
that lane was blocked by
another vehicle. He yielded
left instead.
Baltzor’s Durango read-
ended Senn’s vehicle, which
then struck a Honda Odyssey
driven by Chad Elliott.
Baltzor, Senn, 55, and
Elliott, 26, were taken to St.
Charles Bend, treated and
released, according to Bend
Police Department.
Bend Police are conduct-
ing the investigation into the
crash, which could lead to a
traffi c citation for Baltzor or
the other drivers.
“No
citations
have
been issued, but it is a
possibility,”
said
Bend
Police spokeswoman Lt.
Juli-Ann McConkey.
Baltzor recently returned
to active duty for the sheriff’s
offi ce after more than a month
on paid administrative leave
for fi ring his weapon at a man
alleged to have stolen a car.
On Dec. 27, Deschutes
County District Attorney
John Hummel announced
he would not charge Balt-
zor with a crime and that the
12-year veteran of the sher-
iff’s offi ce had lawfully fi red
at the alleged car thief, Adam
Leland Gilliam, who was hit
in the shoulder and neck and
suffered a grazing wound to
his head.
Gilliam is currently an
inmate of Deschutes County
jail awaiting trial for 10 crim-
inal counts related to the
alleged car theft and police
pursuit.
Correction: In the Page A3 story “Umatilla County looking for lawyers” published
Wednesday, Jan. 8, misstated salaries for open positions in the Umatilla County
District Attorney’s offi ce. Salaries for the open positions at the offi ce range between
$4,890 and $9,598.
The East Oregonian works hard to be accurate and sincerely regrets any errors. If
you notice a mistake in the paper, please call 541-966-0818.
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needed services.
His frustration with
the system is part of what
pushes him.
When he ended up in
the emergency room a few
years back, Vaneeten asked
to see a mental health doc-
tor. He didn’t see a doctor
for another three and a half
months. Even then, it wasn’t
a mental health expert like
he had sought.
When Vaneeten moved
to McDermitt, the popula-
tion didn’t exceed 100 peo-
ple. Among them were seven
veterans; Vaneeten said they
were resistant to fi le a claim
for benefi ts. So he sat down
and listened to their stories
and helped them with the
paperwork.
That kind of help can
make a difference for veter-
ans, he said.
But Vaneeten recognizes
he is just one guy, with no
funding. His hope is that
others will hear about his
work and feel encouraged to
help veterans, too.
“Find out what a base
camp truly is,” Vaneeten
urged. “If you have the land
and money, build one if you
can do it — it doesn’t matter
if you can only help out fi ve
veterans.”
For now, he’ll carry on
his mission in an old hotel
by a three-story wooden
water tower right along the
Oregon border with Nevada.
Deputy en route to SWAT
call in 3-car collision in Bend
WINDS (in mph)
42/24
36/16
Trace
0.15"
0.46"
0.15"
0.11"
0.46"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 33/19
46/38
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
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Last year to date
Normal year to date
HERMISTON
Enterprise
40/29
46/33
50°
42°
41°
27°
65° (1933) -14° (1937)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
42/34
Aberdeen
34/23
39/26
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
43/37
Oregon coast. Vaneeten said
he shut it down because of
land use issues.
After selling his ranch
in Winnemucca, in 2008 he
bought the White Horse Inn
— a hotel from the 1800s —
in McDermitt. The build-
ing needs so much work
that for a while last year
Vaneeten put it up for sale.
But his mission, he said, is
too important.
He continues to put work
into the hotel, which still
needs water and electricity.
The building is not in good
shape to host people now,
but Vaneeten hopes that
grants and donations will
help restore it so that vets
can stay there in the future.
When he’s not repairing
the hotel, Vaneeten oper-
ates a rock shop beside it. At
the shop he’s got machines
for polishing and cutting
stones. He envisions teach-
ing veterans how to use
the cutting and polishing
machines to make art out of
stones found in the desert.
It’s all a break for the mind,
said Vaneeten.
What he wants is to cre-
ate a safe haven for veterans.
He dreams of a place where
they can be away from the
city for a while and talk
to other veterans instead
of going home to a lonely
place after a support group
meeting. It will be a place,
he said, to build up their
strength.
“There’s a way to talk
to soldiers,” said Vaneeten.
“There’s a way that they’re
used to being talked to and
it’s kind of hard core — not
too many people know how
to do it.”
One of the goals is to help
veterans fi ll out paperwork.
Vaneeten said he was lucky
to have his wife help him,
but he knows all too well
how a stack of paperwork
can be too daunting to bear,
and leave veterans without
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