It’s been nearly two weeks since three little girls were discovered murdered at a campground outside Leavenworth, Washington. I first learned that the girls were missing when my own daughter, Ashley, called me. She is friends with the family and had joined them in searching for the then missing girls.

Their father, Travis Decker, had picked up the girls that Friday for a court-approved visit. Although divorced, up until that evening, Travis was considered a loving and devoted father, turning up for the girls’s athletic and artistic pursuits, cheering them on, loving them well despite his own personal struggles.

But on that particular Friday, Travis Decker failed to return the girls according to times set by the parenting plan with his ex-wife Whitney. Travis was not answering his phone either. As the weekend wore on, the more panic took hold. What Whitney and other family members understood about Travis is that he was struggling with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his military service. Still, no one who loved him suspected Travis would harm his children, the girls he had loved so well.

Sometimes it feels like I’ve been trying to educate people about PTSD and mental illness for the better part of 20 years now. After all I began writing Mother of Rain in 2005, and that novel addresses both PTSD and postpartum psychosis.

Travis knew he needed help. He sought help from Grant County’s VA services in mid-May but was turned away due to a lack of staffing and resources. “We did not have enough resources to help him,” said therapist Rob Bates. “If we had enough resources we had a chance, without resources we had to be lucky, we weren’t lucky.”

And now three girls are dead and their father, who is suspected of murdering them, has eluded police for nearly two weeks. Travis Decker may never be found alive.

Online commentators are full of advice about where to find Travis and what to do with him when and if authorities do find him. Commentators are also quick to place blame with Washington State police for their failure to issue an Amber Alert. While there isn’t any indication that such an alert would have prevented the deaths of the darling Decker girls, it certainly may have helped. But do you know what would have most certainly helped?

Providing Travis with the mental healthcare he needed and sought.

How could he kill his own children? is one of the most common refrains of those who no doubt are deeply grieved over the deaths of these three innocent girls ages 9, 8 and 5. We train men and women to kill then act all shocked when in fits of rage, or despair, or desperation, or a confused state of mind they do it. We train young men and women to not think for themselves, to consider themselves part of a whole – a unit, a company, a country – then when they come home, we toss them out and tell them to fend for themselves.

There’s an insider’s term for how the government does its military service members once they are no longer needed as war fodder – they call it being kicked to the curb. Veterans often struggle with an overwhelming sense of isolation as they try to integrate back into a civilian culture where it is no longer about the whole but all about the individual. Where the common good does not matter. It’s each man or woman for themselves.

The reality is the kind of help Travis Decker sought is even harder to get these days. Since Trump took office over 2,400 employees with the VA services have been fired. You can thank Trump and Elon Musk for that. We have never had enough services to help our veterans, especially in our rural regions, which is why so many of them end up unhoused as Travis was.

Why would the courts give a homeless person unsupervised visits with their children? is another question of condemnation that has arisen in the wake of the Decker girls’ deaths. Homeless people all over this nation have custody of their children. Children live in cars, in homeless shelters, on the streets, and sometimes in tents in the woods. An estimated 2.5 million children experience some form of homelessness every year in the US. That anyone even asks that question reveals how sheltered they are.

It is true that once Travis Decker became unhoused that Whitney went back to court to challenge their parenting plan. The result of that is that Travis’s every other weekend visits became more restricted. No longer did the girls have overnight visits with their dad. Still, the courts granted Travis unsupervised time with his girls. Although Travis suffered from mental health issues, he displayed no sign of violence or anger toward his girls. By all accounts he loved his children very much, and desperately wanted to be a good dad to them. And yes, it is possible to love your children even as you murder them.

I have written about murderers for years now. I have come across people who kill simply because they are evil. Shawn Field was such a man. Truly evil. And I’ve come across people who kill because they are broken. Travis Decker is a broken man. And the thing is, he knew he was broken. He wanted to fix it. If only he had access to the tools needed to fix it, the Decker girls would likely be alive today, looking forward to their summer activities.

Since they were murdered, however, an estimated $2 million in resources have been allocated towards the manhunt for Travis Decker. A GoFundMe has raised over $1 million for Whitney Decker. Another $135 million has been allocated toward deploying National Guard troops and Marines in California, all for the sake of political theater. Another $50 million will be spent on a parade display of military might for this country’s would-be dictator, a five-time draft dodger and self-declared sex abuser.

All that money.

Yet, as I type this, Travis Decker is in hiding and somewhere in this country other veterans like Travis are despairing over being homeless, over not being in their right mind, over not being the kind of parent to their kids that they so long to be, over not being the spouse that they once were, over not being able to stop the flashbacks and nightmares of war that haunt them throughout the day and into the night.

We have all the money in the world when it comes to political theater, all the money in the world when its bombing a place all to smithreens and back, all the money in the world when it comes to defense, but when it comes to caring for our veterans, well, we do exactly as the veterans claim.

We kick them to the curb.

And the children of these veterans?

They are the collateral damage of a nation that refuses to own up to its responsibilities.

The Decker girls would likely be alive today if we the people did a better job of voting in those who do more than give lip service to our veterans. The Decker girls would be alive today if we were allies for our veterans and their families demanding that our legislators allocate the monies needed to keep open the doors of veterans services in rural areas and not just in Seattle, Portland or Boise.

The truth is when people ask who killed the Decker girls, the answer is we did. We the people. We killed them through our inaction.

The question is, what will it take for we the people to rise up and demand better for those who answered the call for us?

Karen Spears Zacharias is a Gold Star daughter. Her father was KIA in Vietnam 7/24/66. She is author of A Slience of Mockingbirds & After the Flag has been Folded (HarperCollins).