Concerns grow as more veterans end up on the street

[douglas9]

Jacobí Montgomery wound up sleeping on the sidewalk outside a bus station in Beaumont less than six months after being discharged from the Army.

The 28-year-old Iraq war veteran's sole possessions consisted of the white and blue striped pajamas he wore, a pair of ratty white tennis shoes on his feet, and a wooden cane he'd been issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs following knee and shoulder surgery.

"I had family telling me it was my fault I was homeless, but who would choose to be homeless?" Montgomery said. "Sometimes I feel like the battle I had with my family and the military was worse than Iraq. Because you come home thinking you'll be welcomed with open arms and you get shunned … It's like a kick in the face."

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans like Montgomery are turning up on the streets faster than those who served in previous wars, often within 18 months of returning home. Last year, 2,566 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans sought help through VA homeless program services nationwide.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7114134.html

[unhappycamper]

1. 'Support Our Troops'

Yup.


:sarcasm:

[dkf]

2. I didn't realize our troops could serve in our crazy conflicts and come back broke.

That hazard pay certainly isn't what it ought to be. What sort of agreed upon support are we supposed to be providing? It doesn't sound like there is any program to take care of these things as a matter of course. Or is there?

[PavePusher]

7. Military pay is not at all a "get rich" scheme.

And some military members are their own worst enemy when it comes to finances. Being broke is not at all commenly the fault of the military, it's usually caused by the member themselves.

Edit: This sounds like it was more of an "unprepared for discharge" issue, and a serious case of undiagnosed stress disorder. Mental health care and counciling would have prevented this.

[old mark]

3. An unusually large number of today's homeless are Vietnam vets who are

STILL on the streets and still ignored. I have no doubt there are vets from the Balkans wars and Gulf I as well as from other of our continuous smaller wars and skirmishes who have been completely forgotten and ignored. As Iraq seems to finally begin to wind down and even Afghanistan may have some end in sight, this problem will only grow. Given the terrible economy and lack of jobs and unwillingness of the GOP to fund ANY social programs except tax cuts for the rich, this may only be the thin end of the wedge.

Of copurse, no one in the "real" Democratic party is addressing this now, either...

rec - thanks.
mark

[burnsei sensei]

4. Isn't war profitable?

We should send a copy of that story to every member of Congress and thank them for their assiduous work in creating misery.
They've succeeded marvelously.

[rustyd55]

5. vets on street

we fight for our country so big corp supported by republicans can run our country when banks took my house it was almost paid for i am a viet nam vet they said we are not here to hear sob stories our job is to make money our whole family was out in the street wife and my two little girls two weeks later gov bailed banks out so who are the real enemy think the tea party will rally for homeless and low income disabled like myself and many others

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. how can this happen?

I mean, you get discharged from the army you get unemployment insurance, right? I know a couple of guys in my platoon when I was over in Afghanistan who got kicked out for smoking pot and still got unemployment benefits. And they're also eligable for a waiver to get their discharges upgraded from general to honorable - which means they'll get their GI Bill, which gives you a housing allowance.

So...what is happening to the guys in this story?

[pinboy3niner]

9. There's more info at the link

There can be an insurmountable difference between being eligible for something and actually getting it. (In the case of upgrades, they're not automatic and not everyone meets the criteria.)

For someone struggling with TBI or PTSD (or both), something that seems as simple and easy as applying for unemployment benefits and meeting the criteria to continue them can be absolutely overwhelming and defeating. Both physical brain trauma and psychological war trauma can be severely debilitating.

In my community we have a quarterly outreach to homeless vets (formerly called 'Stand Downs'), and we see vets all the time who have never been enrolled with the VA or who dropped out of the system and who aren't receiving other benefits for which they're eligible.

And, because of widespread sexual abuse in the military, women vets often carry an extra burden. It's an enormous betrayal of trust to be victimized by one's supposed 'brothers in arms,' the people you count on to always 'have your back.' Sexual abuse in the military can be incredibly traumatizing--and that's often on top of war trauma experienced by women troops.

The OP link touches on some of these issues and elaborates on the stories of the vets named in the article.

[Kayso]

10. Its not as hard as you think.

I did two tours in Iraq one as a Reservist the other as National Guard. When I came home from my second tour I became very ill "PTSD". I had been seeing a Shrink in Iraq but once I returned home no further treatment was given and I was released back to my state. The first place I went to was the VA Hospital since Tricare only applies to Reserve or NG soldiers while on duty. I stayed there roughly five days before they determined me to be ready to release to my family with a referral to an inpatient program that had a waiting list that was several months long. My command stuck their neck out and ordered me to report to a different facility paid for by Tricare. Somehow they had wrangled up enough paperwork to get Tricare to cover treatment but even that was temporary.

The whole time I was in the hospital my Family was working with my National Guard unit. My bills where piling up Including a $1000 bill from the VA. I wasn't at work making any money to pay them. By the time I reached the hospital I had been roaming aimlessly for two weeks. My total stay in treatment the first time was roughly forty days. Worst yet the paperwork to get my state to pay any disability benefits was staggering. It became my mothers full time job to get that paper work filed once a month for the State review board. At one point my parents asked my First Sergeant. What would a soldier do if he didn't have a spouse or parents to take care of this they would end up under an overpass somewhere. My First Sergeant agreed.

The Army as part of our deployment essentially promised that if any medical Issues arose from deployment that you would be put back on Active duty for medical treatment. This process seemed to work well for the soldiers who had physical injuries but the Army's position on me was that I was my States problem. The only solution my command could offer at this point was for me to write my representatives. My command was doing everything it could but the Army had made up its mind. I wasn't their problem.

So my family (I was still hospitalized) took their advice. Being from Texas our representatives are all Republicans. They of course replied with their form letter explaining what all they had done for Veterans blah blah. They also wrote a letter to the President.

Anyway to cut a long story short two days after getting out of the Hospital I received a call from someone at the Presidents office. Their first question was if I was doing any better. They asked me what I thought the problem was in receiving treatment from the Army. I explained that I didn't know other then what my Command had told me. He said that was ok. He would start at the top and work his way down. A week later I was placed in the Warrior Transition Battalion to receive medical treatment. This lasted for a little over a year until I was medically retired.

Pretty much if the Presidents office had not intervened I would be a homeless vet today. If not dead.

On a side note. Its a pretty awesome and humbling experience to speak to someone from the Presidents Office personally. I was shocked that someone that high up would even care about what was going on in my life.