Veterans as refuse-Why do they make up a quarter of the nation's homeless?

[babylonsister]

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/opnOPN64062307.htm

Veterans as refuse

Why do they make up a quarter of the nation's homeless?

There are more homeless veterans in the United States than active-duty troops deployed in Iraq, including those deployed as part of the "surge."

"We are a nation that will keep its commitments to those who have risked their lives for our freedom," President Bush said last Veterans Day. He urged veterans to wear their medals that day, and Americans to walk up to them "and shake a hand and give a hug, and give a word of thanks." Would they do that with a homeless veteran? Would he?

Perhaps the exact route from service and possible combat abroad to streets, parks and bus stations back home is intractable. How the Army turns individuals into soldiers, what happens to soldiers in combat, and what the Army does to soldiers once they're discharged, isn't intractable at all. It reads like a blueprint for social dislocation.

To prepare soldiers for combat, the Army demolishes the individual and reconstructs him as a killing machine. It makes no secret about the method or the goal. That's what basic training is about. In combat zones, soldiers adapt to sets of rules that have a coherence all their own but no application in the civilian world. What soldiers experience in combat is a life-changing experience severe enough that a third of soldiers returning from combat will develop mental-health issues such as post traumatic stress disorder, suicidal tendencies, and/or an inability to cope with the "normal" life they once knew, including family, friends, spouses. After so many years' experience with war zones and veterans (25 million as of 2006), you'd expect the Army to have developed the means and will to deal with its returning soldiers.

It hasn't. The Washington Post in February revealed how conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for soldiers being treated for wounds sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan sometimes have more in common with ramshackle facilities in third world countries than with what soldiers should expect from the nation's most important military hospital. Yet the physical and bureaucratic shoddiness exposed in February pales in comparison with the poor to nonexistent mental health care soldiers can expect, especially after they leave the service.

Once discharged, a soldier might as well not exist for the Army. No follow-up calls, no attempt to gauge what services or support the soldier might need. (The Army is only now focusing on those evaluations for soldiers returning from combat, but only while they're still in the service.) Despite spending $2.8 billion on mental health, the Department of Veterans Affairs has no consistent, scientifically based evaluation for post-traumatic stress disorder and, therefore, no consistent way of giving veterans the care they need. The VA has a backlog of 400,000 claims of all kinds and a proclivity for losing records. Thousands of claims that are processed are denied because of Byzantine requirements. For example, to qualify for PTSD compensation, a former soldier must have not only witnessed a traumatic event such as the death of a comrade or a roadside explosion, but must prove it, too.

It's not necessarily a positive experience when services are approved. The Army's licensed psychologists' ranks have dropped by a fifth in the last few years from the strain. Those who remain sometimes use therapies better suited for alcoholics or marital trouble than PTSD. The availability of counseling is a haphazard affair. And at least two Pentagon reports have called for an overhaul of the military's mental-health system. Homeless advocates are bracing themselves for a coming wave of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who no longer feel they belong and aren't finding the help to mend their way back.

The numbers, the lost lives and broken promises to veterans ought to be a national shame for a country so gushy with "Support Our Troops" rhetoric toward men and women who supposedly "live in honor among us, or sleep in valor beneath this sacred ground," as President Bush described them in a speech from Arlington National Cemetery last Veterans Day. That so many veterans end up in more proximity to gutters than honors shows to what extent the rhetoric is less than what it seems with its $2 yellow-ribbon stickers on the back of cars and a veterans' mental care system stuck in the middle of the last century.

[lazer47]

1. This has been going on since 1956, the better question is

why did it take 51yrs to finally become noticeable,

[acmavm]

2. No veteran should be homeless. But do they deserve more consideration

than anyone else?

I think that in this obscenely rich country (at least for some) NO ONE should be homeless.

[frogcycle]

3. on a somewhat related note

yesterday I visited the Midwest Shelter for Homeless Veterans that MonkeyMan is said to have been instrumental in getting established.

I dropped off a lot of clothes and stuff in the drop box, then went inside and picked up some literature - they have a "wish list" of things they need, list of activities one can volunteer for, etc.

Since it was the weekend, there was no "house manager" on duty. A young man - maybe about 30 - was in the front room eating pizza. He got up and asked if he could help. I was not sure what his role was, so kind of just felt my way at first.

I learned that he is a former active-duty marine (there are no former marines) who got out before 9/11. He has a job in a nearby town doing construction. He still has a marine haircut, is physically fit, polite, etc. I did not pry into where he lived before the shelter, what he was doing the past 7 years. He told me he considered re-enlisting a while back, actually had an appointment with a recruiter, but changed his mind and blew it off. He said there are three others living at the shelter, all a good deal older than he. Not all have jobs; it is in some ways a "halfway house" with volunteer caseworkers who provide counseling in all sorts of things, including how to handle a job interview. Volunteers provide transportation to appointments like job interviews, doctor visits, shopping.

How it is that this kid is in a position to need the resources of this shelter, I don't know. The OP may provide some insight. But without question, those who have served earlier - in VN - or later GWI, Afghanistan, Iraq Occupation are going to have whatever issues he has been dealing with PLUS the demons they live with from combat.

This shelter is a great thing. It currently serves four of those described in the article above:
"...more homeless veterans in the United States than active-duty troops deployed in Iraq..."

If you have any opportunity either to support such a facility in your area, or to help get one established, I encourage you to do so.

[LeftishBrit]

4. That is obscene

If a country must fight wars, let it at least treat the veterans decently - I would have thought that would be one thing that all parts of the political spectrum could agree on!

[Jonathan50]

5. My sig pic says it all....

And so does this poem... Rudyard Kipling was a man who knew something of war and this is what he had to say about "supporting the troops"


Rudyard Kipling

Tommy

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o'beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,'' when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,'' when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;

While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country," when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
But Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!