Support the Troops
Support the troops.
It’s a nice catchphrase, but what does it really mean?
It should mean more than sending them cookies and toiletries while on station and then seeing right through them once they come home.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has identified about 1,500 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as being homeless.
Granted, that’s but a small fraction of the estimated 336,000 vets that are grappling with life on the street in this country, but it’s a number that should slap at us and startle us into action.
Advocates for homeless veterans say that in the coming years, we’re going to see a lot more of these men and women curled up in doorways and struggling with demons and drugs and post traumatic stress.
As one advocate noted: “What lessons have we not learned? Who is failing these people?”
For the answer to that, we don’t have to look beyond ourselves.
What we learned from those who returned from Vietnam has been lost, and our failure to insist that Congress seize this issue and resolve it; our failure to put pressure on those we elect to stop neglecting the men and women who serve their country makes the “Support Our Troops” catchphrase a very sad and meaningless refrain.
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