Happy Veterans' Day

{First, be sure to catch my post from yesterday below this one. I rarely treat my reader(s) to two posts in a row, so I don't want anyone to miss out on something that might certainly make your whole week.}

Today as I was updating my work website (fight4veteransrights.com), I thought that seeing as how one of my passions is helping veterans, I might also acknowledge them here. My hate for war is in direct proportion to the respect I feel for those who fought and fight. My hate for war is in direct proportion to the compassion I feel for its victims. Every time I go to BAMC (the military hospital here) for my own medical care, it is inevitable that I see at least 5 (and usually more) returning Iraq or Afghanistan war veterans. They are easy to spot because their faces are melted, their ears and hair have been burned off, their legs have been amputated. They are young. They usually have a young wife pushing their wheelchair. Sometimes they try to hold a baby with a damaged arm. All I can do is try not to cry. Sure, they are proud warriors. If you were to ask them, 99% would say they would go back and do it again. Do they say that and suck it up because they are proud warriors? Do they cry when they are alone? Don't they punch what used to be a fist at the sky and curse their fate? At least sometimes? Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox.

Wait, not yet... I will say that I'm glad these guys are welcomed home. I'm glad they seem to have the military taking better care of them. They seem to have good transition teams getting them from military health care into the VA health care system. And these guys are supposedly being screened at discharge for PTSD and other mental disorders. If they need treatment, they get it sooner rather than later. (High suicide rates don't look good for the VA.)

In contrast, the Vietnam vets were welcomed home with protests and spit. They self-medicated with drugs and alcohol for 20, 30, 40 years. Daily I see the extensive, ripple-effect damage all that government incompetence and neglect has left a lot of those vets with. Now, instead of mentally damaged veterans, we will see more who are physically damaged. Neither is better or worse. Loss is loss and pain is pain. Most war vets have been there or at least seen it with their own eyes.

After fighting for this government, not a single one of them should ever have to fight against this government to get the compensation they deserve. (I'll explain later why I believe there are very few freeloaders in the VA system.)

Here are the lyrics to a song I found:

A Veteran's Song by Nazareth

The bars are crowded with wasted youth
You just went, you didn't know the truth
You don't know that kid when you look back
You remember the music, Paint it Black

You had a brother in the movement and he burned his card
He's got a job in the white house, ain't life hard
You came back a hero on a stolen horse
You say you don't fit in, you can't stay the course

I may be right, don't care if I'm wrong
It's a veteran's song

The band paraded playing Oh gung ho
Your country needs you, you've got to go
When you came over they said "Soldier go back"
When you came home they put you on the rack

Between agent orange and the jungle and fear
You're just surviving to get out of here
You smoke some more herb and you keep your head down
Could be your number is on the next round.
© 1986 Nazareth

If you can't thank a veteran in person today, do it anytime. And if you don't know what to say or do, pay attention to what our elected officials are doing (or not doing) and support those who fight for the ones who fought for us.