Every Veterans Day is a time I hate. It depresses and outrages me.
This year the local parade was the center of attention for the veterans in the peace movement in Denver. At first they were told they wouldn’t be allowed to march with the other veterans in the traditionally poor attended Veterans Day Parade. The reason given by a group called by the oxymoron, United Veterans Council, was the Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War had chanted, “troops out now” at last year’s parade. That was a political statement which the “council” wanted to avoid. Not sure if it was the troops out now or the political statement they meant.
I attended last year’s parade despite my great dislike for such events and don’t remember the chanting. I know I didn’t chant. I do remember quite a bit of spectator applause along the route despite our group being last in line.
I do remember seeing the “Young Marines” atop a float raising the flag ala Iwo Jima. The poor kids had to maintain that position throughout the parade route. But I’m sure they were proud and honored to do it.
Now that was a political statement to see young kids dressed in combat gear imitating Ira Hayes and friends!!
How much more political does it get than to indoctrinate young boys ten or eleven years old to the fine arts of combat? Of course, no doubt those young kids were playing the latest version of “Call to Duty” on their X-Box or Wii play stations already.
The VFP and others decided at first they would do a counter march along the side walk at the parade since they were being excluded in the “official” march. It had been suggested they march in back of the street sweepers without a permit if the Denver Police Department refused to provide their permission. The police did as expected and refused to issue another permit for the same parade.
I was of the opinion the veterans opposing the war should take a chance of being arrested and walk behind the street sweepers anyway. What better symbol of this nation’s disregard for all veterans than walking behind street sweepers? After all, the Bush administration has tried since the war began to sweep the veterans’ issues under any convenient rug they could. Budget cuts and abuse of active duty and National Guard troops in multiple rotations to an illegal and immoral war are only the beginning of the administration’s lack of respect for the individual troop.
The leadership of the local VFP and other groups weren’t of the mind to risk arrest, however. I wasn’t surprised at all by that decision. The timidity of the peace movement’s veterans groups in Colorado has been an ongoing thing that has kept me from being a full participant in group actions and attendance at meetings.
I’ve grown really tired of the constant tactical scheme of marches, parades, rallies and speeches by the peace movement.
The urgency of young men and women dying in Iraq and Afghanistan seems to warrant a greater sense of urgency by the “movement” instead of weekend events and a return to normal following them.
The urgency of probably a million Iraqis dead since 2003 because of the war seems to warrant greater reactions than time consuming organization of rallies and marches.
The continued budget cuts of human services and all aspects of social safety net programs across the nation while 500 billion dollars drains into the bloody soil of Iraq and Afghanistan seems to warrant an attitude of outrage followed by outrageousness.
But the reality has been the “movement” holds out the deluded hope it can bring the end to the wars and the changes to government through the electoral process in place across this nation. The elections of 2006 were said to be a referendum on the war and the results were a clear message citizens of this country wanted it ended.
The response of the newly elected Democratic controlled Congress has been a classic demonstration of cowardice of politicians lacking a moral compass. Their only compass has pointed toward the green fields of cash offered by special interest groups.
And still the peace movement fails to change tactical strategies! The movement congratulates itself on lying down in the streets of America to be arrested in the
“catch and release” tactic of civil disobedience (often coordinated with officials of government and police to avoid anyone being upset). It hails the large rallies in Washington D.C. with hundreds of thousands of activists as a symbol of resistance when in truth they are the same people from the last rally and the rally before that.
They continue to be the same choir of voices that have been ignored by the general population, the press and certainly the Congress and the administration.
The veterans’ peace groups continue to follow suit with the same strategy. I’ve attended two actions that could be called grass roots; the Camp Casey event in Crawford, Texas in August of 2005 and the Veterans and Survivors March in spring of 2006.
Camp Casey became engulfed by the groups like United For Peace and Justice that wanted on the Cindy Sheehan bandwagon. Pretty soon it became indistinguishable from the rest of the movement.
The Veterans and Survivors March drew international attention but couldn’t sustain the momentum because too few of us were willing to forsake our lives to attend to the crisis we have in our nation. Instead we wait for the next election or the next Cindy Sheehan to galvanize us to action. While we wait the erosion of rights and the continued takeover of the nation by the “ghost government” epitomized by Blackwater destroys what little semblance of freedom and democracy we have left.
The Veterans Day Parade in Denver took place on Saturday, November 10, 2007 before a meager crowd along a route near the State Capitol and the City and County of Denver Civic Center. The United Veterans Council relented and allowed the veterans opposing the war to march after pressure from the city’s mayor. The national Veterans For Peace took credit for creating a letter writing campaign.
The grand result of the Veterans Day Parade in Denver was a four day media mention for the anti-war veterans. The veterans who marched got a few seconds of airtime on local television news. Some chose to march in their old uniforms and resembled the other veterans in the parade dressed in uniform. Some chose to wear the uniform of the antiwar movement which seems to be tee shirts with organizational emblems and banners and posters with three or four word quips like “Troops Out Now”.
In Iraq, troops continued to be killed despite parades and graveside memorials. New studies came out indicating one of four homeless people in America is a veteran. One in four (or more) of the prison population is a veteran. Nearly five hundred confirmed suicides by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have occurred. One of every three veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan has required some mental health treatment. The infrastructure of Iraq remains in ruin. Potable water in most of Iraq remains scarce. Childhood cancer rates in Iraq continue to soar. Depleted uranium in Iraq continues to be used. Healthcare access for returned veterans of all wars remains inadequate for the needs. The nation’s safety net programs, educational programs and human service programs continue inadequate because of funding shortages. Living wages and employment security continue as problems. Thirty to forty percent of all Americans remain uninsured for healthcare. Unions continue to dwindle and die while the cost of living, cost of transportation and the cost of gasoline rises at record rates. Housing has recorded the highest foreclosure rate in history. Environmental consequences of neglect and abuse are now being seen in epic storms, fires and pollution. The American economy is on the verge of collapse under the weight of debt caused by endless war.
This list of conditions that should elicit outrage is only partially complete. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, religious oppression and fanaticism, child abuse, domestic violence and gun violence should also be mentioned.
And the “movement” response to the outrage? The continued use of rallies marches and parades! Don’t like something going on in your world? Go to the rally on Saturday. Help organize the march for the Democratic convention in Denver. Write a letter, sign a petition, email a congress person. And then go shopping because there’s a hell of a lot of bargains for Veterans Day!!
I watched the footage of the parade on the late news Saturday, the 10th. I saw vets in uniforms looking proud because they’d served their country in time of war. I saw marching units of ROTC, Army, Navy, Marine and Navy. I saw high school marching squads. I saw veterans for peace, many in uniform marching, with the same prideful appearance. And I wondered. What do we have to be proud about? What pride is there in that uniform we wore to war? Do veterans who profess to be about peace still take pride in their “service”? Should I take pride in seeing the after effects of napalm strikes on a village in the Danang area? Should I take pride in burning down other villages and creating refugees? Should I take pride in watching as a form of “water-boarding” and torture is used on a female prisoner by military intelligence officers accompanying my unit on a patrol in which she’s to show us enemy positions? Should I take pride in a body count when another Marine decided to extract gold teeth from the dead? Should I take comfort in a prisoner hit in the face with a metal entrenching tool by another Marine?
What the hell am I supposed to be proud of doing? What pride do I derive from my alleged service to my country, guys?? What victory is there in fifteen minutes of media coverage for a parade that glorifies war and the poor bastards who die and are wounded in war? Is Semper Fi supposed to make me feel all warm with unit pride?
I take no pride. I want nothing to do with any uniform. I detest a military state of mind that allows for the destruction of human life and fails to meet the basic needs of humans worldwide.
When will the outrage be enough that parades, marches and rallies are no longer enough?
Monday, November 12
Damn Liars!
I sit again in the darkness of my soul with the hour late and my life ever older,
I see the liars of the war clearly from the left and right probing at the wounds.
The masters of war want more, more, more and the peace groups always less,
But both care little ‘bout the wounded, the maimed or the dead of war.
Both say they do but their actions say they don’t. They lie to us and lie to themselves.
The masters of war carry on for the profit of the dead and maimed they’ve caused.
The liberals and progressives only see the warriors as a tool for their personal use.
Both groups use the warriors and victims to prove the other wrong and themselves right.
Both claim moral superiority but both lie and care little but for themselves.
Both claim loyalty but their actions of deceit and falsehoods show them as cowards.
They preen and clamor to have themselves famous and seen for all to know them.
They make a drama and a play of the dead and wounded; the scarred and traumatized.
They use the soldiers and their victims as tools to seek their fame and abandon them.
They move on to their next victims of their little play and toss them out as well.
War is their play, their moral way, their passion and their constant cry for fame.
War is their pulpit to debate the morality of their particular political thought and belief.
War keeps them relevant and at odds with one another as the tools die and bleed for them.
Liberal, progressive, right, conservative, left, moderate; they’re all the same.
They talk and talk while soldiers die in battle or die at home for lack of caring.
They talk and talk while children die from the soldiers’ weapons and lack of concern.
Talk is cheap and useless while others die, starve, thirst and fester from their wars.
Don’t be fooled by the patriotic fervor of the masters of war flying their flags so high.
Don’t be fooled by the peace groups’ rallies and marches incessantly all the same.
Neither side wants the war to really end and peace to reign in their separate worlds.
For the end of war would strip them of their stage, their drama and their reason for being.
Liars, damn liars, filthy liars, fucking liars, liars of the left, liars of the right; all liars!!
I see the liars of the war clearly from the left and right probing at the wounds.
The masters of war want more, more, more and the peace groups always less,
But both care little ‘bout the wounded, the maimed or the dead of war.
Both say they do but their actions say they don’t. They lie to us and lie to themselves.
The masters of war carry on for the profit of the dead and maimed they’ve caused.
The liberals and progressives only see the warriors as a tool for their personal use.
Both groups use the warriors and victims to prove the other wrong and themselves right.
Both claim moral superiority but both lie and care little but for themselves.
Both claim loyalty but their actions of deceit and falsehoods show them as cowards.
They preen and clamor to have themselves famous and seen for all to know them.
They make a drama and a play of the dead and wounded; the scarred and traumatized.
They use the soldiers and their victims as tools to seek their fame and abandon them.
They move on to their next victims of their little play and toss them out as well.
War is their play, their moral way, their passion and their constant cry for fame.
War is their pulpit to debate the morality of their particular political thought and belief.
War keeps them relevant and at odds with one another as the tools die and bleed for them.
Liberal, progressive, right, conservative, left, moderate; they’re all the same.
They talk and talk while soldiers die in battle or die at home for lack of caring.
They talk and talk while children die from the soldiers’ weapons and lack of concern.
Talk is cheap and useless while others die, starve, thirst and fester from their wars.
Don’t be fooled by the patriotic fervor of the masters of war flying their flags so high.
Don’t be fooled by the peace groups’ rallies and marches incessantly all the same.
Neither side wants the war to really end and peace to reign in their separate worlds.
For the end of war would strip them of their stage, their drama and their reason for being.
Liars, damn liars, filthy liars, fucking liars, liars of the left, liars of the right; all liars!!
Rant to A Friend
D,
There are times in my moments of deepest despair that I wonder if I ever did come back home. I went as an idealistic 18 year-old and seemed to come back with the cynicism of an old embittered man. Is that coming back? I don’t know. But that’s the way things happen in life. We make one fateful decision when we’re young and it changes the course of our entire life. I know you can certainly relate to that.
There are also some moments in time which I find life is glorious because by absolute happenstance I’ve met people or seen things that lift the darkness to reveal beauty, kindness and love; yeah love. Meeting P-- was one of those times. Seeing my sons born were also times like that. The path that led me to the struggle for peace has shown me many of those times. The introductions to the passionate and caring people like you are also such times.
Sometimes I wonder if being ignorant of world affairs, choosing to ignore poverty, buying into the great American dream of consumerism, being self-centered, allowing television to narcotize and insulate me and not wanting to hear anything that’s bad news isn’t healthier. Sometimes I almost wish I could overlook genocide, dying children every thirty seconds, smart bombs, collateral damage, destruction of the environment, consumerism that is epitomized by spending 5 billion dollars this year on Halloween and 500 billion dollars spent to destroy Iraq.
I wonder if there’s a balance in life that allows us to care but not be overwhelmed by all of it. If not overwhelmed, I wonder if there’s a way to not allow the anger to consume us. And yet not allow ourselves to believe we can meditate the world into peace and justice.
Yeah, I’m angrier than ever about the band (USMC band mentioned) and the dirge it plays. I’m pissed at Christians in name but despicable and hateful Pharisees in actions. I’m pissed at the smug and self-serving liberals who divide up in a thousand special interest groups fighting one another while the world burns in the background. Are they any better than the tyrants and fascists who have succeeded in their attempts to widen the gap between the rich and the poor? Can you own a hybrid and live in a 10,000 square foot home and still be considered progressive while the rest of the world lives in squalor?
In my youth I lost myself in sports. I played baseball from sunrise to sunset in the summers. I played football in the fall and basketball in the winter. When I wasn’t playing I was watching. I filled my mind with the inane statistics of the batting averages of people like Aaron and Mantle and the passing percentages of Unitas and Tarkenton. I imagined jumping like Elgin Baylor and shooting like Jerry West. These were my heroes.
As I matured the natural progression from the wars of the playing field became the wars of nationalism. Young men fighting for words like democracy and freedom became my heroes. Skilled liars from rich and elitist families indoctrinated us with the idealism of fantasy. They made us believe they were with us and like us instead of the pawns of empire we really were. And when my time was up on the playing fields of empire I was like a pawn taken by the knight in a chess game of war and nationalism; pushed aside and discarded.
Now I’ve become the bitter and angry old veteran who watches as a new roster of pawns play on a new field of death and lies. New liars with the same lies are better able to distribute their lies but they are the same lies. The constant weeding out of the impoverished and the weak continues while the obscenely wealthy become even more obscene.
Now the masses continue with the delusional belief they too can become wealthy and have the fairy tale life. Instead they become prisoners of debt in their foolish attempt to emulate the elite who grow even richer from the mindless spending. The children of the pawns continue to learn the lessons of capitalism and consumerism without thought of scenes like Cambodia in the 1970’s and Darfur in 2007. They can’t find Baghdad or Basra on the world map but know how to travel the fantasy world of Halo and Call of Duty.
The children no longer play on the vacant lots of my childhood. They no longer find the joy of school yard football. The adults found out they can control the kid’s games. They found out they can make billions from the games once played for the fans but now played for the corporate interests of mass media and their advertisers. The games once played in the sun are now played in “prime-time” with kids unable to watch unless they stay up well beyond their bedtime. Instead they play fantasy games with the images of the players on their X-Boxes.
Our games, our entertainment and our lives are part of the nationalistic plot of the military-industrial complex. Fear and wars keep the masses in line to perpetuate the game. Lies told often enough become truth to the feeble-minded. Right becomes wrong and wrong becomes truth and righteousness. Priests and men of God continue to push the lies that lead the poor to the killing fields. Fight for God, Allah or some other spiritual being that may or may not be myth or real.
People of color, people labeled “illegal” and people of poverty become either the pawns of war or the capital of the new prison industry. Prisons need bodies to flourish and the bodies of those unable to defend themselves in the “injustice system” of the wealthy bring great profits to private prisons without the word “rehabilitate” in their vocabulary.
The maintenance of fear requires the scapegoat. Hitler used the Jews, Christianity used the nations of Islamic belief and the tyrants of today use the invasion of “illegals” and the “Islamofascist” terrorists to continue the needed level of fear and hysteria.
The mindless masses tape windows with duct tape and store up water and food in fear of attack while their sons and daughters use weapons of horrific destruction to attack the innocents as well as the perceived enemy. They never question why there may be hate in the world for a nation that spends more on weapons than any other nation, spends 5 billion for a children’s holiday meant only to enrich the corporate coffers, utilizes slave labor to manufacture overpriced consumer items and rapes the environment of third world nations for the natural resources available to fuel the lifestyle of the few privileged to live in comfort.
I know I’ve been privileged to live in this land called America or to some the United States but the pride I once had has turned to shame. The words of the founders of this nation were grand and idealistic but shallow and hollow in truth. There never was a democracy in this nation. There never has been equality and justice for all. There’s never been freedom for all.
Division and hate continues to keep groups of people from joining together to bring the tyrants and criminals of war to justice. Foolish thinking that fosters racism, misogyny and injustice continues to flourish while the purveyors of evil hatefulness steal the soul and conscience of this nation.
America has become the Amerika of Franz Kafka in a way even the mind of Kafka couldn’t imagine. It has become Orwellian in ways “1984” failed to portray. Thought police and repression come in the guise of “homeland security” and anti-terrorism. The people endure searches and spying for security. They endorse torture to feel peace of mind. They look the other way as children die under the bombs of “peacekeepers”. The most important thing on their minds is the winner of American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
Politicians spend more than the GNP of most nations to win election and become the whores of the corporate masters who pay for special favors and looking the other way. If not the corporate masters, the Zionists use the guilt of the camps and the lure of geopolitical empire to push for the extinction of indigenous people and the theft of their lands. And still the progressives and liberals delude themselves into believing a letter or petition can make a difference. The sad truth is the system is broken and a revolution of ideas and new tactics will be necessary.
When I was young the thought of revolution seemed insane to me. But now I understand the words of Malcolm and Che were thoughtful and true. Now I understand Bobby Seale and the Panthers knew their letters and petitions were wasted efforts and only revolution could bring changes necessary for them to survive.
Every day I wonder why we fail to see the fantasy and lies we’ve been taught. I wonder why we can’t see the emperor without clothes and the wizard as the small man behind the curtain. I wonder what it takes before the darkness of nationalism will give way to the dawn of a new age of cooperation and awareness. And then I realize I’m the deluded one.
The lies of leaders and the corporations exploiting the workers continue unabated and yet the American people sit in a stupor without protest. The constant giving back to the company without loyalty or anything in return goes on without so much as a whimper because somehow the workers fear they’ll lose what little they’re left with. They long ago gave up the little dignity they once had before the unions were thrown out.
Ah, but you knew that anyway.
This is a response to your letter telling me of your love and gratitude I did return from my own personal nightmare. Such words of encouragement sustain me, believe me.
I write rants of discouraging things I observe. I should take time to write ones of the inspiring people like you who do sustain me. The dangers of dissent are great and the payoff is seldom what it should be. And yet there are so many willing to carry on. For all of you, I’m grateful and my heart full of love.
See you when I see you…..peace and love
T
There are times in my moments of deepest despair that I wonder if I ever did come back home. I went as an idealistic 18 year-old and seemed to come back with the cynicism of an old embittered man. Is that coming back? I don’t know. But that’s the way things happen in life. We make one fateful decision when we’re young and it changes the course of our entire life. I know you can certainly relate to that.
There are also some moments in time which I find life is glorious because by absolute happenstance I’ve met people or seen things that lift the darkness to reveal beauty, kindness and love; yeah love. Meeting P-- was one of those times. Seeing my sons born were also times like that. The path that led me to the struggle for peace has shown me many of those times. The introductions to the passionate and caring people like you are also such times.
Sometimes I wonder if being ignorant of world affairs, choosing to ignore poverty, buying into the great American dream of consumerism, being self-centered, allowing television to narcotize and insulate me and not wanting to hear anything that’s bad news isn’t healthier. Sometimes I almost wish I could overlook genocide, dying children every thirty seconds, smart bombs, collateral damage, destruction of the environment, consumerism that is epitomized by spending 5 billion dollars this year on Halloween and 500 billion dollars spent to destroy Iraq.
I wonder if there’s a balance in life that allows us to care but not be overwhelmed by all of it. If not overwhelmed, I wonder if there’s a way to not allow the anger to consume us. And yet not allow ourselves to believe we can meditate the world into peace and justice.
Yeah, I’m angrier than ever about the band (USMC band mentioned) and the dirge it plays. I’m pissed at Christians in name but despicable and hateful Pharisees in actions. I’m pissed at the smug and self-serving liberals who divide up in a thousand special interest groups fighting one another while the world burns in the background. Are they any better than the tyrants and fascists who have succeeded in their attempts to widen the gap between the rich and the poor? Can you own a hybrid and live in a 10,000 square foot home and still be considered progressive while the rest of the world lives in squalor?
In my youth I lost myself in sports. I played baseball from sunrise to sunset in the summers. I played football in the fall and basketball in the winter. When I wasn’t playing I was watching. I filled my mind with the inane statistics of the batting averages of people like Aaron and Mantle and the passing percentages of Unitas and Tarkenton. I imagined jumping like Elgin Baylor and shooting like Jerry West. These were my heroes.
As I matured the natural progression from the wars of the playing field became the wars of nationalism. Young men fighting for words like democracy and freedom became my heroes. Skilled liars from rich and elitist families indoctrinated us with the idealism of fantasy. They made us believe they were with us and like us instead of the pawns of empire we really were. And when my time was up on the playing fields of empire I was like a pawn taken by the knight in a chess game of war and nationalism; pushed aside and discarded.
Now I’ve become the bitter and angry old veteran who watches as a new roster of pawns play on a new field of death and lies. New liars with the same lies are better able to distribute their lies but they are the same lies. The constant weeding out of the impoverished and the weak continues while the obscenely wealthy become even more obscene.
Now the masses continue with the delusional belief they too can become wealthy and have the fairy tale life. Instead they become prisoners of debt in their foolish attempt to emulate the elite who grow even richer from the mindless spending. The children of the pawns continue to learn the lessons of capitalism and consumerism without thought of scenes like Cambodia in the 1970’s and Darfur in 2007. They can’t find Baghdad or Basra on the world map but know how to travel the fantasy world of Halo and Call of Duty.
The children no longer play on the vacant lots of my childhood. They no longer find the joy of school yard football. The adults found out they can control the kid’s games. They found out they can make billions from the games once played for the fans but now played for the corporate interests of mass media and their advertisers. The games once played in the sun are now played in “prime-time” with kids unable to watch unless they stay up well beyond their bedtime. Instead they play fantasy games with the images of the players on their X-Boxes.
Our games, our entertainment and our lives are part of the nationalistic plot of the military-industrial complex. Fear and wars keep the masses in line to perpetuate the game. Lies told often enough become truth to the feeble-minded. Right becomes wrong and wrong becomes truth and righteousness. Priests and men of God continue to push the lies that lead the poor to the killing fields. Fight for God, Allah or some other spiritual being that may or may not be myth or real.
People of color, people labeled “illegal” and people of poverty become either the pawns of war or the capital of the new prison industry. Prisons need bodies to flourish and the bodies of those unable to defend themselves in the “injustice system” of the wealthy bring great profits to private prisons without the word “rehabilitate” in their vocabulary.
The maintenance of fear requires the scapegoat. Hitler used the Jews, Christianity used the nations of Islamic belief and the tyrants of today use the invasion of “illegals” and the “Islamofascist” terrorists to continue the needed level of fear and hysteria.
The mindless masses tape windows with duct tape and store up water and food in fear of attack while their sons and daughters use weapons of horrific destruction to attack the innocents as well as the perceived enemy. They never question why there may be hate in the world for a nation that spends more on weapons than any other nation, spends 5 billion for a children’s holiday meant only to enrich the corporate coffers, utilizes slave labor to manufacture overpriced consumer items and rapes the environment of third world nations for the natural resources available to fuel the lifestyle of the few privileged to live in comfort.
I know I’ve been privileged to live in this land called America or to some the United States but the pride I once had has turned to shame. The words of the founders of this nation were grand and idealistic but shallow and hollow in truth. There never was a democracy in this nation. There never has been equality and justice for all. There’s never been freedom for all.
Division and hate continues to keep groups of people from joining together to bring the tyrants and criminals of war to justice. Foolish thinking that fosters racism, misogyny and injustice continues to flourish while the purveyors of evil hatefulness steal the soul and conscience of this nation.
America has become the Amerika of Franz Kafka in a way even the mind of Kafka couldn’t imagine. It has become Orwellian in ways “1984” failed to portray. Thought police and repression come in the guise of “homeland security” and anti-terrorism. The people endure searches and spying for security. They endorse torture to feel peace of mind. They look the other way as children die under the bombs of “peacekeepers”. The most important thing on their minds is the winner of American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
Politicians spend more than the GNP of most nations to win election and become the whores of the corporate masters who pay for special favors and looking the other way. If not the corporate masters, the Zionists use the guilt of the camps and the lure of geopolitical empire to push for the extinction of indigenous people and the theft of their lands. And still the progressives and liberals delude themselves into believing a letter or petition can make a difference. The sad truth is the system is broken and a revolution of ideas and new tactics will be necessary.
When I was young the thought of revolution seemed insane to me. But now I understand the words of Malcolm and Che were thoughtful and true. Now I understand Bobby Seale and the Panthers knew their letters and petitions were wasted efforts and only revolution could bring changes necessary for them to survive.
Every day I wonder why we fail to see the fantasy and lies we’ve been taught. I wonder why we can’t see the emperor without clothes and the wizard as the small man behind the curtain. I wonder what it takes before the darkness of nationalism will give way to the dawn of a new age of cooperation and awareness. And then I realize I’m the deluded one.
The lies of leaders and the corporations exploiting the workers continue unabated and yet the American people sit in a stupor without protest. The constant giving back to the company without loyalty or anything in return goes on without so much as a whimper because somehow the workers fear they’ll lose what little they’re left with. They long ago gave up the little dignity they once had before the unions were thrown out.
Ah, but you knew that anyway.
This is a response to your letter telling me of your love and gratitude I did return from my own personal nightmare. Such words of encouragement sustain me, believe me.
I write rants of discouraging things I observe. I should take time to write ones of the inspiring people like you who do sustain me. The dangers of dissent are great and the payoff is seldom what it should be. And yet there are so many willing to carry on. For all of you, I’m grateful and my heart full of love.
See you when I see you…..peace and love
T
Friday, November 9
The Coming Storm
Since before the war in Iraq, there have been a number of us older veterans who warned about the problems troops coming home would encounter. The human cost of war was as inevitable as the war itself.
Some of us tried early on to present the issues to peace groups, community members and others to prepare for what was bound to happen. The thinking was prevention might be better than crisis intervention.
I don't think we succeeded in the attempt for prevention. We heard a lot of people express limited interest but when push came to shove the yellow ribbons on cars and the use of veterans to speak out against the war were about the most that ever happened. All the efforts to raise public awareness were mostly lost on the general public.
I apologize if this sounds harsh but for the past four years I've been part of a group of veterans dedicated in tracking the problems of returned troops. The list of violence and destructive behaviors by troops who have been in combat grows ever larger and more families are destroyed.
Unlike Vietnam, this is a war fought by young men and women who "volunteered" and most Americans feel they're not affected by what happens to the troops. I've heard Marines say they fight for their lives while America shops at the mall. Being a former Marine, I know the deep seated sarcasm of what they say. And agree with them.
Of course Americans are affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money spent on these wars is drained from every part of America except the rich and the profiteers aligned with the rich. Schools, healthcare, housing, treatment for substance abuse, treatment for mental illnesses, living wages, job creation, justice and all facets of the American social fabric are touched by the wars.
What's overlooked; however, are the young men and women who went to the killing fields. They aren't the problem. They're the symptoms. Since there's no draft it's become pretty damn easy to overlook men and women who volunteer for military service but little understanding why they join. The poverty draft and the lure of college funding made many of the troops a prime target for recruiters. Fear tactics and overt nationalism following September 11, 2001 led many to believe they were protecting "the homeland".
Most Americans only want to hear from the returning troops during events to rally support for the war or during anti-war events to rally opposition. In the elections since 2003, politicians from both sides have used returned veterans as props for their campaigns to demonstrate they "support the troops" more than the opponent.
They don't want to hear about their nightmares, their flashbacks, their cold sweats, the hyper-vigilance, the thoughts of suicide, the murderous thoughts when provoked, the hateful things said to loved ones, the awful things spoken to their children in the moments of unpredictable rage, the overuse of pot, alcohol and other drugs to drown out the images in their head, the depression that immobilizes them, the difficulties keeping a job or the homelessness.
Americans don't like to hear 25% of the prison population is veterans. They don't like to hear 25% of the homeless are veterans. They don't want to hear 1 in 3 Iraq/Afghanistan vets are seeking mental health treatment. They don't want to hear about the wives killed at Fort Campbell or the murders of other soldiers at Fort Bragg. They don't want to hear 30-40% of the inmates in the brig at Camp Pendleton are incarcerated following behaviors that are classic symptoms of PTSD. Instead of punishment they should have been treated.
There is an urgency to end the wars. Veterans know that all too well. There's many things needed to be done to make this a better and truly moral nation. Activists seem to have all the bases covered in pointing out what needs to be done except the care of the returned troops.
Veterans are welcome to tell their horror stories of combat and atrocity in the peace movement but the story of the war they face in returning to "the world" is too often seen as secondary or whining. The question of their futures is seldom asked or thought about. Where will the vet with amputated legs get the help needed to live as normal a life as possible? Where will the vet with untreated PTSD live and work? What will become of them in twenty years?
Some activists are even angry about the role of veterans in the peace movement. They wonder how someone could have volunteered to take part in what is so obviously an immoral war to activists. They dislike the "hero" status that seems to be given to the veteran. They wonder how truly devoted to peace a veteran is when the ambivalence of allegiance to friends still in the war often comes out. Some of the veterans seem to talk and act like they're still in the military. They tell war stories. They seem aloof and detached from the rest of the group.
In some ways this attitude is no different from the military toward a combat vet that wants to become a conscientious objector AFTER they've been in combat. The military believes the vet can't morally object to the war if they've taken part in it. Of course they can! Who better knows the reality and horror of war? Who better knows the immorality of war than the man or woman sent illegally into war?
I don't propose veterans be given hero status. I've never felt my combat experience was in any way heroic. A young Marine sums it up in the CD "Voices From the Front". The CD is a collection of raps, rhymes, songs and discussions by Marines in Iraq that have been in combat. The young Marine says he's asked how many people he killed by friends back home and responds that even if he knew he'd never tell because what he did is between him and God. What he did, he did to survive.
Veterans are survivors not heroes. They can be the verbal historians of the experience of war. Their history can be used to avoid the insane impulses or the calculated madness of wars. They can be powerful voices to challenge politicians who are willing to throw away the lives of the nation's youth. They can resist war and their courage to do so become heroic at times but no more than the dedicated activist who has resisted all along
But the veterans must also find some peace and sanity for themselves. They must get the care needed for the wounds inflicted upon their bodies and minds. They can't be ignored. Their wounds will be healed or fester into an epidemic that will infect the entire nation. America can pay now or pay much more if it waits until later to help them heal.
The peace movement can demonstrate they do support the troops by making the needed care for emotional and physical wounds part of their agenda. They can reach beyond the normal group of activists and come together with families and community members just as concerned. The common ground of caring for the veterans can be used to have conversation and true dialogue with people outside the movement.
The returning troops can be witnesses to the truth about war. Their revelations about war experiences can provide young people vitally important information to make informed decisions if recruiters attempt to lure them into enlistments based on sugar-coated perspectives of the military. The troops can cause Americans to question the rush to war by an administration manipulating data to create fear.
The American soldier is the personification of the American society. A government of the people must decide how much longer we want to keep sending our children to kill the children of other people around the world. We must decide if we will send another generation to the killing fields and like in all the past wars forget them once their bodies and minds have been consumed by the horrors they endured.
The care of the returning men and women from Iraq and Afghanistan is the responsibility of all Americans whether for or against the war. We can pay the costs now or pay it later with much regret and sorrow.
With all that said I'm posting another article to give further evidence of the impending crisis we face in this nation.
Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver VVAW
USMC combat veteran of Vietnam
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: November 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
Joe Williams lives in a homeless shelter in Washington.
Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans' accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.
"We're beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters," said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. "But we anticipate that it's going to be a tsunami."
With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.
"Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness," Pete Dougherty, the V.A.'s director of homeless programs, said.
Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.
Frederick Johnson, 37, an Army reservist, slept in abandoned houses shortly after returning to Chester, Pa., from a year in Iraq, where he experienced daily mortar attacks and saw mangled bodies of soldiers and children. He started using crack cocaine and drinking, burning through $6,000 in savings.
"I cut myself off from my family and went from being a pleasant guy to wanting to rip your head off if you looked at me wrong," Mr. Johnson said.
On the street for a year, he finally checked in at a V.A. clinic in Maryland and has struggled with PTSD, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. The V.A. has provided temporary housing as he starts a new job.
Tracy Jones of the Compass Center, a Seattle agency that has seen a handful of new homeless each month, said she was surprised by "the quickness in which Iraqi Freedom veterans are becoming homeless" compared with the Vietnam era. The availability of meth and crack could lead addicts into rapid downhill spirals, Ms. Jones said.
Poverty and high housing costs also contribute. The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington will release a report on Thursday saying that among one million veterans who served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.
Mr. Dougherty of the V.A. said outreach officers, who visit shelters, soup kitchens and parks, had located about 1,500 returnees from Iraq or Afghanistan who seemed at high risk, though many had jobs. More than 400 have entered agency-supported residential programs around the country. No one knows how many others have not made contact with aid agencies.
More than 11 percent of the newly homeless veterans are women, Mr. Dougherty said, compared with 4 percent enrolled in such programs over all.
Veterans have long accounted for a high share of the nation's homeless. Although they make up 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless on any given day, the National Alliance report calculated.
According to the V.A., some 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006. That represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, Mr. Dougherty said, as housing and medical programs grew and older veterans died.
The most troubling face of homelessness has been the chronic cases, those who live in the streets or shelters for more than year. Some 44,000 to 64,000 veterans fit that category, according to the National Alliance study.
On Wednesday, the Bush administration announced what it described as "remarkable progress" for the chronic homeless. Alphonso R. Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said a new policy of bringing the long-term homeless directly into housing, backed by supporting services, had put more than 20,000, or about 12 percent, into permanent or transitional homes.
Veterans have been among the beneficiaries, but Mary Cunningham, director of the research institute of the National Alliance and chief author of their report, said the share of supported housing marked for veterans was low.
A collaborative program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the V.A. has developed 1,780 such units. The National Alliance said the number needed to grow by 25,000.
Mr. Dougherty described the large and growing efforts the V.A. was making to prevent homelessness including offering two years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.
One obstacle is that many veterans wait too long to seek help. "I had that pride thing going on, `I'm a soldier, I should be better than this,'" Mr. Johnson said.
Kent Richardson, 49, who was in the Army from 1976 to 1992 and has flashbacks from the gulf war, said, "when you get out you feel disconnected and alone."
Mr. Richardson said it took him two years to find a job after leaving the Army. Then he became an alcoholic. He now stays at the Southeast Veteran's Service Center in Washington, awaiting permanent subsidized housing.
Joe Williams, 53, spent 16 years in the Army and the Navy, including a deeply upsetting assignment in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the dead from the gulf war were taken for autopsies.
For the past three years Mr. Williams has lived in a bunk bed in a Washington shelter. He was laid off, his car and house were repossessed, and his wife left him. He moved to Georgia, where he lost another job.
Broke and depressed, he walked from Georgia to a V.A. hospital in the Washington area, where schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now, after three years of medication and therapy, he feels ready to start looking for work.
"I have a mission I've got to accomplish," Mr. Williams said.
Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting from Pittsburgh, Michael Parrish from Los Angeles and J. Michael Kennedy from Seattle.
Some of us tried early on to present the issues to peace groups, community members and others to prepare for what was bound to happen. The thinking was prevention might be better than crisis intervention.
I don't think we succeeded in the attempt for prevention. We heard a lot of people express limited interest but when push came to shove the yellow ribbons on cars and the use of veterans to speak out against the war were about the most that ever happened. All the efforts to raise public awareness were mostly lost on the general public.
I apologize if this sounds harsh but for the past four years I've been part of a group of veterans dedicated in tracking the problems of returned troops. The list of violence and destructive behaviors by troops who have been in combat grows ever larger and more families are destroyed.
Unlike Vietnam, this is a war fought by young men and women who "volunteered" and most Americans feel they're not affected by what happens to the troops. I've heard Marines say they fight for their lives while America shops at the mall. Being a former Marine, I know the deep seated sarcasm of what they say. And agree with them.
Of course Americans are affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money spent on these wars is drained from every part of America except the rich and the profiteers aligned with the rich. Schools, healthcare, housing, treatment for substance abuse, treatment for mental illnesses, living wages, job creation, justice and all facets of the American social fabric are touched by the wars.
What's overlooked; however, are the young men and women who went to the killing fields. They aren't the problem. They're the symptoms. Since there's no draft it's become pretty damn easy to overlook men and women who volunteer for military service but little understanding why they join. The poverty draft and the lure of college funding made many of the troops a prime target for recruiters. Fear tactics and overt nationalism following September 11, 2001 led many to believe they were protecting "the homeland".
Most Americans only want to hear from the returning troops during events to rally support for the war or during anti-war events to rally opposition. In the elections since 2003, politicians from both sides have used returned veterans as props for their campaigns to demonstrate they "support the troops" more than the opponent.
They don't want to hear about their nightmares, their flashbacks, their cold sweats, the hyper-vigilance, the thoughts of suicide, the murderous thoughts when provoked, the hateful things said to loved ones, the awful things spoken to their children in the moments of unpredictable rage, the overuse of pot, alcohol and other drugs to drown out the images in their head, the depression that immobilizes them, the difficulties keeping a job or the homelessness.
Americans don't like to hear 25% of the prison population is veterans. They don't like to hear 25% of the homeless are veterans. They don't want to hear 1 in 3 Iraq/Afghanistan vets are seeking mental health treatment. They don't want to hear about the wives killed at Fort Campbell or the murders of other soldiers at Fort Bragg. They don't want to hear 30-40% of the inmates in the brig at Camp Pendleton are incarcerated following behaviors that are classic symptoms of PTSD. Instead of punishment they should have been treated.
There is an urgency to end the wars. Veterans know that all too well. There's many things needed to be done to make this a better and truly moral nation. Activists seem to have all the bases covered in pointing out what needs to be done except the care of the returned troops.
Veterans are welcome to tell their horror stories of combat and atrocity in the peace movement but the story of the war they face in returning to "the world" is too often seen as secondary or whining. The question of their futures is seldom asked or thought about. Where will the vet with amputated legs get the help needed to live as normal a life as possible? Where will the vet with untreated PTSD live and work? What will become of them in twenty years?
Some activists are even angry about the role of veterans in the peace movement. They wonder how someone could have volunteered to take part in what is so obviously an immoral war to activists. They dislike the "hero" status that seems to be given to the veteran. They wonder how truly devoted to peace a veteran is when the ambivalence of allegiance to friends still in the war often comes out. Some of the veterans seem to talk and act like they're still in the military. They tell war stories. They seem aloof and detached from the rest of the group.
In some ways this attitude is no different from the military toward a combat vet that wants to become a conscientious objector AFTER they've been in combat. The military believes the vet can't morally object to the war if they've taken part in it. Of course they can! Who better knows the reality and horror of war? Who better knows the immorality of war than the man or woman sent illegally into war?
I don't propose veterans be given hero status. I've never felt my combat experience was in any way heroic. A young Marine sums it up in the CD "Voices From the Front". The CD is a collection of raps, rhymes, songs and discussions by Marines in Iraq that have been in combat. The young Marine says he's asked how many people he killed by friends back home and responds that even if he knew he'd never tell because what he did is between him and God. What he did, he did to survive.
Veterans are survivors not heroes. They can be the verbal historians of the experience of war. Their history can be used to avoid the insane impulses or the calculated madness of wars. They can be powerful voices to challenge politicians who are willing to throw away the lives of the nation's youth. They can resist war and their courage to do so become heroic at times but no more than the dedicated activist who has resisted all along
But the veterans must also find some peace and sanity for themselves. They must get the care needed for the wounds inflicted upon their bodies and minds. They can't be ignored. Their wounds will be healed or fester into an epidemic that will infect the entire nation. America can pay now or pay much more if it waits until later to help them heal.
The peace movement can demonstrate they do support the troops by making the needed care for emotional and physical wounds part of their agenda. They can reach beyond the normal group of activists and come together with families and community members just as concerned. The common ground of caring for the veterans can be used to have conversation and true dialogue with people outside the movement.
The returning troops can be witnesses to the truth about war. Their revelations about war experiences can provide young people vitally important information to make informed decisions if recruiters attempt to lure them into enlistments based on sugar-coated perspectives of the military. The troops can cause Americans to question the rush to war by an administration manipulating data to create fear.
The American soldier is the personification of the American society. A government of the people must decide how much longer we want to keep sending our children to kill the children of other people around the world. We must decide if we will send another generation to the killing fields and like in all the past wars forget them once their bodies and minds have been consumed by the horrors they endured.
The care of the returning men and women from Iraq and Afghanistan is the responsibility of all Americans whether for or against the war. We can pay the costs now or pay it later with much regret and sorrow.
With all that said I'm posting another article to give further evidence of the impending crisis we face in this nation.
Wm. Terry Leichner, RN
Denver VVAW
USMC combat veteran of Vietnam
By ERIK ECKHOLM
Published: November 8, 2007
WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
Joe Williams lives in a homeless shelter in Washington.
Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans' accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.
"We're beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters," said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. "But we anticipate that it's going to be a tsunami."
With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.
"Sexual abuse is a risk factor for homelessness," Pete Dougherty, the V.A.'s director of homeless programs, said.
Special traits of the current wars may contribute to homelessness, including high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, which can cause unstable behavior and substance abuse, and the long and repeated tours of duty, which can make the reintegration into families and work all the harder.
Frederick Johnson, 37, an Army reservist, slept in abandoned houses shortly after returning to Chester, Pa., from a year in Iraq, where he experienced daily mortar attacks and saw mangled bodies of soldiers and children. He started using crack cocaine and drinking, burning through $6,000 in savings.
"I cut myself off from my family and went from being a pleasant guy to wanting to rip your head off if you looked at me wrong," Mr. Johnson said.
On the street for a year, he finally checked in at a V.A. clinic in Maryland and has struggled with PTSD, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse. The V.A. has provided temporary housing as he starts a new job.
Tracy Jones of the Compass Center, a Seattle agency that has seen a handful of new homeless each month, said she was surprised by "the quickness in which Iraqi Freedom veterans are becoming homeless" compared with the Vietnam era. The availability of meth and crack could lead addicts into rapid downhill spirals, Ms. Jones said.
Poverty and high housing costs also contribute. The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington will release a report on Thursday saying that among one million veterans who served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.
Mr. Dougherty of the V.A. said outreach officers, who visit shelters, soup kitchens and parks, had located about 1,500 returnees from Iraq or Afghanistan who seemed at high risk, though many had jobs. More than 400 have entered agency-supported residential programs around the country. No one knows how many others have not made contact with aid agencies.
More than 11 percent of the newly homeless veterans are women, Mr. Dougherty said, compared with 4 percent enrolled in such programs over all.
Veterans have long accounted for a high share of the nation's homeless. Although they make up 11 percent of the adult population, they make up 26 percent of the homeless on any given day, the National Alliance report calculated.
According to the V.A., some 196,000 veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006. That represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, Mr. Dougherty said, as housing and medical programs grew and older veterans died.
The most troubling face of homelessness has been the chronic cases, those who live in the streets or shelters for more than year. Some 44,000 to 64,000 veterans fit that category, according to the National Alliance study.
On Wednesday, the Bush administration announced what it described as "remarkable progress" for the chronic homeless. Alphonso R. Jackson, the secretary of housing and urban development, said a new policy of bringing the long-term homeless directly into housing, backed by supporting services, had put more than 20,000, or about 12 percent, into permanent or transitional homes.
Veterans have been among the beneficiaries, but Mary Cunningham, director of the research institute of the National Alliance and chief author of their report, said the share of supported housing marked for veterans was low.
A collaborative program of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the V.A. has developed 1,780 such units. The National Alliance said the number needed to grow by 25,000.
Mr. Dougherty described the large and growing efforts the V.A. was making to prevent homelessness including offering two years of free medical care and identifying psychological and substance abuse problems early.
One obstacle is that many veterans wait too long to seek help. "I had that pride thing going on, `I'm a soldier, I should be better than this,'" Mr. Johnson said.
Kent Richardson, 49, who was in the Army from 1976 to 1992 and has flashbacks from the gulf war, said, "when you get out you feel disconnected and alone."
Mr. Richardson said it took him two years to find a job after leaving the Army. Then he became an alcoholic. He now stays at the Southeast Veteran's Service Center in Washington, awaiting permanent subsidized housing.
Joe Williams, 53, spent 16 years in the Army and the Navy, including a deeply upsetting assignment in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the dead from the gulf war were taken for autopsies.
For the past three years Mr. Williams has lived in a bunk bed in a Washington shelter. He was laid off, his car and house were repossessed, and his wife left him. He moved to Georgia, where he lost another job.
Broke and depressed, he walked from Georgia to a V.A. hospital in the Washington area, where schizophrenia was diagnosed. Now, after three years of medication and therapy, he feels ready to start looking for work.
"I have a mission I've got to accomplish," Mr. Williams said.
Sean D. Hamill contributed reporting from Pittsburgh, Michael Parrish from Los Angeles and J. Michael Kennedy from Seattle.
Wednesday, November 7
1 in 4 Homeless are Vets: Tsunami of Iraq/Afghanistan Vets to Come
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 21 minutes ago
November 7, 2007 915pm
WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.
In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
"We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous," said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.
While services to homeless veterans have improved in the past 20 years, advocates say more financial resources still are needed. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity.
"When the Vietnam War ended, that was part of the problem. The war was over, it was off TV, nobody wanted to hear about it," said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which provides substance abuse help, job training and shelter to veterans.
"I think they'll be forgotten," Keaveney said of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. "People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war."
Keaveney said it's difficult for his group to persuade some homeless Iraq veterans to stay for treatment and help because they don't relate to the older veterans. Those who stayed have had success — one is now a stock broker and another is applying to be a police officer, he said.
"They see guys that are their father's age and they don't understand, they don't know, that in a couple of years they'll be looking like them," he said.
After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life.
Kelley said he couldn't find a job because he didn't have an apartment, and he couldn't get an apartment because he didn't have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He's since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.
"The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon.
The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness — mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA.
Overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness and more than three out of four have a substance abuse problem, while 35 percent have both, Dougherty said.
Historically, a number of fighters in U.S. wars have become homeless. In the post-Civil War era, homeless veterans sang old Army songs to dramatize their need for work and became known as "tramps," which had meant to march into war, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Penn State University's Beaver campus who wrote a book on the history of homelessness.
After World War I, thousands of veterans — many of them homeless — camped in the nation's capital seeking bonus money. Their camps were destroyed by the government, creating a public relations disaster for President Herbert Hoover.
The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a time of economic restructuring, and many of the same people who fought in Vietnam were also those most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs, DePastino said.
Their entrance to the streets was traumatic and, as they aged, their problems became more chronic, recalled Sister Mary Scullion, who has worked with the homeless for 30 years and co-founded of the group Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia.
"It takes more to address the needs because they are multiple needs that have been unattended," Scullion said. "Life on the street is brutal and I know many, many homeless veterans who have died from Vietnam."
The VA started targeting homelessness in 1987, 12 years after the fall of Saigon. Today, the VA has, either on its own or through partnerships, more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. It spends about $265 million annually on homeless-specific programs and about $1.5 billion for all health care costs for homeless veterans.
Because of these types of programs and because two years of free medical care is being offered to all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Dougherty said they hope many veterans from recent wars who are in need can be identified early.
"Clearly, I don't think that's going to totally solve the problem, but I also don't think we're simply going to wait for 10 years until they show up," Dougherty said. "We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future."
In all of 2006, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 495,400 veterans were homeless at some point during the year.
The group recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years dedicated to the chronically homeless that would provide permanent housing linked to veterans' support systems. It also recommends funding an additional 20,000 housing vouchers exclusively for homeless veterans, and creating a program that helps bridge the gap between income and rent.
Following those recommendations would cost billions of dollars, but there is some movement in Congress to increase the amount of money dedicated to homeless veterans programs.
On a recent day in Philadelphia, case managers from Project H.O.M.E. and the VA picked up William Joyce, 60, a homeless Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair who said he'd been sleeping at a bus terminal.
"You're an honorable veteran. You're going to get some services," outreach worker Mark Salvatore told Joyce. "You need to be connected. You don't need to be out here on the streets."
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson contributed to this story from Philadelphia.
___
On the Net:
National Alliance to End Homelessness
New Directions
Project Home
County of Lancaster
Veterans Affairs Department
U.S. Vets
1 hour, 21 minutes ago
November 7, 2007 915pm
WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.
In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
"We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous," said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.
While services to homeless veterans have improved in the past 20 years, advocates say more financial resources still are needed. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity.
"When the Vietnam War ended, that was part of the problem. The war was over, it was off TV, nobody wanted to hear about it," said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which provides substance abuse help, job training and shelter to veterans.
"I think they'll be forgotten," Keaveney said of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. "People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war."
Keaveney said it's difficult for his group to persuade some homeless Iraq veterans to stay for treatment and help because they don't relate to the older veterans. Those who stayed have had success — one is now a stock broker and another is applying to be a police officer, he said.
"They see guys that are their father's age and they don't understand, they don't know, that in a couple of years they'll be looking like them," he said.
After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life.
Kelley said he couldn't find a job because he didn't have an apartment, and he couldn't get an apartment because he didn't have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He's since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.
"The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon.
The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness — mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA.
Overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness and more than three out of four have a substance abuse problem, while 35 percent have both, Dougherty said.
Historically, a number of fighters in U.S. wars have become homeless. In the post-Civil War era, homeless veterans sang old Army songs to dramatize their need for work and became known as "tramps," which had meant to march into war, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Penn State University's Beaver campus who wrote a book on the history of homelessness.
After World War I, thousands of veterans — many of them homeless — camped in the nation's capital seeking bonus money. Their camps were destroyed by the government, creating a public relations disaster for President Herbert Hoover.
The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a time of economic restructuring, and many of the same people who fought in Vietnam were also those most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs, DePastino said.
Their entrance to the streets was traumatic and, as they aged, their problems became more chronic, recalled Sister Mary Scullion, who has worked with the homeless for 30 years and co-founded of the group Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia.
"It takes more to address the needs because they are multiple needs that have been unattended," Scullion said. "Life on the street is brutal and I know many, many homeless veterans who have died from Vietnam."
The VA started targeting homelessness in 1987, 12 years after the fall of Saigon. Today, the VA has, either on its own or through partnerships, more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. It spends about $265 million annually on homeless-specific programs and about $1.5 billion for all health care costs for homeless veterans.
Because of these types of programs and because two years of free medical care is being offered to all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Dougherty said they hope many veterans from recent wars who are in need can be identified early.
"Clearly, I don't think that's going to totally solve the problem, but I also don't think we're simply going to wait for 10 years until they show up," Dougherty said. "We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future."
In all of 2006, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 495,400 veterans were homeless at some point during the year.
The group recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years dedicated to the chronically homeless that would provide permanent housing linked to veterans' support systems. It also recommends funding an additional 20,000 housing vouchers exclusively for homeless veterans, and creating a program that helps bridge the gap between income and rent.
Following those recommendations would cost billions of dollars, but there is some movement in Congress to increase the amount of money dedicated to homeless veterans programs.
On a recent day in Philadelphia, case managers from Project H.O.M.E. and the VA picked up William Joyce, 60, a homeless Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair who said he'd been sleeping at a bus terminal.
"You're an honorable veteran. You're going to get some services," outreach worker Mark Salvatore told Joyce. "You need to be connected. You don't need to be out here on the streets."
___
Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson contributed to this story from Philadelphia.
___
On the Net:
National Alliance to End Homelessness
New Directions
Project Home
County of Lancaster
Veterans Affairs Department
U.S. Vets
Friday, November 2
At Least 430 Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans Have Committed Suicide
This was posted on the vetsandsurvivors discuss group (group of vets and Katrina survivors):
It's time to change the count of American war dead upward.
The Associated Press has got hold of a preliminary government study on suicides by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. According to the VA, at least 283 combat veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and the end of 2005 took their own lives. In addition, 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began bringing the government count to 430.
The VA's count is not a complete one, however. It does not include members of the military who returned from Iraq and then killed themselves before being discharged from the service – people like Sgt Brian Rand who shot himself in the head after returning home from his second tour.
It also doesn't include the deaths of people like Sgt. James Dean who was shot by Maryland state troopers after he barricaded himself in his father's farmhouse. Observers call those deaths "suicide by cop."
And it doesn't include the deaths of people like Sgt. Gerald Cassidy, a 32 year old Indiana National Guardsman, who died at Fort Knox five months after returning from Iraq with brain damage from a roadside bomb.
How many more American deaths continue to go uncounted?
Regardless, it's clear is that we need to change our count of casualties upward from 4,229 US military deaths (3,842 in Iraq and 387 in Afghanistan) to closer to 5,000 – possibly more when you consider those deaths that still haven't been counted.
It's time to change the count of American war dead upward.
The Associated Press has got hold of a preliminary government study on suicides by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. According to the VA, at least 283 combat veterans who left the military between the start of the war in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 and the end of 2005 took their own lives. In addition, 147 troops have killed themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan since the wars began bringing the government count to 430.
The VA's count is not a complete one, however. It does not include members of the military who returned from Iraq and then killed themselves before being discharged from the service – people like Sgt Brian Rand who shot himself in the head after returning home from his second tour.
It also doesn't include the deaths of people like Sgt. James Dean who was shot by Maryland state troopers after he barricaded himself in his father's farmhouse. Observers call those deaths "suicide by cop."
And it doesn't include the deaths of people like Sgt. Gerald Cassidy, a 32 year old Indiana National Guardsman, who died at Fort Knox five months after returning from Iraq with brain damage from a roadside bomb.
How many more American deaths continue to go uncounted?
Regardless, it's clear is that we need to change our count of casualties upward from 4,229 US military deaths (3,842 in Iraq and 387 in Afghanistan) to closer to 5,000 – possibly more when you consider those deaths that still haven't been counted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
