131,000 homeless vets now: how many more will Obama add?
by: Dave Belden on November 30th, 2009 | 6 Comments »
Swords to Plowshares director Michael Blecker (right) talks with veteran John Hall at the agency in San Francisco. Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
Pentagon bean counters see an extra $40 billion in annual costs if President Obama sends 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, but Michael Blecker sees mainly this:
More than 13,000 new cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. An additional 8,000 or so traumatic brain injuries.
… The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have produced more diagnosed cases of PTSD and debilitating injuries per capita than any other war in the nation’s history, health care experts say. And veterans who encounter homecoming trouble are becoming homeless more quickly than ever, street counselors say.
It’s something most people don’t consider when they think of sending more soldiers overseas, said Blecker, head of San Francisco’s Swords to Plowshares veterans aid agency. [The full article is here.]
They don’t? I’m sure that for many readers of this blog, as for myself, it was one of the first, if not the first, things we thought of when Bush started the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Unless the first was the sheer number of noncombatant Afghans and Iraqis that were going to get caught in the crossfire. Isn’t that you think of when you think of war?
We all owe thanks to the people like Blecker who are trying to heal wounds that should never have been inflicted and that we know are now going to be inflicted because of our failure to hold back this President, a man we thought had a better imagination than Bush about the consequences of war.
70 percent of newly returned vets who need treatment are failing to seek it out.
“In the past, it took Vietnam vets about 10 years to become homeless after they were discharged,” Blecker said. “The trend is about half that now, for these new vets.”
Interesting stats. As the spouse of a Canadian vet who just returned from Afghanistan, I probably understand a little better than many about the sacrifices Soldiers make in Combat and the difficulties in adapting to “normal” life once again. The injuries do not need to be visible on the outside to cripple ones existance. It is a noteworthy point to make that while the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have produced more PTSD and traumatic brain injury, these types of injuries were not recognized in prior conflicts and only recently have become recognized and addressed. I hope the family and friends of all the soldiers who return understand how important it is to support them in every way and be patient in helping them “find their way back home”.
This framing really stuck in my craw: who are trying to heal wounds that should never have been inflicted and that we know are now going to be inflicted because of our failure to hold back this President, a man we thought had a better imagination than Bush about the consequences of war.
How is it “our” failure when we’ve done everything short of shutting down the nation to get President Obama to listen to reason and his heart rather than his incompetent General? (Esp. given that “shutting down the nation” is proving to be an ever more elusive prospect given contemporary police-state conditions, the corporate numbing/anesthesia effect on the populace, and the fiscal crises that force people to choose going to work over national strikes for a cause) When a person refuses to hear, and hear very LOUD numerous voices practically screaming at him on a daily basis, it is not the fault or “failure” of the voices crying out. It is the failure of the person who is refusing to hear (or choosing to only listen to what he wants to hear).
We cross into very dangerous ideological territory when we accept “blame” or responsibility for someone’s shortcomings just because we like them (or even like them as a lesser-of-two-evils). For me, this is akin to giving someone the benefit of the doubt and doing so on crack. It’s not helpful at all. This is where that healthy notion of personal responsibility comes in. You can drag a horse to water but you cannot make ‘em drink… if I can toss up some more clichés I will, but I need breakfast first.
Fair point. I can go with that. But from a longer perspective I also feel strongly that the Left itself has failed. Crying out loudly is not necessarily effective, or all that’s needed. If we want to win, we have to learn some deeper lessons. A couple of my posts describe what I mean better than I can do here:
http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/10/12/the-left-easily-misled-or-still-deeply-disillusioned/
and http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2009/05/08/why-spirituality-is-needed-in-politics/
Check out this story about a CNN hero giving shelter to homeless vets: http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/02/19/heroes.roy.foster/index.html
I’m a vet of WWII. B-17 bomber pilot. Brother killed at Salerno. Shot down over Peenemunde August 24, 1944. Interned in Sweden. Returned to US, retrained as a pilot instructor. Was teaching West Point cadets when the bomb went off at Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. Shock…and intense inner humiliation. “My” country killed 92,000 men, women and children with 1 bomb….to “win” a war. Talk about PTSD. I had it, in spades. Then the “Cold War” startewd between “my” country and the Soviet Union. “They’re starting all over again,” I thought, “but now with atomic bombs. I want OUT! I’M NOT PLAYING THIS GAME ANYMORE!” Now 61 years later, as I read the comments above, I am astounded at the TOTAL IGNORANCE of the cause of war itself. Vets of war, I thought, had both the right and duty to MAKE PEACE once they get rid of their uniforms. BUT “making WORLD peace” requires CLAIMING A HIGHER CITIZENSHIP THAN THE NATIONAL WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY A WAR CITIZENSHIP. (Read: “national defense,” a deadly oxymoron in the Nuclear Age) FELLOW HUMANS, HUMANITY IS IN DANGER OF DISAPPEARING! THAT MEANS YOU! Einstein said it first: “If we don’t eliminate war, war will eliminate us.” He died advocating world government. So did hundreds of wise men before him going back to Socrates. Yes, I declared myself a “World Citizen” in 1948 after renouncing nationalism. Want a historic example? The 55 men who gathered in a hall in Philadelphia in 1787 and IMAGINED a whole new government ABOVE the ones which claimed their separate allegiances. GUESS WHAT? IT MADE PEACE BETWEEN THEM. Want a modern sanction for world citizenship? Art 21(3), Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “The will of the people shall be the basis for the authority of government.” A word to the wise….Enough already.
I realize that this is posted because of the escalation, but I must add…… when we divide homeless people into categories, it is us homeless people who suffer the consequences.
ALL HOMELESS PEOPLE DESERVE TO HAVE HOMES!
Continuing to have pet groups of more deserving homeless people just keeps the whole process going, and pleases those who are dividing us in this way.