And the sad downside for the Vets is that their numbers of unemployed is stunningly high at 20%, and congress will not move a jobs bill to help the vets!! In fact congress will try to take away unemployment benefit extension this Friday, of which the Vets make up a high percentage. Where’s the compassion we showed for the World War II Vets who came back to jobs programs, transitional training, federal subsidized housing (my brother Albert lived in that housing for 12 years) tax supported higher education and trade schools with the GI Bill, etc.
Have we become so polarized that we don’t care about the folks who fight the wars anymore? It is as though we send them off and when they come home we throw them away. They are immaterial to our economic system. For all of the celebration honoring vets, we better start taking care of them when they come home, all of the above plus recognize the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is an illness not a state of mind—and deal with it as a national priority along with the rehabilitation of destroyed bodies.
My take on Veterans Day: On 11-11-11— let’s announce a national commitment to take care of our Vets and return them to mainstream life in all the villages, towns and cities where they come back to live, and seek work, happiness and their part of the American Dream!! No more parades with great speeches and then forget about what they have done for all of us the other 364 days a year. Time for redemption of a promise to these men and women. As the great poet Robert Service said in The Cremation of Sam MaGee: ” ….a promise made is a debt unpaid.”
Jim Kent: 