The men and women in our armed forces are a special kind of breed. Not only do they sacrifice their lives for our country, but they also force their families to make sacrifices. Husband's, wives, mother's, and father's are all forced to have an eerie thought in the back of their minds; maybe a loved one may not be coming home, maybe that maybe the hug they gave their troop before they got stationed in a war zone was the last one they'll ever give.
Our troops pay a hefty price for their service. I want to support these brave men and women, but I can't. By "can't" I don't mean that I have something against our troops, personally. I mean systematically, and as a society, how can I say that I support them?
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In the U.S., we treat our veterans like crap. Which is not only disrespectful but a giant back-handed slap in the face to the people who go above and beyond, more than the average citizen can even imagine.
When our veterans get back, there is absolutely zero healthcare for them. Veterans have to wait years to get health care. Not days, but years. Why, you ask? Well, see, some really insidious people decided to put veterans on waiting lists that don't exist. Take Phoenix, for example. Instead of putting 1,700 veterans on a list so they could get care eventually. They put them on a secret wait list that didn't exist just so the hospital could show on paper that the wait times were low. So, if you're a veteran and you have a serious injury that needs to be fixed right away, you're going to have to live with it for a while. But, if you have a mental injury like PTSD, it could be way worse.
A survey showed that 31 percent of veterans have thought about killing themselves, 40 percent of veterans know somebody who has killed themselves, and 47 percent of veterans know somebody who has tried to kill themselves. But do we help them? Not enough.
It's not just the people you know or see in uniforms, either. You know that homeless person that you probably thought was some dumb drunk that never did anything in society and is too lazy to get a job? Hopefully you're not talking about one of 57,849 homeless veterans on the street, because that would be a shame. Hopefully you weren't in central Florida when you said that either, because just in the month of August they found 400 homeless vets sleeping in the woods or on the street.
Yes, America, in theory we can rally around the fact that we love our troops and support them. Realistically, let's face facts and just admit that we don't in practice. Just because you support a bigger military budget or another war doesn't mean you're for the troops. Your little yellow ribbon on your car that says "I support the troops" doesn't mean anything, and you're not a good person for giving up your first-class ticket to someone wearing a uniform. Why?
Because veterans don't need any of that stuff. What veterans need are the same type of sacrifice that they give us: sacrifice your time and hold your government accountable for the atrocities that are going on outside of our American bubble. Actually do something to get veterans off the streets, into hospitals, and back to being productive members of society. Not only do veterans deserve it, but we as a people owe it to them; to make their lives better when they get back onto U.S. soil.
