But they deserve much more than that.
It's easy to post a quick note on Facebook, or unfurl Old Glory over the porch, or put a bumper sticker on one's car. Those are all good gestures, but they are merely nice; they don't actually support in any meaningful way our soldiers past or current.
And they really need our support.
- Once discharged, veterans face much higher levels of unemployment: 12.1% versus 9% for the US overall. The youngest vets have an unemployment rate above 30%.
- Veterans are a disproportionately large segment of the homeless, and are homeless on average for 6 years, compared to 4 years for non-veterans.
- Homeless veterans are more likely to die on the street than on-veterans.
- As many as 40% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from mental health issues, including PTSD, drug and alcohol abuse and depression.
- The suicide rate of veterans is shockingly high and has been going up for years.
Little wonder Scott Olsen and other vets are a growing presence in the Occupy movement. In America's growing identity crisis, many have come to realize that they have gone into harm's way to fight not for some gauzy abstraction of American ideals but instead for a much harsher reality.
They fight for the neo-imperialist dreams of chicken hawks, to secure by force dwindling supplies of the devil's excrement. Most deaths and injuries to our troops and support personnel occur in the fuel supply chains. The Pentagon understands this, and leads the national effort to secure alternative energy sources, but too many our craven politicians, captured by corporate interests, pursue policies that condemn our soldiers to horrible hydrocarbon deaths in the theater of war, and withering neglect in a brutal austerity upon discharge. They steadfastly pursue policies that ignore both the needs of our troops, of our our veterans and of members of our broader society.
What do we want to be as a country?
They fight for the neo-imperialist dreams of chicken hawks, to secure by force dwindling supplies of the devil's excrement. Most deaths and injuries to our troops and support personnel occur in the fuel supply chains. The Pentagon understands this, and leads the national effort to secure alternative energy sources, but too many our craven politicians, captured by corporate interests, pursue policies that condemn our soldiers to horrible hydrocarbon deaths in the theater of war, and withering neglect in a brutal austerity upon discharge. They steadfastly pursue policies that ignore both the needs of our troops, of our our veterans and of members of our broader society.
What do we want to be as a country?
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