Do You Say Happy Veterans Day

Or, we appreciate your service. Or, put our money, time and effort where our mouths are and truly support the needs of our troops and veterans.

Hurry up and Wait

Hurry up and Wait

It's an expression long associated with life in the armed forces: the endless lines, the delays while an assignment is being readied, the long night before a major battle, and finally, the anticipation of final orders. For some who serve during war, the sounds of battle remain tantalizingly distant, as they are left waiting stateside for the duration.

This the beginning of a section of the Library of Congress, Veterans History Project. This project features many veterans stories. These stories describe not only the heroic, exciting, transforming but also the mundane. One story, Irving Oblas' features a quote which is the essence of Hurry up and Wait. I and others have waited months for orders, being in that netherworld of doing odd jobs and many platoons learning the glory of raking sand. There was that anxiousness during Viet Nam from soldiers I knew, on where they would be assigned. The draftees who would rather be elsewhere, submitted to the mundane. If orders came for Viet Nam, they would sigh, but never the less would selflessly serve.

Homeless Veterans

Just browsing the news I saw this story and this stunning statistic,

One in four homeless people in the US is a military veteran, a report has found, even though veterans make up only 11% of the adult population.

Living as a veteran of the streets

Looking to find another report of this story, I found a CNN article, Study: Veterans more likely to be homeless, with the same statistic and more about the report.

On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness Research Institute found.

"Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people," the report said. "This is true despite the fact that veterans are better educated, more likely to be employed and have a lower poverty rate than the general population."

The president of the institute's parent group appealed Thursday to lawmakers and civilians to help solve veteran homelessness before thousands of U.S. service members return from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Read the entire article and view the video of a Ben Israel describing his homeless experience.

About 44,000 to 64,000 veterans are classified as "chronically homeless" -- homeless for long periods or repeatedly.

Other veterans -- nearly 468,000 -- are experiencing "severe housing cost burden," or paying more than half their income for housing, thereby putting them at a high risk for homelessness.

The article continues.

To reduce chronic homelessness among veterans by half, the report concluded housing coupled with supportive services should be increased by 25,000 units, and the number of housing vouchers for veterans should be increased by 20,000.

There is an program responsible for homeless veterans in the Department of Veteran Affairs, my hope that it will have more funding and the ability to do more out reach, especially for the mentally ill veteran. There are some veteran organizations that help too. I personally can not recommend any that one could could contribute to. I only became familiar with this issue when I read these articles a few days ago. I would only say that the next time you see a homeless person, don't be quick to assume why they are homeless, be they a veteran or not, but remember that many of these homeless have been responsible for our security and defense.

Ben Israel's homelessness ended because of a private organization helping, it is described in the first article, Living as a veteran of the streets.

He was in line at one more soup kitchen when he was approached by someone from Pathways to Housing.

It is a New York-based charity which, for 17 years, has helped the homeless who have psychiatric problems.

Important for Ben was that, as Pathway's mission statement makes clear, they do not require treatment or sobriety as a pre-condition of getting someone into an apartment.

Their philosophy is that the path to recovery starts with getting off the street and under a roof.

When we honor our veterans today we should not forget those who are homeless and if some would approach you for something, even if you don't know how to help, at least tell them that you appreciated their service.

When I came home- pt 2- Iraq- 2

Veterans Day

In appreciation and remembrance of veterans, I would like to share this poem. I found this at soldierworks.com, this site publishes veterans’ stories, poetry and videos.

We Buried Another Veteran Today

We buried another veteran today.

He went to his God, from us, he went away.

This one was young, in the prime of his life.

He left twin children and a very courageous wife.

It wasn't a bullet, a plane crash or a bomb.

It was cancer, and he just finally, could not hold on.

He fought "it" like a military campaign.

But the time came to surrender, to end his earthly pain.

He knew he would be fine in the presence of his Lord.

But what about his twins, those children he adored?

Will they grow strong and at "life" win.

Please God, let them always remember him.

We buried another veteran today.

It seems, all my life, it has happened this way.

From my uncles of the WW II-time frame.

To the military friends, Vietnam would claim.

For me the number of dead, is always on the rise.

When I get a call another veteran is gone, it is never really a surprise.

From lost sub-mariners, in early days of my life.

To the forever gone, military-medical friends of my veteran wife.

I lost a Korean War veteran friend this year, to a crashed airplane.

I lost a Gulf War friend to cancer, a difference in their age, but still that pain.

I lost an Uncle to cancer who did Korea with the Navy, steaming off shores.

I lost my father-in-law who fought in Korea, from a "fox-hole" in the frozen outdoors.

We buried another Veteran today.

It seems in all my family's generations, it happens this way.

From my Revolutionary War Grandfathers who started this sad, but needed trend.

To the family members on both sides in 1861, who just would not bend.

Some of my family lived a long and happy life, after "their" war.

They died of old age in their bed, safe-behind a locked door.

They died in battle, buried where they fell.

They died years later, carrying emotional scars, in their own personal hell.

My family is no different than thousands who met our Nation's call.

They rose to the demands of this country and some gave their "all".

We have to continue doing this, to make America free.

But, it's that Veteran's twin-little children that keeps worrying me.

We buried another Veteran today.

It seems all my life it continues this way.

Now my only child is nine and we reside on a military installation.

My wife and I truly want her to live safe, in a free nation.

But what happens, when it is her-generation's turn to make a stand.

Do we lose our only child in some forsaken-foreign land?

Does she play it safe, stay home and say "that's boy's stuff".

Or does she join like her mother and go right into the ruff.

She has to be that one Veteran I don't see, make that final "call".

Let me go before her, let me first give this country my fighting "all".

Maybe if I go "out-there" and make my final stand.

She can stay safe-at-home, in this wonderful free land.

We buried another Veteran today

Copyright, Major Van Harl, USAF Ret.Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi, 28 November 2001

http://www.soldierworks.com/vh2.htm