Memorial Day is a day of remembrance honoring the men and women who died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces.
On Memorial Day the U.S. flag is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then slowly lowered to half-staff until noon to remember the more than one million men and women who have given their lives in service to their country. It’s then raised to full-staff for the rest of the day, raised by the living, resolving to not let their sacrifice be in vain.
But what about the living? What kind of remembrance or respect is paid to them?
More than 32,200 injured men and women coming home from the invasion in Iraq have faced, or still face, long waits for their disability or benefits to begin.
Journalist Aaron Glantz of the Center for Investigative Reporting says 900,000 veterans are waiting for benefits and that the number will surpass one million "very soon."
Many soldiers return home and readjust to a “normal” life. Many do not. Often, the trauma of combat leads to struggles with drug addiction or alcohol abuse, to outbursts of anger and violence at home or work, to petty crime and other behaviors that sadly, will land them in jail.
More interested in punishment than rehabilitation, the military justice system is failing their “wounded warriors”.
According to Army Maj. Evan R. Seamone, “Wounded warriors experience symptoms that often manifest in criminal conduct.” Simply punishing and then discharging mentally ill offenders is creating “a class of individuals whose untreated conditions endanger public safety and the veteran as they grow worse over time.”
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America found that, as of January 2012, nearly 17% of returning veterans were out of work, 8 percentage points higher than the national average.
American war veterans don’t merely make for good employees. Often, they’re some of the very best. And yet there’s a bias against hiring vets. According to one business leader in the report “Employing America’s Veterans” (pdf), “I’ve heard about some veterans coming back and going on rampages. I’ve never had this happen to me personally, but I always wonder if it is a possibility.”
And it’s even worse for returning female veterans, who are facing a 20% unemployment rate, as well as VA hospitals that are unprepared for the influx of returning women. “There aren’t enough female health professionals in the VA system. There aren’t enough folks specialized in female health, especially around reproductive health. We’ve got to push the system to work harder for them,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer and founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “We’ve got women on our staff who say that a lot of times, when they walk into the VA, they get treated like a candy striper instead of like a returning warrior. As a country, we’ve got to go through a huge cultural shift.”
These people have put their lives on the line to protect us – whether we agree with the battles they’ve fought in, or not. How can we help? Start by googling “How can I support returning soldiers”. You’ll find a myriad of organizations that you can donate time, money and other support to, such as http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/... http://www.soldiersheart.net/... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
For sexual assault survivors, http://www.notinvisible.org/ has different ways to take action.
And the list goes on.
Let’s not just remember the dead. Let’s truly honor their memories by supporting the living.