Server, I feel for your pain. I'm angry that the system changes us so that we are unable to adapt, and there is little outreach and support. The VA has gotten better, somewhat. It's still a large gorilla that's behind the times. For our Viet Nam vets, the VA was functioning based on WWII. I daresay that the welcome home from WWII and the general feeling that our vets saved the world, was absent from those returning from Korea and Viet Nam. As difficult it is for us to open up to those like us, it's even more difficult to try to share our experiences with someone who has no way to relate to them. Think "Dog" believing he's so cool with black culture that he was entitled to use a certain word- his explanation, not mine. Quite mistakenly, he presumed a familiarity and acceptance that never was. Ditto for most social workers and combat veterans. We may be speaking English, but we ain't talking the same "language." Often times, in order to be among comrades, we find them in places that also serve alcohol, which I personally feel contributes to the increased alcoholism one finds in the veteran's population. I regret that your father was denied the care that he and so many others earned. I honor his service, and your family for supporting him as you did. He deserved so much better from the government that sent him into harm's way. H6
This is part of an e-mail I got earlier today from DAV: I think we all need to contact our members of Congress and urge them to support this legislation, and to get it done ASAP. Here's a link to the DAV's web site: http://www.dav.org/
My father was in Vietnam and had a very hard time when coming back home and still holds a grudge to how soldiers were treated. That being said, throughout the years both of my parents have stated the following and when one thinks about it...it makes sense. Whether we have gone to war or occupied a country should not come up in this please! Eleanor Roosevelt was and has always been a hero of our family. It is said that when sending troops overseas for WWII she looked at how it would affect each and every one of them. They went to war on ships and came home on ships. My father states (I don't have time right now for research) that Mrs. Roosevelt had doctors and high ranking military officials make reel to reel tapes for going to war and coming back. The theory is that the soldiers headed to war saw these reel to reels and were told that they needed to fight for all of civilization, then and now. They watched these over and over while on the ships and were prepared mentally when they hit the beaches. When returning home on the ships Mrs. Roosevelt had the foresight to have the same type of reel to reels done showing how well they had done, that peace was wonderful and so forth. The soldiers had time on the ships to mentally prepare for getting home. Unlike how we do it now or have done it since, we fly most of our soldiers over and back. Common sense tells me that my parents words to me make sense. If one is sitting in Clayton at 3:42 pm on Thursday, November 8, 2007 and in 18 hours (give or take) they will be in the middle of war...it would take a strong mind to keep it together. In saying all of this everyone needs to understand that I am a huge advocate for veterans. Not just because of my daddy, but I remember my Uncle Ralph telling me about WWII while sitting on his front porch in Alabama. He flew planes and was over water flying from England when the Nazis fired on him. The English people fired but it was of no use. Uncle Ralph lost all of the skin on the palms of his hands trying to hold onto the plane until he could no longer hold on. He went into the water and was rescued by the English. He always thought highly of the British in general. Not one of our veterans should suffer. Yes, they may have a family, but if they or the family cannot get along some may wind up homeless. It is beyond my concept that we have a veteran anywhere suffering for any reason. Most veterans that I know are wired differently than me. They have a sense of pride that I can see and as a civilian I will never feel that "exact same sense of pride". They are family wherever they go and they should be. As I have said in the past and will say until I die...this is not just a Federal issue, State issue, District issue, County issue, Local issue but a family issue. When I mean family...I mean the family of the United States of America. Bless Our Vets! Grace
I make a point when I am out to say "Thank You" to any soldier I see in uniform. I think it means alot to them. It means alot to me.
Well then, SS, thank you from my family and me. We may not agree at all on any other issue in the universe but this one we do. Thank you, sir! Grace
I am so sorry to hear that, Pain like that never goes away, we just learn to live it it, God Bless you.
Well the part of the story some people know is I am adopted. I was his only child. My Birth Mother has two other children. But my Grandmother who is still alive and wide open says I would have made a huge difference in his life. So that is the part that really sucks. When I feel like talking about it more. I will. It was Just a long Journey for me.
I know there is someone that can say this better than I and I wish you would. But These men and women go out and serve the country, and after the military is finished with them there is no help at all. I understand that a great many that are coming home from the present deployments, have turned into something else than the person that left. some are beating their wives and children, put in jail and end up on the streets. emotionally scarred for life. they need the governments help, not promises two years down the road.
Am I wrong or not, I understand that police officers that shoot and kill someone, that it is mandatory that they get counciling. If this is true then why on earth doesn't the military subscribe to the same rule, once these people get home. I say when any personal has been in a war situation that they automatically should get counciling on their return home. No matter if they are leaving the service or not.
Just watching the news and they were discussing this issue and calling it a "National Disgrace". See link below: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/08/homeless.veterans/index.html Grace
It's so sad, May God bless them, and I pray that God will have mercy on a nation that would allow anyone to go homeless.
Perhaps instead of a family, we should consider helping 1 or 2 veterans this Christmas? In the Christmas Angels thread, Jen mentioned that she's having a problem getting nominees. Perhaps we can help a veteran...or 2?
So sorry to hear that, SS. Thank you from my heart for your father's service. My family appreciates the huge sacrifice he made to serve our country.
Long-homeless vet starts tough transition - Today's N&O DURHAM -- For more than a decade, a compound of cardboard and plywood sheltered Purnell Centry at the edge of an urban creek. Centry is considered homeless, a vagrant who camped in the wilds of Durham since the Army sent him home after Vietnam. He found his latest haven 12 years ago along a stream within hollering distance of a shopping center where patrons buy beauty supplies and get their hair styled. But even the homeless aren't safe from evictions. The city is bulldozing his camp, beckoned by complaints that Centry's compound is unsightly and poses a fire hazard to neighboring businesses. Purnell Centry watches TV at a hotel where homeless advocates put him up temporarily. His apartment was ready a few days later, and he moved in despite misgivings. By the city's classification, Centry, 56, is an "unsheltered" homeless man, one of about 300 in the Triangle known to squat in thick forests, under bridges and in boarded-up houses. Most battle inclement weather, addictions and mental illness. The souring economy has uprooted a growing number of Triangle families from their homes, forcing them into emergency shelters or a relative's spare bedroom. To housing advocates, these clients are strangers, driven into their programs by forces the nation hopes will subside in the coming years. Congress is investing billions to try to ward off foreclosures and keep American families in their homes. Meanwhile, there are men such as Centry who have always been among us. To them, homelessness is a lifestyle, offering a daily test of skills and a freedom they can't find indoors. "I like the wild," Centry said. "I don't like the sound of cars. Don't like crowds." Ambassadors to Durham's homeless have long tried to lure Centry indoors, driven by the notion that a civilized nation should not let its poor and vulnerable suffer against nature's elements. In Durham, city leaders and advocacy groups committed themselves to a plan in 2007 to draw down its chronic homeless population over the next decade. Orange County made the commitment, too. Wake County began two years before. The challenge has been immense. Each individual transition takes ample resources, ingenuity and patience. For each success, there are dozens of failures. "It takes a tremendous amount of energy to retrieve someone who sees himself as against the world," said Terry Allebaugh, director of Housing For New Hope, a Durham nonprofit that's helped Centry over the last two weeks. Bulldozers have a way of forcing change that rational talk can't. The city first came for his camp last month. Centry -- streetwise and wary with a deep voice that sounds like a train's rumble -- stood before a city's boom truck and refused to move. He flipped a batch of chicken legs on his grill and sipped from a can of Steel Reserve beer. Tears welled in his eyes. "A man can't even seek refuge in the woods no more," Centry said. "I figure they'll follow me to the end of the earth, making sure I get no rest." Two Durham police officers took mercy and brokered a grace period for Centry. A deadline loomed; they called homeless advocates. They asked Centry to trust them. "How do you domesticate someone who's been out of it for so long and ask them to conform to society? And, to do it right now," Durham Police Officer Mark Morais said. It's been a tough transition. Day after day, Centry lashed out at Dian Wilson, a Housing for New Hope advocate trying to help him. More than once, he stormed away from Wilson and other advocates, going in search of the beer he hoped would calm his nerves. Each time, advocates let him cool off, then came back again. This morning, he'll wake in a warm apartment, turn a knob to cook his breakfast and pull a curtain for privacy as he showers. N&O link: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1433458.html
Kent, Do you sell or make tissue? You seem to be making me cry a lot today and I keep reaching for tissue. What a wonderful person you are. Sherry
Sherry: appreciate the kind words, but I was just posting a local human-interest story that seemed worth sharing since we had a thread about it. It's hard not to shed a tear or two when we read the plight of others. Now, we (me included first and foremost) just need to put those tears into action with the three things we all have: 1. Our prayers 2. Our time 3. Our money
Don't worry, another politician a lot like President Reagan will cancel all the veterans benefits they were promised for enlisting to serve in Iraq. Those with family will survive those without wind up in the woods. Four years after we pull out of this war they'll be crying the same story as before. "We can't afford the enormous costs associated with the benefits promised and sacrifices have to be made." That was the main sentence in the response letter from my congressman when I wrote him to complain that my enlistment contract with the government was being broken. I did learn a very good rule though. Never sign a contract with the government; they can legally default without paying. Reagans administration killed the VA benefits for the Viet Nam Veterans. I and five men that I served with went to DC, stood outside the VA, bent over towards the front entrance, dropped drawers and wiped our butts with a copy of our contracts. Cause that's all they were good for. The patriotic support will dwindle, Americans will forget, and the cycle will repeat, until the next war.
