Homeless Vets

This past Wednesday I spoke at Montrose VA in Peekill NY. The topic was homeless veterans. There were sixty people there many from the Montrose staff including homeless vets, who by the way asked several questions, and made some important statements about there personal plight. There were also folks there from the VVA and other veteran related organizations in the community. The talk went well, my main focus was helping them to role reverse with the vet in order to understand them better when they show up in their offices unwashed, drug addicted, and angry that at once time they offered their lives for this country. Here is a little of what I said, “Yes we have a volunteer army; these men and women did sign up. Did they know the truth about what they were getting into? No. Nor did we. And yet the revelations since then has not slowed down the number of jobless volunteers enlisting. So what would support to our returning soldiers look like? To start with, let's acknowledge that they offer the ultimate - their lives. This deserves the highest honors we civilians can bestow: Care, concern and acceptance when they come home.

War is a powerful initiation. No one comes back from it the way they left. We must accept this and stop expecting to see the same young people we sent off to war return home. Their wounds, both physical and psychological, have altered them. These changes need to be integrated and healed so veterans can find productive roles in society.

Our veterans are more than soldiers who served. They are our warriors who protected our country. In today's high-tech gigabit world there is a danger in seeing our soldiers as little more than "war-bits." It becomes easy to forget that a human being is holding the joy stick in a M1 Abrams tanks and that the video feed is a killing field. Video games can be turned on and off. In war, when the power switch is turned off it's never turned back on.”

It was my experience that many at the VA are folks who are working hard with an overload of clients; they show interest in trying to understand the perspective of the vets they serve.

At the end of the workshop one of the administrators approached me about buying my book “The Making and Unmaking of a Marine”, she agreed to supply her staff with books. This of course made my day selling ninety book warmed my heart and opened my mind to seeing that here were folks that had a true interest in hearing what returning soldiers feel. If you haven’t read the book yet please put your order in the website is makingandunmaking.com