Veterans in US turn homeless
Ripan Kumar Biswas
It was a beautiful sunny morning with 35F
temperature and I was waiting to cross the street at central park
south and six Avenue, Manhattan, New York. A city bus moved in front
of me. The bus was carrying an advertisement titled: We don’t accept
applicants, we accept commitments.
Right before noticing the advertisement, I read
an article in the New York Times about the veterans, who served in
Iraq and Afghanistan, now have turned up homeless. They were also
committed to the department, to the nation, to the country and to
the human mankind. The advertisement on the bus was from the US
Marine department.
Marking the Veterans Day on November 12 and the
25th anniversary of the dedication of "The Wall," the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C, President George W Bush
honored U.S. troops past and present at a tearful ceremony in Waco,
Texas on Sunday, November 11, 2007 for four Texans who died in Iraq.
"In their sorrow, these families need to know and families all
across the nation of the fallen `need to know that your loved ones
served a cause that is good and just and noble," Bush said. "And as
their commander in chief, I make you this promise: Their sacrifice
will not be in vain."
Serving valiantly to keep the country free from
terrorism and free to live, work and free to worship, total 62007 US
soldiers so far, both in Vietnam and Iraq war, have been sacrificed
their life. More than 9 million soldiers have been deployed in
Vietnam (1965-1975) while 1.5 million in Iraq (2003-2007). Average
age of soldiers killed in combat was 23 in Vietnam and 27 in Iraq.
While millions of Americans including vice
President Dick Cheney are paying their heartiest gratitude to the
veterans and praying that the soldiers, who are fighting in the
complex and challenging situation, will return home safely with
victory and to live out their lives and will observe many Veterans
to come, country got more than 400 veterans of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, who have turned up homeless. In addition,
according to the US Veterans Affairs Department (VA), country is
bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
Although according to the VA, around 196,000
veterans of all ages were homeless on any given night in 2006 which
represents a decline from about 250,000 a decade back, but veterans
have long accounted for a high share of the nation’s homeless with
26 percent of the homeless on any given day in where more than 11
percent of the newly homeless veterans are women who served in the
combat zones.
One in three Iraq veterans are facing
mental-health issues or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; nearly a
quarter of all U.S. troops serving in Iraq are coming home with
problems requiring mental health or medical treatment while 18.7
percent of Vietnam veterans have been suffering from a stress
disorder.
Witnessing a large amount of warriors in
different homeless shelters, Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans
Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center, told that
country should take immediate steps in favor of the great soldiers
otherwise it’s going to be tsunami.
However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate
majority leader Harry Reid told the president that the Democratic
Congress wanted to work with him on spending bills, but President
Bush criticized Congress for not to send “The Veteran Bill” to him
by Veterans Day, as he requested. The bill has gotten caught up in a
larger battle between Bush and Congress over Democratic efforts to
add about $23 billion for domestic programs to Bush's $933 billion
proposal for all agency budgets.
Roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless
female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually
assaulted by American soldiers while in the military. Meanwhile, An
Army investigator has recommended a court-martial on charges that
could lead to the death penalty for each of four infantrymen accused
of raping a 14-year-old girl and killing her and her family in
March, 2006.
"To live there, to survive there, I became angry
and mean. The mean part of me made me strong on patrols. It made me
brave in fire fights. I do not ask anyone to forgive me today. I
don't know how that would be possible after what I have done,” said
the American soldier James P. Barker, 23 after hearing the sentence
to 90 years in prison against him for conspiring to rape a
14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her and her family.
In relation to the same rape and murder,
24-year-old Paul Cortez was sentenced to 100 year imprisonment on
January 22, 2007 while Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, 23, was sentenced to
110 years in prison on August 3, 2007. During the hearings, Cortez
expressed remorse and cried and told that he didn’t want to do this.
They didn’t want to take lives of four innocent people.
"The bottom line is they were not giving the
soldiers the tools, were not giving the soldiers the combat stress
treatment, were not giving them enough troops on the ground to
fulfill their mission," defense attorney David Sheldon said after
the sentencing on November 15, 2006 while some of Barker’s fellow
soldiers testified on his behalf, describing weeks with little
support and sleep while manning distant checkpoints.
Besides mental-health issues or post traumatic
stress disorders, poverty and high housing costs also contribute to
raise the homeless veterans. According to the National Alliance to
End Homelessness in Washington, among one million veterans who
served after the Sept. 11 attacks, 72,000 are paying more than half
their incomes for rent, leaving them highly vulnerable.
Special traits of the current wars, high rates of
post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, unstable
behavior and substance abuse, long and repeated tours of duty, which
usually make the reintegration into families and work all the
harder, are not only increasing the number of homeless veterans but
also discouraging the diplomats to take any assignments in war
zones.
“Regardless of how many jobs may be filled but we
must fill these new jobs as we have before with volunteers otherwise
we must go forward with the identification of officers to serve
should it prove necessary to direct assignments,” said Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice on Friday on November 2, 2007 as because only
15 diplomats have volunteered to work at the American embassy in
Iraq whereas it needs 48 diplomats.
Although the Green Zone can be a demoralizing
place for a diplomat to work, but aside from the physical risk, the
violence that surrounds daily life in Baghdad creates an isolated
atmosphere and a sense of futility. Diplomatic assignments are
almost always filled by volunteers in US state department.
President Bush ended his Veteran Day speech by
saying that America is blessed to have such brave defenders who
bring pride to the country and their service is noble and it is
necessary to protect Americans and America. They shouldn’t live in
the streets or shouldn’t feel disconnected and alone.
