Don't shower them with accolades of 'defending our nation' and 'fighting for our freedom', because we're not. We're engaged in two conflicts that have little to nothing to do with preserving our national security. Simply thank them for serving and tell them that they are appreciated....hell buy them a beer. Just don't patronize them with bumper sticker rhetoric.
Thank that man or women for taking the oath to preserve the freedom and liberty that we all take for granted; understand that they may not wish to recite war stories for your amusement, because those stories may contain episodes of the death or wounding of their friends; those stories may contain events that keep them awake at night and bring them to tears at inopportune moments. If this happens, they are not weak, they are not to be pitied.....they are to be regarded as compassionate humans conducting themselves in the worst environment we have created for ourselves....war.
Just as the statement ascribed to Plato reads: only the dead have seen the end of war....only the dead have seen the end of the nightmares and trauma that come with it.
Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department.
Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and 11 percent of those who don’t succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months.
Air Force Times
Flogging Molly "Punch Drunk Grinning Soul" with PSA
Flogging Molly | MySpace Musikvideos
Punch Drunk Grinning Soul lyrics
It took me everything I had
To give all that I could
Walk beside me while I sleep
Steer me from the slumber wolf
Tangled forest of the mind
Speaks to me of self-despise
Close the window through the pane
Hear the siren's serenade
Could have been the comeback kid
The southpaws' legend glove to fill
No shadow boxer but the one
A true contender for the crown
Now this punch drunk grinning soul
In its' corner begs 'no more'
[Chorus]
Hey now, stay proud
You were lost on a blue day
Hey now, stay proud
Hey now, stay proud
you were lost on a blue day
Hey now, stay proud
But we hardly knew ya
The chamber echo never speaks
The rushin' tide devours my feet
No global warming fills this soul
For hell it freezes what it stole
From the beggar's empty plate
To our world that stuffs its' face
[Chorus]
But these tired eyes are crashin' down on me
While the paint never dries
On these four walls that now suffocate me
But tonight, maybe tonight
All will be free
Release, unlock this prison door
It can't hold me anymore
Serpent lied with sting of tale
Hand of reason rusts the nail
Now this punch drunk grinning soul
In its' corner begs 'no more'
[Chorus]
Thank you for your service.
ReplyDeleteI posted the thread from the Army Times about the suicide rate yesterday. I find this very alarming, but it does not surprise me. Unfortunately these numbers will rise as we continue these endless wars without borders. When W and Rove came out with the "support our troops" motto. That was code for [if you do not support OUR war, you do not support the troops]. Shame on them.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is a data head IT support type who works for a pseudo-public organization (I wish it was a completely public organization) that helps people with drug addiction and mental health problems. I'm translating some forms for one of the boards he supports. Not surprisingly, one section asks if you were active duty and served in a combat zone/war. As far as I'm concerned his organization actually tries to get God's work done.
ReplyDeleteYou all may be interested in the comments of CJCS ADM Mullen yesterday:
ReplyDelete“Outside my window at night, I can look out on the streets of Washington and see my peers from Vietnam who are homeless and who are sleeping on the streets at night,” Mullen said. “We did not do a good job of addressing the problems of those veterans from Vietnam.”
Calling today’s veterans “an American treasure,” the admiral said they go off to war without questioning the decision, yet “come back as changed people.” And, their families, he said, also are “changed in ways they could not have imagined.” Military leaders are just beginning to understand today’s veterans’ common-signature injuries, such as post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries, and amputations, he said.
“Yet to these families, their dreams haven’t changed one bit,” Mullen said. “They want to raise their families, they want to go to school; they want to own a piece of the rock.”
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58929
If the top military guy 'gets it'....why can't more be done?
ReplyDelete