Veteran’s Day is Monday, Nov. 11, 2019. All across the country VA’s, community centers, towns and cities will be participating in various programs and services to honor our nation’s veterans. It’s their day to be recognized after all.
Well, I have to say this bothers me. We as a country are content to let our service men and women sign up to serve and protect us 24-hours a day, for over 365-days a year. They miss holidays, birthdays, family time and nights out with their friends.
Everyday, and I do mean everyday, they make sacrifices and are willing to lay down their lives to protect us while we sleep. They travel the world and face unfathomable horrors to save innocents from the atrocities of tyrannical rule all in the name of the Red, White and Blue. Our servicemen and women uphold the freedoms and ideals that Lady Liberty herself lifts high her mighty torch of justice to guide them home.
And how do we repay them? We give them a day. A single day to be recognized. To be honored. To be remembered. To be thanked.
It seems to me that something is missing here. The grossest of injustices being served to those whose purpose was to serve us.
Our Veteran Affair’s Hospitals have waiting periods that sometimes results in any treatment for a terminal illness coming too late. We have men and women sleeping in filth on the streets of inner cities finding their meals at the generosity of the local church sponsored soup kitchen.
We have former servicemen and women that cannot find the psychological help needed to enable them to process the emotional turmoil that they are in as a direct result of their service in our military.
We have literally asked of them “Help us. Protect us. Serve us.” only to cast them aside and view them as a scourge on society upon their return.
Where is their justice? Where is their redemption? Where is their help? Their protection? Why will we not also serve them?
According to the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs, in 2017 there were 6,139 suicides committed by former servicemen and women. Let that sink in. We as a nation failed, yes, failed 6,139 men and women that would have laid down their lives for us if duty had called on them to do so.
There is something profoundly wrong with this picture. The hypocrisy is glaring as we turn a blind eye to our suffering Vets.
Now I’m not pretending for a moment that I have the answers to solve this fundamentally wrong issue that our nation is facing today, but I will hazard a guess that it needs to start with our mindsets.
We need to do more than a day. A single day out of the year to remember those that do the work while we go about our comfortable civilian lives. They deserve more.
The inscription on the Statue of Liberty states “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
How can we promise these freedoms and rights to others without also providing homes and care to those who give their lives to protect those same freedoms and rights?
So yes, celebrate Veteran’s Day. Participate in the programs and services. Maybe even thank a Veteran this Monday, but don’t just simply forget about them on Tuesday.
