Veterans Day, November 11
Helping our 23 Million Veterans
(I posted this blog last year on Veterans Day.
You can still help our returning veterans in the following ways. This list
comes from Parade magazine of last November.)
1. Help
build a home or donate equipment for a house for a severely disabled veteran with “Homes for Troops.” To
get in touch with that organization go to www.homesfortroops.org.
2. Provide
free transportation to medical facilities by volunteering to drive a Disabled
American Veterans’ van. See www.dav.org/volunteeers.
3. Provide
care for the pet of a vet who is deployed or wounded and receiving help at a VA
facility. www.guardianangelsforsoldiers.pet.org.
4. The
Library of Congress is interested in recording the stories of old soldiers. Go
to www.loc.gov/vets
for a kit and instructions.
5. Ship
your old cell phones to www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com.www.
For each one donated, the organization will pay for an hour of talk time for
troops overseas.
7. Have
extra coupons? Military families may use expired coupons for up to six months
past the due date. See www.coupsfortroops.com
.
8. Contribute
clothing, food and gifts for service members. They will be used to prepare gift
boxes. Go to www.operationgratitute.com/volunteer.
9. Post
a care package with a thank you note through the Kitchen Table Gang. Go to www.soldierpackages.org.
10. Share
your expertise with a vet, financial, legal services, counseling, building etc.
Go to www.milserve.org.
11. Support Big
Brothers and Sisters. The organization has a program to help children with
parents in the armed forces. Go to www.bbbs.org.
Last year I also
introduced you to first lady, Michelle Obama’s organization for vets: www.JoiningForces.gov. For that full story go to the archives for November 2011.
One of the first books about the Iraq war
In this year’s Parade, they reviewed a book by an Army
returning veteran, Kevin Powers, called Coming
Home. The book is a novel based on his experiences in the Iraq war. He was
interviewed for the piece by Lynn Sherr. Here’s some of what he had to say
about the challenges facing returning veterans.
About the dehumanizing
effect of war:
In war “No matter how extreme
the circumstances you’re in, they become normal.” When the soldier returns home
there is a feeling of letdown.” The ordinary nature of living back home can be
confusing.
A feeling of
helplessness ensues on returning home. “Overseas, I was part of a team; people
relied on me. When you return, there’s this feeling of being isolated in your
powerlessness.”
A feeling of not
fitting in: “It’s hard to find people to connect with…we (vets) know about fear
in a way few people know…very few people understand what that’s like.”
Powers’ writes in his
book about vets on the way home who say, “Well, what now?” He says there is a
feeling of aimlessness and purposelessness. “You can get back into life or…you
can be lost.” He says that suicides are rampant.
He talks about his
experiences in “killing.” On dealing with the aftermath of killing, “…we’re
talking about the worst thing that human beings can do to each other and having
that be normal.” When the vet returns home those feelings come with him. You
develop physical responses to what’s happening around you. Things like
fireworks can send a vet right back into battle. He can even feel like people
are shooting at him.
Making choices about
life when a vet returns home can also be confusing. Being used to being told what
to do and when and where morphs into having to make your own choices about
things like education and looking for a “normal” job.
Understanding our
returning veterans can go a long way in helping to re-introduce them back into
American life. If we all take just a few minutes to talk to a vet about his
experiences, his feelings, his concerns about his future, we can perhaps
relieve some of the stress that man or woman veteran is under. They kept our
country safe. We need to give them a feeling of safety in that same country.
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