No Country for Young Vets Posted by Jacob Stokes

This Friday, October 7, marks the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. There’s much discussion to be had about U.S. strategy a decade into these wars. But it’s also a time to take a deep look at the human costs. Two pieces out today explore the plight and attitudes of young veterans and underscore the disconnect between servicemembers and civilians that has characterized the last decade. Yellow magnetic ribbons or no, neither veterans nor the public believe those not in the military understand what military life entails.

The AP reports today, in a must-read story that’s nominally about whether vets think the wars of the last decade were worth fighting, another depressing—although if you’re paying attention, probably not shocking—finding. 

Although numerous polls have shown that Americans hold troops in high regard, the respondents in the Pew research admitted to a lack of understanding of what military life entails. Only 27% of adult civilians said the public understood the problems facing those in uniform, while the proportion of veterans who said so was even lower at 21%.

Those numbers tell a story, but on the NYT’s At War blog, Army veteran Matt Farwell tells his—about being homeless—better. Here’s a snippet:

As infantry on the ground in Afghanistan, we were introduced to the ugliness of violent, unpredictable death. Over the 16 months of our tour, we caused it and we endured it; we grew well acquainted with it. Sometimes I think that we took it back, an invisible scythe-carrying stowaway on board the airplane we took back to the States. How else to explain my friend Michael Cloutier, whose spot-on shooting probably saved my life when our observation post was attacked by Taliban who outnumbered us three to one, dying of a drug overdose a year after we came back? 

Farwell gets a bit of the wider view in, too:

Paul Reickhoff, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the founder and chairman of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America testified that over 11,000 veterans between the ages of 18 and 30 were officially listed — that is, somehow identified, confirmed and entered in the Department of Veteran’s Affairs database — as homeless. That’s more than a standard Army division. It’s also really tricky to measure exactly, since there are plenty, like me, you’d never suspect were homeless veterans if you saw them around town.

Whatever you think of the wars, after looking at these stories, there’s no disputing that somewhere along the line we lost our way.

Photo: Flickr

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We salute the veterans and soldiers who fought wars. THere will be forever a gap between those who have fought and those who haven't. There isn't a easy way to close it. The government may well try whatever it can to alleviate the situation vets are facing but it's more of a psychological battle.

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