What are we doing when the citizen soldiers return?

Returning Troops Blunt Iraq as Campaign Issue in New Hampshire

By Hans Nichols

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Sergeant Brian Moore had one foot in his bunker in April when a rocket exploded, spraying his back with a dozen bits of burning shrapnel. His spine swelled, paralyzing the New Hampshire National Guardsman for two days.

Two months later, back in New Hampshire from his second Iraq deployment, Moore, 47, told Republican presidential candidate John McCain that, even with his wounds, the U.S. troop surge has tamed the ``wild West'' conditions of Moore's first tour in 2003 and 2004. Now, Moore told McCain in a meeting before a town-hall meeting, Baghdad streets are as safe as ``downtown Nashua.''

Combat Troops

National Guard members, from military reserve units in every U.S. state, provided a bigger share of combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than they have in any other overseas conflict. Since hostilities began, almost 200,000 Guard troops have served in Iraq and more than 25,000 have been in Afghanistan.

At the peak, more than 95,000 Guard soldiers were in Iraq and 10,000 were in Afghanistan, said Major Randal Noller, a National Guard spokesman. Today, the force has fallen to 25,887 Guard troops in Iraq and 5,189 in Afghanistan -- the fewest since the march on Baghdad began in 2003.

Returning National Guard soldiers influence public perceptions of the war because most go directly back to civilian life, said Anthony Cordesman, a security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

``Communities know when someone from the Guard is out, like a sheriff, a police officer or a doctor,'' Cordesman said. ``The whole community is likely to know it.''
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I want to focus on addressing the National Guards unique issues here.

While they train to deal with emergencies in their own states, prepare for combat, they are not like the other members of the armed forces. For the branches of the regular military, living on bases, living in units, it is a lot easier for them to be deployed. They are leaving behind families, but the citizen soldiers also leave behind their jobs and their incomes as well. They do not return to bases. They return to work. A great deal of them are in the service to their local communities. Some in law enforcement. Some in fire departments. As this report points out, ``The whole community is likely to know it.'' This leaves a question needing to be answered. When they come home, does the community remember it?

Many of these citizen soldiers need help to heal from their wounds, physical and emotional. Many need help catching up on bills that they could not pay while living on military pay when they made more money in private life. Doctors and other highly paid people, along with blue collar workers and business owners, base their budgets on what their professions pay. With a year or more of deployment causing financial hardship, it only adds to the stress they and their families are under. There have been far too many reports of families having to rely on food stamps and being foreclosed on.

225,000 National Guard citizen soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. We can think of how they have been affected but we need to remember the families as well. Without the proper support of veterans centers and community involvement in taking care of their needs, they are falling thru the cracks. These men and women are our neighbors. There is a saying the military takes care of it's own but do communities take care of their own?

What are you doing in your community for them? Are there support groups set up for them? Are churches stepping up to help them heal the spiritual wounds? Are the police departments educated on what PTSD is and how it causes a unique issue when they come into contact with a combat veteran? Are employers aware of the need and are they doing anything about it?

There are communities across the nation preparing for the veterans to return. There are some courts addressing the unique circumstances of veterans but there are not enough of them. This should be done in every state and especially in states with sparse populations. Every community should not only be aware of what PTSD is, they need to set up programs to help them heal. If you are a community organizer, work in a City Hall or Town Hall, find the people with the power to begin the programs to address the needs of the citizen soldiers. If you attend a church, make sure your pastor, minister or priest is aware of what PTSD is and what they can do to help members of their church family. If you are involved in hospitals, make sure nurses and doctors are aware of this and the hospital chaplains are capable of serving the veteran and the family.

I belong to NAMI and the IFOC, among other organizations. There have been too many people telling me there is nothing being done in their own communities. Right here in central Florida, I visited over 20 churches to make them aware of the needs our veterans have. Only one pastor contacted me and he happened to be a chaplain as well. They need to step up or they are not really serving their congregations. We notice when someone in the National Guard has been deployed and they notice when they come home and no one seems to care. Let's get this right for them.



Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos
International Fellowship of Chaplains
Namguardianangel@aol.com
www.Namguardianangel.org
www.Woundedtimes.blogspot.com
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington