Seeking donations for Haiti but forgetting about veterans?

Americans are certainly generous people when other people are suffering. They prove it all the time. They proved it in 2001 when the Twin Towers fell. Donations poured in. Celebrities lined up to make sure people paid attention and donated what they could to help. Other people from around the world donated to help the American people. The donations poured in again after Katrina. We donated after the tsunami hit Indonesia. Whenever a massive disaster strikes, the American people have been there with aid, funds and prayers, no matter where the disaster hit in the world. People from other nations did the same proving at the end of the day when we see the images of other people suffering, we all acknowledge we are all just humans living on this planet.

People have been lining up, jamming phone lines and hitting websites to donate to the Haitian people after the massive earthquake. Again celebrities stepped up to keep focus on the need.

Celebrity telethon to raise money for Haiti efforts
By David Daniel, CNN
January 15, 2010 1:58 p.m. EST

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Fundraising program to be telecast on numerous networks on Friday, January 22
All proceeds will be split among five relief organizations
Other celebrities have already launched efforts to aid quake-ravaged Haiti

(CNN) -- In the wake of the earthquake in Haiti, George Clooney and other celebrities have signed on for a telethon to aid the devastated island nation.

The Oscar-winning actor will take part in a fundraising program to air commercial-free across several networks, MTV announced.

"Hope for Haiti" will air on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT starting at 8 p.m. ET/PT and 7 p.m. CT on Friday, January 22.

MTV said Clooney will serve as a host in Los Angeles, while musician Wyclef Jean will be in New York, and CNN's Anderson Cooper will appear from Haiti.
read more here
Celebrity telethon to raise money for Haiti efforts

All of this is wonderful but it seems there is always one more tragedy to report on, one more salacious gossip story or political story for the media to focus on instead of our troops and our veterans. We have had a solid week of reporting about the earthquake. There are a lot of people suffering in Haiti and we should help but we need to be asking about why the media does not report on veterans going homeless sleeping in the streets or in the few beds available at shelters for them. What about the homeless people in general?

Brenden Foster's dying wish to feed the homeless at age 11 managed to put the spotlight on homeless people. The media paid attention and donations came in from around the world to help but by the time he passed away in his Mom's arms, the media lost interest.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

11 year old Brenden Foster's dying wish, feed the homeless

If an 11 year old boy facing the end of his short life can think of the homeless instead of himself, then why can adults do the same? We can't remember the homeless all year round and spend even less time thinking about veterans being homeless.

We have a habit of thinking of the homeless twice a year and that's just about it. The local media stations will report on Thanksgiving and Christmas as volunteers show up, giving up their own celebrations to help the less fortunate but they fail to report on them the other 363 days a year unless one of them is arrested or murdered. When it comes to the suffering right here in our own back yards, we pretty much ignore them. Wonder what would have happened in this country if the homeless people received as much attention over the years as the people in other nations?

What is reported on even less is the other group of homeless we have. The American Veterans! Over the years they not only showed up to fight the battles this country decides are necessary, they show up to respond to the needs on humanitarian missions. We have troops in Haiti right now and even more on their way, most of them are already battle scared back from Iraq and Afghanistan, yet still stepping up to help. When we look at the history of military reaction to disasters, these men and women come home to find very little humanitarian relief for themselves.

Few of us know many military and National Guards families have to rely on food stamps. Few of us know that National Guard families suffer great financial loss when they have to leave their jobs to deploy for a year risking their lives just as the regular military men and women do but have to pay mortgages, rent and other expenses they budgeted for with paychecks from regular jobs. Yet they set their own needs aside and do what is asked of them. Doesn't seem very far when they come home wounded with battle scars of mind and body no one seems willing to rush to help them.

Yesterday I had a conversation with Tric Ortiz of Sisters of Service. She is starting a female homeless veterans shelter. We talked about the fact the media pays so much attention to the suffering in other nations but the burden this nation places on our troops and veterans is too often ignored. It is heartbreaking for us because we are aware of what is going on, but the majority of the American people simply don't have a clue.

National media, especially the 24-7 cable news stations, send in their top reporters to cover the devastation and human suffering. How could the American people avoid any of it or forget about it? It is on their TV set every time it's turned on. Had the media been so interested in what is happening to our veterans or our troops, there is no way possible the American people would allow any of it to happen to them, but if they don't know, they cannot respond with the same empathy they did with the disaster in Haiti or any other disaster they have responded to.

CNN has a list of charities seeking donations for Haiti. Looking over the list most of these charities have some type of program for veterans, but we never seem to see the pleas for help for their sake. CNN has reported on some of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan but if you look at how many years we're talking about, very little reporting has been done yet Haiti has dominated the reporting done for a week. The same happened after Katrina. When you think about how many people we're talking about, the number of veterans waiting for relief is much higher than any other disaster reported on.
Paul Sullivan of Veterans for Common Sense managed to shine the light on what they are going through on CBS recently.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

CBS 60 Minutes lets what veterans face into public mind

Really should get us to wonder about the suffering of so many with very few paying attention at the same time we have so many paying attention to what is happening in Haiti. Don't get me wrong. I believe we should help as much as we can but I also believe we have the capacity to care about the men and women we asked so much out of.

Is it because we can understand the suffering of regular humans so easily and have a harder time understanding the suffering of men and women willing to risk their lives? Do they suddenly stop being human, with human needs just because they put on a uniform?

We responded with millions of dollars for Haiti but end up ignoring our own veterans. What if we all paid attention when this was reported with as much care?

What if we had been paying attention all along?

Thursday, December 10, 2009

VA budget still not enough, group warns

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

For soldiers, stress after war may be the biggest enemy
For soldiers, stress after war may be the biggest enemy
by Karen Leigh
June 02, 2009
Insurgents are stealthy fighters, their attacks unexpected, startling and violent.Combined with the stress of longer deployments, loneliness and brutal desert conditions, they are the perfect trigger for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.Soldiers now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing the highest levels of PTSD since the Vietnam War.
Some just have trouble sleeping. Some find themselves emotionally numb or easily startled.In the most extreme cases, soldiers have killed themselves – and fellow soldiers.The nonprofit aid organization Veterans for Common Sense said that as of December 15, 2008, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, had diagnosed 115,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD.“These are staggering numbers,” said VCS executive director Paul Sullivan. “We can either admit that there’s a very serious problem and begin treatment, or we can ignore the problem and wait until the PTSD turns into unemployment, drug use, and suicide – very expensive social problems.”

There are over 8,000 posts on this blog going back two years. These reports are not new but the reporting on them has been so lax it is a tough hunt to find out what is going on across the nation and getting harder every year.

The American people have no limits to their generosity. We prove it all the time. We show we do care about the men and women serving this nation, at least to the point where we are aware of them when they deploy and when they return. We send our thoughts and prayers with them but unless there is something catastrophic happening in Iraq or Afghanistan, there is very little we actually hear about. We hear even less when they become veterans in need of attention.

We can do better. We have to do better or they will look at us and wonder what is wrong with them that we care so much to mobilize for the sake of strangers in another nation when they are forgotten about in the process. We ask more and more of them but their sacrifices, their burdens are all too easy to forget about because the media does not remind us. When you watch reports on Haiti, think of the hours spent on it and then wonder why there is so little reporting on what is happening right here, right now and to the men and women we count on 24-7 365 days a year then ignore when they need us.