Venting for Veterans

A couple of friends emailed wondering what sent me off yesterday when I posted Assholes Among Us. I guess I worried a few people especially a friend called last night worried about what was behind the anger.

I told him it was one thing after another but came to a head when a veteran I've been helping called while I was heading home from work, stuck in traffic.


He told me how hard it had been finding groups to join with all the groups online. Then I told him "You can always tell an asshole from an advocate because when you leave an advocate, you feel better but worse when you walked away from an asshole." Summing it up, if he found a place where he felt welcomed and better then great but walk away from groups that made him feel worse.

As I listed the rest of the things setting me off to my buddy, the fabulous video from Five Finger Death Punch was a big part of it.

I watched the video several times and cried. It is wonderful even though some of the numbers were wrong, that did not make the message less powerful. Keep in mind I've been doing this for over 30 years plus living with it, so for me to be brought to tears over a video, that says something.

They have some of the numbers wrong. For a start, the number of veterans committing suicide every day is over 22. That means over 8,030 a year. That does not include the hundreds of active duty military also leaving us because they could not find hope enough to live one more day.

The part that is even sadder is, most made it out of combat, living long enough to get their buddies back home before their ended the same pain they had while they served right next to them. Imagine that. Imagine what it was like for them to push past all that emotional pain because someone needed them only to not be able to find someone there for them to help them live.

This has to be one of the most powerful videos I've seen in a very long time.

The video didn't get me upset, but the comment left on their page did. Foolish jerks unable to open up their minds and close their mouths long enough to learn about the veterans they are attacking is undefendable. Top that off with this piece of news about the video and the group.

In tandem with the video's premiere, the group ignited a special crowd-funding campaign for a jersey entitled 5FDP4VETS "No One Gets Left Behind" on Indiegogo. The campaign's goal of raising $50,000 was bested by double in less than two day's time — exceeding $100,000. The campaign continues to run and the proceeds will benefit organizations that joined forces with the group to raise awareness for veterans suffering from PTSD.

The other thing was the CNN special I was looking forward to, but changed the channel half way into it because I was too angry over hearing a group of veterans being told they were messed up before they went into the military. I gave a halfway rant on this because I don't like to slam charities. The truth is, most of the time peer support is the biggest help of all for them, so put them in with each other is a hell of a lot better than leaving them alone. Too many bring the war home in the form of post-traumatic stress. I was more angry over CNN's lousy job of explaining what is going on with so many of our veterans.

By the time I got the call from the veteran on the way home, it felt as if my brain was going to explode, so I posted exactly what needed to be said. There are assholes among us pretending to care but disguising what it is they really care about and it isn't making veterans lives better.

Looks like I just got one more reason to vent and it takes us right back to the video from Five Finger Death Punch. It is brought to you by Dan Lamothe on the Washington Post.

New Five Finger Death Punch music video highlights veteran homelessness…but is it accurate? and he takes apart all the numbers used but somehow manages to avoid the biggest factor of all. The majority of the veterans suffering are not Iraq or Afghanistan but Vietnam veterans. They are the majority of the claims, backlog and the highest percentage of the suicides as well as homeless veterans.

What was Lamothe's point? A group does a fabulous job for the sake of veterans and he slammed the numbers they used which were in fact valid years ago. There were over 300,000 homeless veterans and the number of suicides were reported for years to be 18 a day. I posted how many veterans were listed as homeless in each state back in 2006. Given all we know now, even as efforts have reduced the number of homeless veterans, unless we take care of everything they need, we will insure the numbers will go back up.

If we don't get all of this right once and for all veterans now, Vietnam veterans will be replaced by Gulf War, Afghanistan War and Iraq War veterans wondering why we didn't do something when we had the chance to change what was happening.