Disdain For Leaving Veterans in Despair
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 29, 2017
All across this nation people are doing things on this Memorial Day to acknowledge the price paid by those who fought our battles. Historians count the dead from all the named wars but they have never counted all the lives lost from the final battle the survivors fought until their lives ended.
This is what most of us have forgotten. Most wars are fought on a nightly basis in the dreams of those carried the burden of war within them.
This Memorial Day, I woke up, filled with bitter tears, thinking of all the lives gone but will never be counted. They will only be remembered by their families. It is a battle that has gone on since the beginning of time and one we will never win as long as we keep repeating what failed pretending it will work this time.
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
Attempts have been made to put a number on those who have fallen by their own hand, but too many have taken the reports, grabbed the headline and dismissed the rest of the report. Far to easy for them to remember a number than to read the contents of 59 pages from the 2012 VA Suicide report or the 46 pages of the 2016 report.
All across this nation there are groups claiming to be doing good works by raising awareness of veterans committing suicide. They appear to be trying to change the outcome, but clearly, while they publicize what they want others to know, they hide the fact they do not know how to change the outcome and have no resources to help veterans stay alive.
Jesus Teaches about False Teachers
15 “Watch out for false teachers. They come to you dressed as if they were sheep. On the inside they are hungry wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruit. Do men pick grapes from thorns? Do men pick figs from thistles? 17 It is true, every good tree has good fruit. Every bad tree has bad fruit.
When confronted, they claim they are not harming anyone but the truth is, they harm those who need help as much as they harm those who do want to change the outcome. They feel cheated and betrayed by these false teachers, then they believe that everyone else is just as useless.
I hear it all the time. Veterans are shocked when they discover the truth and then become angry because no one told them they did not need to suffer instead of healing. Betrayal after betrayal, yet the false teachers are supported by social media and funding. No one bothered to ask them why they needed the money or what they were doing with it when everything they talk about was given to them freely by others who did in fact pay the price to gain the knowledge in the first place.
For us, it is a price well worth paying. There is no way to explain what it is like to take a veteran from the edge of the cliff and see them walk away with their head held up high.
"Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace."
We are talking about people who were willing to die for the sake of others but not being able to find one more reason to live one more day? Doesn't that bother you? How do they go from that, filled with courage and compassion, valuing the lives of others to the point where they were willing to pay for it with their own, into taking their own life?
I did not decide to go into the military. I was born into it. I did not choose to fight the Vietnam war. I choose to fight for my husband. I did not choose to make this the mission of my life but it has been worth it to help others discover how they can save these veterans. I give what I know away freely but others take it, use it and profit themselves.
To those who do, God sees what you are doing and you will pay for the bitter tears you left behind after families were left to grieve for veterans who sought help but were used and betrayed.
So this Memorial Day, remember, you have filled more graves by your actions. You disregarded over four decades of research done that others like me learned from. You took away our ability to reach them, teach them and watch them help others. You are like those who decide today is a day to party and go shopping wearing patriotic T-shirts!
I welcome the false teachers as regarding me as the enemy. When it comes to taking sides, I choose to stand by their side and damn those who have already damned themselves by using veterans for their own gain.
