Men Still Die For Their Country: The Plight of the Veteran

It’s February 15^th. A disabled veteran lies in a VA hospital bed waiting for a call to take him to surgery. You see, for Valentines Day, this veteran got the news that a cat scan had turned up two pre-cancerous masses, one on his liver and the other on a kidney. He’s been told the kidney will most likely have to be removed, depending on the results of the biopsy he’s waiting for.

Every day, somewhere in the United States, another veteran gives his life for his country. The sad fact: nobody knows and few really care. They don’t know because these veterans aren’t dying in a combat zone. No IED blew up and killed them. No suicide bomber flipped his switch. They died without fanfare, without notice, without the media publicity, often with only the immediate family in attendance.

The reason? These men and women are casualties from another war, another time. Some remember World War II, some Korea. Many are survivors from Viet-Nam. Some are former prisoners of war. A large number have one or more Purple Heart. They die from Agent Orange, blood diseases that have destroyed their organs like our veteran waiting for surgery. Complications from the vicious experience of POW camps take many. A close friend died three years ago due to a type of Parkinson’s brought on from his incarceration in a Vietnamese POW camp.

These are deaths that should be as poignant to us as one who dies in combat; because these unnoticed men and women are still dying for their country. They are just doing it in a different manner and a later time, but understand, these are service related conditions. These veterans should be afforded the same honor, the same recognition that is bestowed on those who died in combat. Why? Because these conditions have caused them to continue to fight that war as if it was still going on! They have never left that war. It has never truly been over for them until the day God gives them their discharge from this life.

Sadly, it’s not that way. These veterans are not honored; they are forgotten. They are not recognized for their continued valor, they are ridiculed and maligned. And worse, the country they willingly served and are dying for heaps broken promises on these brave men and women. The health care they were promised is constantly in jeopardy. President Obama even had the nerve to suggest that not paying for their own care was unpatriotic! How much more patriotic can one get than giving up their very life!

The paltry disability compensations are nowhere near enough to live on, but if a disabled veteran makes an extra dime this pension is swiftly taken away. The veteran is the last one to be considered for pricy medical procedures that might help them. It’s too expensive to waste on someone giving his or her life for their country! For the past two years, no “cost of living” increase has been given to these veterans because of a freeze on benefits and federal wages. Guess who is exempt from this freeze? Congress, of course. They’ll deny the pitifully small increase to veterans and social security recipients to insure there is enough for themselves.

This is a sad state of affairs, but one that is going on right now in this country. Men and women are still giving theirs lives for their country, but nobody notices…nobody cares…