One quarter of America's homeless population are veterans; of these, 9% served in the post-9/11 era. Already, 20% of return Iraqi and 11% of returning Afghan veterans have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. The degree of trauma that they have experienced is difficult to comprehend. We can only expect that over the next 50 years, we will continue to see more and more veterans from the past decade of war living on the streets, as the psychological suffering they have experienced will continue to burden their lives.
Officials involved in assisting veterans know what is coming for veterans and they too are worried about the sheer enormity of trauma among veterans. Said Daniel Tooth, the Lancaster County, PA Director of Veteran Affairs: "We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous."
Our current political system has not prepared themselves for the financial costs of sending so many young persons into war. The $1.3 trillion already spent on these wars does not fully account for the future medical needs of recent veterans and the homelessness services ($41,000 per year per veteran) that will be necessary to care for all these men and women. Imagine the quality of life difference that our citizens could experience if instead of spending so much money on reactive services, we were able to spend that money on our school systems or clean energy.
Nobody deserves to be homeless. Let our elected officials know that we should not be perpetuating the damaging of lives (both the young people serving overseas and the civilians in other countries who find their lives in turmoil due to military presence).
TAKE ACTION!
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