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| AP: Homelessness a Threat for Iraq Vets |
| 2006-07-04 |
| EFL - the new meme - nice for the MSM to start it on the Fourth Herold Noel had nowhere to call home after returning from military service in Iraq. He slept in his Jeep, taking care to find a parking space where he wouldn't get a ticket. "Then the nightmares would start," says the 26-year-old former Army private first class, who drove a fuel truck in Iraq. "I saw a baby decapitated when it was run over by a truck _ I relived that every night." Across America on any given evening, hundreds of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan like Noel are homeless, according to government estimates. The reasons for their plight are many. For some, residual stress from daily insurgent attacks and roadside bombs makes it tough to adjust to civilian life; some can't navigate government assistance programs; others simply can't afford a house or apartment. They are living on the edge in towns and cities big and small, from Washington state to California and Florida. Some of the hardest hit are in New York City, where housing costs "can be very tough," says Peter Dougherty, head of the federal government's Homeless Veterans Program. Studio apartments routinely exceed $1,000 a month _ no small sum for veterans trying to land on their feet. Same in San Diego - Rents are typically $1600 a month for a 3 bdrm As a member of the National Guard, Nadine Beckford patrolled New York train stations after the Sept. 11 attacks, then served a treacherous year in the Gulf region. But when she returned home from Iraq, she found her storage locker had been emptied of all of her belongings and her bank account had been depleted. She believes her boyfriend took everything and "just vanished." that's a personal trust violation, not America's failing Six months after her return to America, she lives in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn, sharing a room with eight other women and attending a job training program. Her parents live in Jamaica and are barely making ends meet, she says. "I'm just an ordinary person who served. I'm not embarrassed about my homelessness, because the circumstances that created it were not my fault," says Beckford, 30, who was a military-supply specialist at a U.S. base in Iraq _ a sitting duck for around-the-clock attacks "where hell was your home." It was a "hell" familiar to Noel during his eight months in Iraq. But it didn't stop when he returned home to New York last year and couldn't find a job to support his wife and three children. Without enough money to rent an apartment, he turned to the housing programs for vets, "but they were overbooked," Noel says. While he was in Iraq, his family had lived in military housing in Georgia. In New York, they ended up in a Bronx shelter "with people who were just out of prison, and with roaches," Noel says. "I'm a young black man from the ghetto, but this was culture shock. This is not what I fought for, what I almost died for. This is not what I was supposed to come home to." There are about 200,000 homeless vets in the United States, according to government figures. About 10 percent are from either the 1991 Gulf War or the current one, about 40 percent are Vietnam veterans, and most of the others served when the country was not officially at war. no doubt many vets suffer setbacks after wartime experience. The VA and America should be there for them. This is, however, likely a start of the new anti-W, anti-Iraq War meme |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #6 I've got a couple of friends who are both Viet vets and homeless. They live the way they do by choice. One rides a Harley anywhere he wants to go, lives off his medical disability (40%) and whatever odd jobs he can get. The other one lives somewhere in Tennessee, but regularly comes through Co. Springs during the summer. Most of the other Viet vets I know (from my own service, and also from being in the military for 25 years) are doing just fine. My son-in-law is a Gulf vet and has a steady job. I haven't met many out-of-service Iraq or Afghanistan vets, even though there are thousands of military and retirees in this town. I'd guess there are some war veterans from any war that have difficulty returning to normal life. I had trouble even in the military. I don't think any of it's permanent. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2006-07-04 23:47 |
| #5 My thanks, Anonymoose. We need more of exactly that kind of friendship for the returning vets - across the range, as needed, from a place to crash to introductions and references. Your friend was obviously a self-starter, LOL. I'll wager he passed your efforts forward. I did similarly for a few Vietnam vets back in the day. Good guys who needed to unwind - and I had a place appropriate for depressurizing. Plus, hell, they were interesting guys who were excellent company, for the most part. One has been a solid friend since - 37 years. Good on ya. |
| Posted by: Hupeating Flins9708 2006-07-04 16:28 |
| #4 karma investment, Moose, big-time! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-04 16:19 |
| #3 I would like to add a personal note, however. After Gulf War I, I played host to a Marine discharged because of a cranky back. He was fresh out, with little more than his duffle bag and caught in the predicament of not being able to get a job because he didn't have a place to live, and not being able to get a place to live because he didn't have a job. The guy was actually living in a small cave near town for a few days while looking for work. I gave him a section of floor with a loaner blanket, a bunch of black coffee and a dozen donuts and within a week he had a job paying well enough to get an apartment. Within a few months he had moved from a security guard to be a self-taught computer guy at an airport. Last I heard, he passed the MSCE test and had moved to Seattle. This was a couple of years after he was just an ex-Marine who needed some floor for a week or two. Yeah, technically he had been homeless. Not a bad investment for some coffee and donuts. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-07-04 16:05 |
| #2 excellent link A5089! "Four months later the study came out. The unemployment rate in the economy at the time among all males was 6%," he said. "But among the men who went to Vietnam it was 3.9%--the lowest unemployment rate of any major group in America. Burkett looked into the apparently high suicide rate among Vietnam veterans and found it was not even remotely true. "Vietnam veterans have one of the lowest suicide rates in America. The two years after the war there was a slightly elevated rate that was only modestly higher then our peers who never went into the military. It fell off dramatically after that," he said. Widespread Vietnam Veteran homelessness is another myth. "Back, around the late 70's Teddy Kennedy had a $10 million government grant to have a building in Boston for all the homeless Vietnam veterans. Several of guys gave testimonies about how they ended up on the street after Vietnam, but I got the military records of those individuals and virtually none of them were Vietnam veterans," he said. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-07-04 15:21 |
| #1 Regarding the "Viet Nam memes" (not that I don't think hardships like that are unknown to returning vets, of course) : Dropping The Bomb on Vietnam Myths |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-07-04 15:10 |