Vets' Corner: Effects of war
By Ron Verini
Friday, June 27, 2008 10:08 AM PDT
Nightmares and flashbacks or sitting with your back to the wall in a restaurant.
These are just a few of the symptoms that a GI might have when he returns from the front, and you just might want to be with a group of folks that have a common thread.
I have got to tell you that Veteran Advocates of Ore-Ida has started a group of veterans that will be there to support the troops that are coming home.
Let us know if you might be able to work with us and to help with this group. This will be GIs helping GIs as best we can. Maybe we will be able to sit down and talk about what we went through. Sharing experiences just might be the ticket. Then again, it just might be a chance to meet other veterans who might have something in common.
There is no cost to anyone for us to get together, and the organization, Veteran Advocates of Ore-Ida, is not a dues-paying group. This is an organization that has local people in it who want to reach out a hand to veterans and active duty military.
We encourage you to join others who share your experiences, your exposures and will guide your journey to get all the way back home, if ya know what I mean ... We do not have any other motive than to support and honor all veterans and active duty military. You might want to check out our Web site, www.veteranadvocates.org, or our e-mail is help@veteranadvocates.org.
Everyone in the community think about this fact of life, that our soldiers who are coming back from the front will be affected in some way by the war. This will change families and, in some cases, the communities they come back to.
Our government will not do it all; it is the responsibility of all of us to work as a team and help. Who will care for our wounded veterans when they come back? Who will help with the families that are struggling to assimilate back into civilian life? What about the GI who does not have a family to come back to? What about the family that has no breadwinner coming home?
These questions will be there when the war is over. These are the questions still being asked since World War II and as our veterans from Vietnam are still struggling to get answers about Agent Orange and other toxins that have changed the lives of many of our GIs.
Just think about the future of our communities and what we, as citizens, can do to help.
Reach out your hand and help; it does not cost you a thing if you cannot afford it. In some cases all it takes is your support by helping with yard work or giving a break to a caregiver who needs a little time to just get away for a few hours or so.
Be part of the solution, and do not talk a good talk, but please do not almost do something. What I am saying is all of us, be active in some way to help.
Forty-seven percent of active-duty forces are between 17 and 24 years of age. Of that number, 48 percent are unmarried and 49 percent of the returning troops are reporting the death or serious injury of a friend. The numbers are staggering, so please help. Just think about the injured ferried between hospitals and rehabilitation centers. Now they are the ones struggling.
Not us with our lives intact and us that have a family able to care for our needs. Us complaining about the price of gas and the cost of groceries is nothing compared with the problems a military family might have.
As a country, we send these soldiers to war to do a job, and these soldiers risk life and limb for our country. Most do not ask for much, but what they do ask for or need, each one of us should be there for them since they are part of our American family. We should all be in emergency mode to help and support those coming back.
“This is a war of disability not of war deaths,” says former Army physician Ronald Glasser, M.D., author of “Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq.” These soldiers are coming home with injuries that would have been fatal during earlier wars. The care for these troops is going to be with us for many years to come and for some it will outlive us. Think about the numbers.
“Men and Nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives,” Abba Eban.
Ronald Verini is a local veterans advocate who writes a weekly column for the Argus Observer. He can be contacted at (541) 881-8881, or pencilsforpeace@q.com, or P.O. Box 933, Ontario OR, 97914
