A National Shame: Homeless Vets

In a series of fortunate coincidences, the idea of coffeehouses for vets has been jumping up all over. This email was forwarded to me by Lori P., a vet herself. Lori and I have been talking about the coffeehouse idea, which our friend Polly wants to set up here in DC:

Howdy,
I was at a peace potluck last night. There were five IVAW members and, Sgt. Selena with her beautiful 4 year old daughter (in pink!). Sgt. Selena is an active duty military woman, antiwar, with a fascinating personal story. She is stationed in north Florida until March.
I asked her how CodePINK could help her and other antiwar active military personal. She said that they need a safe place to drop in, meet, and share their stories, feelings. Some of you may remember the Coffee Houses that came about for Vietnam Vets during that war. Selena said there is currently a Coffee House set up near Ft. Mead, Maryland; and, she feels, because the military folks there don't feel so isolated in their opposition to war, they are now over 25 strong in opposition to the Iraq war-- being able to meet a this special military Coffee House. Selena said we need to help facilitate the return of these Coffee Houses, esp. near military bases. So, what are your thoughts, experiences and ideas in helping facilitate bringing back the Coffee House concept?
Your pal for peace,
J B
Gainesville, FL

So what do you call it when the same idea springs up at the same time all over the place?

Thanks for a great thread header too--let's get this train rolling!

So what do you call it when the same idea springs up at the same time all over the place?

Sychronicity!

This is being discussed on NPR as I read. I think it's all things considered.

One if four homeless people in the US is a vet repeated there.

My comment may seem irrelevant but I have to admit, I do not like the term "mental illness" when discussing PTSD. As far as I'm concerned the fact that they get the way they are is a sign of the goodness and humanity in them that being in a war zone has caused trauma.

It's because we were not made to experience the depths of Hell without injury.

Coffee houses and support groups are always good--and most of all experiencing understanding and compassion from people is good too. But if a vet is homeless, how will he/she afford to go a coffee house?

The fact is that we have a lot of things that we should be doing. A coffee house, a rec center, a support group....it doesn't matter what we do. What matters is that we do something!

But I saw an article today that suggest we utilize the county hospital system to aid vets and I thought it was a great idea too. I'll have to dig up the link from wherever I saw it.

Sparrow

By coincidence (or synchronity?) I am working on a piece about how the terms for post-traumatic stress have changed across the wars, & the use of euphemisms for things people are in denial about. My main source is someone I read the complete works of when I was unable to access any media when travelling (such as on a transAtlantic flight) and he is a controversial entertainer from ever since the Vietnam era. I think you will like it, in fact I may seek your help! My dad suffered from this, and "mental illness" is too broad and the way of looking at it is ever-changing but usually not of benefit to the individual who has it.

Today when shopping at IKEA I was quite surprised to see a guy with a t-shirt on that said, "This veteran is heavily medicated, for your protection." The word protection was in scary-looking letters of a different font and I still haven't figured it out but I've been thinking about it ever since. I wish I'd actually gone over and asked him about it!

nmp - I wish you'd asked him about it too. He obviously wants people to ask about it.

I knew that my uncle never talked about his years as a POW of the Japanese in Changi prison and his work building the Burma Railway, during World War 2.

A couple of years ago my sister asked him if she could write his story. He agreed and then began a long and highly emotional journey back to, and from, the hell within. The Australian Government's and the army's debriefing when these walking skeletons rattled home, was to forbid any talk about what happened to them. They were sworn to secrecy. It wasn't called PTSD or even given a derogatory name like mental deficiency or instability. Had he talked about it publicly, no doubt the powers that be would have found a nice little asylum some place to pack him off to.

Really, that vet you saw, nmp is no better off today than our soldiers were in 1918, 1945, after Korea, after Vietnam, after Gulf War 1, after Afghanistan, after Iraq, and soon to come - after Iran. Humans have been gifted with a brain. A brain to negotiate with. When that gift of a brain is used by the greedy and treacherous for the good of the corporate few, the brain will turn against itself. The greedy few at the top of the Power dung heap, should be banned from sending anyone to fight a war until their own children have done at least 2 years of active duty in the current hell-hole they've created.

This tiny little addition to our constitutions would be enough to prevent the idiots from creating wars.

We're good at creating hell-holes - but we can't turn them around, so we have to move on to create the next ...... and the next ......

And I would dearly like to be able to drop in to such a coffee house and hear their stories and give my support in their struggles for justice. Thanks DiAnne.

I had a boyfriend who joined the Marines at age 17 & went to Vietnam, & he'd talk about it if someone really wanted to listen. Some of it was hard to hear about though. He told me about racial subwars within the Marines and about seeing beautiful women with long black hair but then they turned around and smiled and their teeth were black. He told me about jungle rot and how a drill sargeant kicked him in the head so hard he lost the hearing in one ear.

I had a friend in college who hung around in circles, as I did, where talking of revolution was common. He said, "Well, you'd better be ready to eat rat," which was a reference to his dad, who was on the Bataan Death March in WWII in the Pacific, and got down to 60 pounds. I later read the book written by his father, a harrowing little small press book and I can still see the cover - orange and white stripes with barbed wire across them.

My husband's boss wrote an autobiography and he was a good soldier, well-trained, and ready to go into any danger as it was better than what he had to face at home, ie. he was not afraid to die (but not necessarily for the right reasons). He is African-American and had come up the hard way. Military was for him an education and an adventure but also a let-down, as he was asked to do things in Panama that he knew were not ethical. He does not have to spell this out in the book. He tells it like is was and it's just obvious.

Then my own father wrote his own book about WW2, on the sly. My mother went out to work during the day and he typed laboriously with his Parkinsonian shaky hands, then put the partially-completed product up into the closet til his next chance. I found out about it just before his funeral and stayed up all night typing it up onto a computer, from his manuscript. I made copies and handed them out at the funeral.

He had electroshock therapy at one point when I was growing up, and he could no longer teach because his depression got so bad. He began to haul garbage and it was less stressful, not that much less money either (as people throw away useful things!) I never knew what he had gone through because he told us mostly about things like having an iguana crawl into his hammock, though he did used to tell us, "I've seen kids with arms about as big around as your fork," when we wouldn't eat (in the Phillipines).

When typing his book, though, I realized he'd been in combat in Darwin, Australia and he'd seen his buddies fall to the beach when their parachutes opened too late, and he had to help clean up the carnage.

I see a few descriptions where guys come back - say they go to a mall and everyone is shopping. They're out in the open and there is no real cover. They see women with veils and they have been trained to think they could be hiding something, like a suicide vest. They are on edge and can't relax. Everyone is going about as though everything is normal.

I just read about one guy who was trying to go to college and people were more concerned about their FaceBook entry than the war. I know it is a great escape. Who wants to think about war and why should be have to? That's why it makes me sick to my stomach to see the photos of the guys with no legs or the burned off faces with multiple plastic surgeries so they are unrecognizable and there is Bush, hanging out like he had nothing to do with it.

My dad used to give me the bit about how if we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki they would have bombed us. Those were civilians. He was fed a line of crap same as people are now. Who in their right mind would go if they knew the truth?

On Veterans and Memorial Day I often wish we had days of Peace. Those who go sacrifice but these days tend to glorify war, for the gullible.

I was driving around just now and saw a car with a "Support the Troops" ribbon and below it was a bumper sticker that said "Don't assume I support this war." Another said "Who would Jesus bomb?"

I was also struck by the breadth among religious adherents - I heard that a neoNazi white supremist Christian group is trying to have a convention in Longview WA. That is a far cry from say a Catholic group or a black Baptist group or a liberal Methodist group or some Quakers, yet all may be Christian.

I get the mailing list stuff from Anne Coulter and associates and they repeatedly sell books that say Islam is a more violent religion than Christianity. That is such a ridiculous premise in the first place - to argue which is the more peaceful or more violent religion. There is no answer to it. There are as many versions as there are people. It makes no sense to talk that way and stirs up alot of trouble.

I believe in free speech but some of those people are engaging in hate crimes and should be locked up away from society.