If the troops do get to come home...

*Plays "Soon as I get home" by 2pac feat. Kadafi*

...then are you all ready for the ones of them now stuck with a mental illness induced having been in the military? Do you think their mental issues will be a danger to your safety when they get home? I mean, do you think they will turn these streets into a war zone soon as they get home?


And is America ready to give the honorable men and women who served a job or not?

Discuss what will happen.

 

I doubt it. But I do think domesticviolence will increase somewhat in the homes of newly returned vets. And probably the ranks of the homeless will increase within three years of their return home.

The state of mental health coverage for returning vets is a sham, which should be improved.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19155614

It's really hard to say with this group of service personal, since many restrictions on enlistment have been waived or changed during this war on terrorism. Not to mention this administrations stand on torture.

And who knows what the role of women serving an increased role in active armed duty will be. We've never really seen this before. It may add a whole new dynamic to absorbing returning vets socially.

 

If the troops do get to come home, they're available for a campaign in Iran.

Nothing like loosing a 100,000 battle hardened nut cases on Persia. That oughta whack the hornets nest pretty good, you think?

Worse case scenario.

Best we can hope for is minimal metal health care, with lots of drugs involved. Cause thats our answer to everything in this country.

And maybe a few Clint Eastwood style movies about ex military types gone bad.

Maybe a few of them will try to take Washington? In this day and age, thats not outside the realm of possibility.

Maybe the revolution will be televised?



x

 

I'm sure that many of them will come back with obvious and serious problems. Others will have problems that are not visible. Some will have no real problems at all. Every variation in-between.

My grandfather served in WW1, my father in WW2, and my older brother in Vietnam. All were activists for veterans' benefits, DAV, VFW, Amvets, VVA, all that stuff, and my mother was even in the auxilary (and my wife was in the army, and her brother served 20-some years and then got stop-lossed). I drank underaged in an Amvets hall, did magic shows at the VA hospital... so I've been hard-wired as a supporter/defender of war vets. I'll never forget talking to a WW2 vet who said (this conversation was in 1980) that his life ended when, during combat, he realized that everyone around him was dead. He couldn't find any survivors. He said his life ended right then, and he'd been in and out of the hospital ever since.

I've never served at all, but I urge everyone to look out for these guys (and gals too) regardless of the political views they might have developed while fighting to stay alive. Our brains have evolved to survive, and our bodies will adjust our minds whether we want it or not, when facing the hell of war.

Because these mainstream flag-waving, Bible-thumping, yellow-ribbon flaunting pieces of SHIT won't do so- in rural southern Ohio, Paul Hackett lost election to a never-served. So yeah, show me a flag-flapper and I'll show you who is really (even if just figuratively) spitting on the war vets.

All that just my opinion.

 

Interesting read, a masters thesis written by and Israeli veteran on what happens to military personnel as far as a personality shift towards violence.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/909589.html

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=22683

 

I heard on Air America that the Journal of the American Medical Association has just published a scientific study of our current war vets. They supposedly concluded that there are about 250,000 Iraq War vets with mental problems severe enough to require medical intervention. Don't quote me on the numbers, since I can't see the report, but I guess any university library would carry it.

 

This is an important issue, and something we should all be thinking of as an added cost to this war.

 

Interesting article that outlines that local communities will have to take up the slack.

http://gordon.house.gov/pressarchiv...cal+VA+Hospitals+To+Treat+Jailed+Veterans.htm

 

which is cheaper?

1 just leave them in the middle east fighting forever or until they die?

2 bring them back and have to throw them jail or tend to them in hospital?

brutal as this assessment might be, it might be one of the reasons that armoured vehicles were never any good in the first place.

it is much better from a military and civillian perspective for a soldier to die rather than be injured. he costs less over a longer time frame. having someone languishing in hospital or being paid for by the government becomes expensive. it is much cheaper for a soldier to die because the cost of the coffin and pension to the wife is less than if he were receiving the extra benefits as well(if they actually manage to get them).

the government can always curtail these benefits gradually client by client until the next war. i'd say that the agencies paying for veteran welfare has to make big cuts before the next war, essentially this means by the end of ten years it is hopeful that the injured are dead or off welfare.

if the soldier has no wife due to him being very young then this will be good too because apart from the coffin and transport the responsibility ends as soon as you've dumped the body with the parents.

if the soldier is jailed after returning due to mental derangement (think cool hand luke) then this will cost money too. the best thing you could do is send them back to the frontlines to "redeem his honour" at the point of a roadside bomb.

and what of the people who send these people to war?

well they rarely get any injuries, dying is something that the lower orders of society get to do. statistically there will always be someone stupid enough to believe something stupid and end up fighting for a government that for all intents and purposes hates them. whens the last time that politicians were laid up seriously injured in a hopital bed from a war ? (i'm not talking superficial wounds)

 

If the troops do get to come home, expect them to be patrolling OUR streets under the supervision of Blackwater.

Revolution will be the only answer to that.

 

Funny how the people who talk the most shit are the ones who don't have the balls to serve a single day in their lives.

 

There we go, soldier bashing again. You'd think people who claim to be loving and non-judgemental would look inside themselves. They're doing something they believe in just as we are. Just because we disagree with the things they do doesn't make them non-persons.

 

How do we get ready ? "do you mean like before i sign onto hipforums?"

No.
Why would they?
Is this what US Vets are known for?

Ready,Willing and Able.

What makes you think they didnt have jobs before they served?

Serving in the US Military looks good on"most" resume's.

 

Why arent the million+ troops that have already served, patrolling OUR streets?

 

I've forgotten the exact number, but it is like 10 - 15% of homless in the US are vets of the recent Iraq war/war on terror. 10+% of them are women.

A recent study published by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 15 to 17 percent of Iraq vets meet "the screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety, or PTSD." Of those, only 23 to 40 percent are seeking help - in part because so many others fear the stigma of having a mental disorder.

There have been amazing battle field major trauma recovery cases, major head trauma, that, just a decade ago would have been fatal. However, I wonder what is REALLY behind this, is it to 'experiment' on the troops so when this trauma treatment hits the street, most of the bugs will be worked out of it and less likelyhood of law suits ?


anyhoo, I beleive this bush administration has left the troops to fend for themselves, cut VA funding and ostracized the US from the rest of the world.

ok, I'm off my soapbox now and yes I am a vet

 

Technology and medical advances improve with time, but of course that fact means nothing to the people who believe that aliens run our government of pawns.....

Congress cut the funding.

You're a disgrace is what you are.

 

We can't blame bush for everything. The prez can't allocate funds, he can only propose spending. Congress spends the money so if you voted for someone, you voted for someone who fucked up.

 

ok, then why didn't/ hasn't bush pushed for more VA spending ?

Bush took the US away from the real war on terror (Afganistan) and invaded Iraq under false pretenses

Bush is the 'commander in chief' and is responsible for all that happens on HIS watch.

Bush, in his own words "I am the decider"

Bush, can and has used his veto pen

I don't believe aliens run the government, just a tin penny farce named bush

why am I a disgrace ? because I don't kowtow to bush and the right wing ? because I am not afraid to say the emperor is naked because I don't give a loud and hearty Sieg Heil when bush speaks ?

oh, not only am I a vet, but a disabled vet. I can HATE bush, the man and the president and still be a good American, still be a good Vet and a believer in freedom.

 

100% true. And the rest of the suited chimps on Capital Hill liberal and conservative ALIKE could have stopped this, but they didn't. I guess we're smarter than they are. Congress could have completely cut funding for BOTh fronts after 180 days. They didn't. People are disabled, people are dead. They need to share the blame for this mess. And if we learned ONE THING from Viet Nam it's "Don't Count On The VA". Like any other government organization, you give them funding they only self-perpetuate. Make what they do work, then they get more funding. Until they acomplish something, they have to make do and that means people suffer. It sucks but it is.

As am I to all of the above. But blaming someone for your problems doesn't solve them and hate doesn't get you through the night. I don't particularly like Bush but I got out on Clinton's watch, and very unfairly. But it wasn't his fault either.

 

And those pollsters rely on it. I'd love to see the American people throw them a wonky. I've been polled a couple of times and I always tell them wrong information.

Like the blackout on Ron Paul, maybe it's all for the good let Obama, Hillary, the Mormon and Baptist slug it out and spend their money. Guiliani....he wrote himself off last Sunday on Meet the Press. If anyone votes for him after that it's sad. And Huckabee...yeah that's a presidential name if I ever heard one. I forgot Edwards, not really sure where I stand on him, but he's just too pretty.