{"id":2494,"date":"2013-11-11T11:33:35","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=2494"},"modified":"2013-11-14T13:56:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T19:56:54","slug":"are-we-truly-honoring-our-vets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/are-we-truly-honoring-our-vets\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Truly Honoring Our Vets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by John Moyle, The St. Louis Powercast
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

Monday is\u00a0Veterans Day<\/a>, a day we honor those men and women whom at one time wore the uniform to defend our country.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Veterans come in all shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Some served during times of peace, some during war.\u00a0 Some are combat veterans, some are not.\u00a0 Some came home whole, and others sacrificed parts of their body while serving our nation.\u00a0 \u00a0On Monday we honor them all.<\/p>\n

Something that has troubled me for a while is the lack of support I see from people who believe they support veterans.\u00a0 I run into people every day that say they \u201csupport our troops\u201d, regularly thank veterans and active military members for their service, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 As a vet, while I appreciate these gestures I find it odd that many of these same people work hard in support of politicians and policies that bring harm to our vets and their families.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for myself and like minded veterans to look at these folks as supporters.\u00a0 To be fair, I believe they are not actually against veterans, but rather ignorant of the negative impact much of what they support has on \u00a0vets.<\/p>\n

There are people who fly a flag and believe themselves to be supporters of veterans, but look away in disgust when they see a man with a \u201cwill work for food\u201d sign at an exit ramp.\u00a0 They openly oppose any form of homeless services near where they live as well.\u00a0\u00a0 Do they realize that\u00a01 in 3 homeless men in America are U.S. military veterans<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Some of these same people felt it was \u201cabout time\u201d when food stamps were cut this year.\u00a0 They believe many Americans on food stamps abuse the system. \u00a0Did they know that\u00a0at least 5000 active duty families are likely to lose their food stamps<\/a>\u00a0as a result of these cuts? \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Are they aware of the fact that\u00a0last year nearly 100 million dollars worth of food stamps were used at Military Commissaries and Exchanges (where a military I.D. is required to shop<\/em>)<\/a>.\u00a0 Are these really the \u201ccheats\u201d they are after?<\/p>\n

How many of these same people are completely supportive of Congressional efforts that have crippled the U.S. Postal Service?\u00a0 How many also support reductions in post offices, staff, delivery days, etc.?\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe they don\u2019t know thatthe Post Office has not taken a dime from U.S. tax payers since 1971<\/a>.\u00a0 They may also not know\u00a0the primary reason the Post Office is not profitable is Congressional interference<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0Do they realize\u00a0the Post Office is second only to the Department of Defense in the number of Veterans employed there<\/a>?\u00a0 Does this information make a difference to them?<\/p>\n

Many of these pro-vet folks have stood with those politicians who opposed every effort to expand jobs in America since the 2008 crisis began.\u00a0\u00a0 They might not realize that\u00a0the unemployment rate of U.S. veterans is about 10%<\/a>, in spite of various programs that promote hiring vets.\u00a0 They also oppose unions, assumedly unaware of the fact that many union members like myself are veterans.\u00a0 They may not know\u00a0all the ways our unions support our veterans<\/a>.\u00a0 Perhaps they don\u2019t realize that their fire fighters, police officers, paramedics and many other emergency responders are both union members and veterans.\u00a0 There are also those among them that oppose raising the minimum wage.\u00a0 Perhaps they don\u2019t realize that\u00a0at least one million veterans would be helped by doing so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How many people who put their hand briefly over their heart as a silent honor to our service members when they meet them on the street realize that because of the broad and unyielding sequester they support\u00a0the military will have to reduce the number of men and women in uniform beyond recommended levels<\/a>.\u00a0 Do they realize those uniformed men and women they are saluting might be furloughed soon?\u00a0 How many realize that while the Department of Veterans Affairs is not impacted by these cuts, \u201cThe result could mean more homeless veterans, less help for those looking for work, and tens of thousands of furloughed veterans struggling to make ends meet<\/a>.\u00a0 Are they aware of any of this when they \u201cthank\u201d them?<\/p>\n

While I and other veterans definitely appreciate the effort when people fly their flag, tie a yellow ribbon around a tree or thank one of us on the street, we\u2019d ask something else of you.\u00a0 \u00a0On this Veterans Day please consider honoring our veterans by supporting the programs, policies and employers that support them too.\u00a0 You can truly support us in the future if you just keep us in mind when considering what you choose to support or oppose in the future.\u00a0\u00a0 Veterans deserve at least that from all of us don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

UPDATE<\/strong>: \u00a0Thanks to\u00a0Missouri\u00a0Health\u00a0Care\u00a0for\u00a0All<\/a>\u00a0for pointing it out that access to healthcare is another area where our Veterans need our support. \u00a0 Thoughmany of our Veterans qualify in various ways for medical care though the Veterans Administration<\/a>, we still have many without access to care. \u00a0The Affordable Care Act,\u00a0so long as Medicaid is expanded as designed in the individual veteran\u2019s state, can help bring access to healthcare to 40% or more of the 1.3 Million Veterans currently uninsured\u00a0<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by John Moyle, The St. Louis Powercast click here for original article Monday is\u00a0Veterans Day, a day we honor those men and women whom at one time wore the uniform to defend our country.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Veterans come in all shapes and sizes.\u00a0 Some served during times of peace, some during war.\u00a0 Some are combat veterans, some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Homeless02.jpg?fit=288%2C419&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2494"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2517,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2494\/revisions\/2517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}