Monday, May 29, 2017

"Honor the dead by caring for the living"

If there is one takeaway from 

Our View: Honor the dead by caring for the living

It is this!
To them, we owe our deepest gratitude.
While we cannot adequately repay that debt to those made the supreme sacrifice for us, we can perhaps honor them by caring for those who fought and survived the horrors of war. Yet a new report suggests we are failing at that.

The Government Accountability Office released a study indicating that between 2011 and 2015 the Pentagon booted 91,764 soldiers from military service for misconduct, and that 62 percent of them suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or some other debilitating mental health condition. Misconduct typically involves drug usage, criminal activity, insubordination or going AWOL.

Of the 57,141 troops released from service, the GAO determined that the bulk of them were provided general discharges, which still qualified them for many benefits available through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, education being the exception. Still, 13,283 of them were issued “other-than-honorable” discharges, which typically made them ineligible for VA healthcare programs.

Ninety-eight percent of the 57,141 soldiers in question were enlisted personnel, as opposed to officers, and they had on average served four years on active duty. In short, they were solid veterans from the lower ranks who had done their duty until something rattled them or the engineering inside their skull.
Please use the link and read the rest of this and think about what you just learned. We owe them, but that part keeps getting missed! 

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