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Since
2010, when the shortcomings of the V.A.'s healthcare and
medical system came to light and—after being thoroughly
embarrassed in the eyes of the American public—people in the
VA began to actually focus on doing their job, the combined HUD–VA initiative
that resulted has helped more than 360,000 veterans and their
families find permanent housing. As important, the speed
with which those vets who lost their housing were resettled
into new homes before they became homeless was impressive.
VA Secretary McDonald made note of this
when, after taking a stick to VA workers to push them to
implement the program... and watching it finally begin to
produce results... he recently said "The dramatic decline in Veteran
homelessness reflects the power of partnerships in solving
complex national problems on behalf of those who have served
our nation."
In this regard, he is right on two
points: i) often in government it is the combined efforts of
two separate government agencies that enables a solution to
be found, and ii) to make a government-to-government
partnership truly work, some high ranking person within the
government must sponsor and push the partnering effort. In
the case of reducing Veteran homelessness, the credit goes
to First Lady Michelle Obama and her personal homelessness
campaign. Specifically, her efforts led to this most recent
sharp decline in Veteran homelessness.
Among her efforts, in 2014, she
launched the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness.
This program tasked mayors across the country to commit to
wipe out Veteran homelessness in
their cities. Not an easy task, the results have
nevertheless been
stunning. Twenty-seven communities and two states say that
they have effectively ended Veteran homelessness. Ended it,
no less.
It’s amazing what a little bit of
focus and work will do.
From among this group the two stars
are Houston and New Orleans. In 2015 these two cities
managed to actually put an end to the acute and ever-present
Veteran homelessness that plagued their municipality since the
1950s. In June of last year Mayor Parker explained how the
city of Houston managed to end Veteran homelessness, saying
that they had eliminated the issue by housing 3,650 Veterans,
over the course of three years, in city arranged housing.
New
Orleans did the same—using the same approach the federal
government used—by bringing together agencies that hadn’t
previously worked together. The result is that now when a Veteran is found to become homeless, New Orleans has a
system in place to house him and his family within 30 days.
When one considers that the problem of
Veteran homelessness dates back to the end of WWII, this is
a remarkable feat, especially in these modern days of broken
government.
However, getting Veterans and their
families off the streets and into housing, while clearly the
most important factor relating to Veteran homelessness, is
not the only issue that needs to be addressed when it comes
to the concept of Veteran homelessness. The whole concept of
Veteran homelessness is made up of many small areas of
concern. Other than where the houses themselves will come
from is the problem of where homeless Veterans go when they
become homeless. That is, finding them is just as much a
part of the problem as housing them is.
In this regard the combined HUD and VA
efforts have also been successful, identifying the kinds,
types and sectors that make up homeless Veterans. This
ability to figure out where us Vets are hiding is central to
being able to do something about the problem.
This
past January (2016), an effort to identify Veterans sleeping
on the streets by going out and actually talking to those
people who were crawled up in rags in America's back alleys,
to see if among them there were Veterans, and then appealing
to those who were found to trust to the good intentions of
the searchers and move into temporary quarters until housing
could be found—resulted in the number of veterans sleeping
on the streets dropping by 56% across the country.
That's incredible. In that one month
alone over 13,000 homeless Vets were helped back under a
roof, into a warm place of safety.
Yet still, while this and other
programs show that the number of homeless Veterans has been
steadily dropping, general homelessness (i.e. non-Veterans)
has dropped only minutely, by just 11% since 2007. And of
course, in some cities the problem remains acute, even
seeing disconcerting spikes in both Veteran and non-Veteran
homelessness. New York City, for example, has seen the
number of single adults (both Veteran and non-Veteran)
seeking shelter skyrocket by 95% over the past decade.
One can conclude then that when it
comes to the question of how we Vets are doing, on the issue
of homelessness things are looking up. That’s good, because
more than 650,000 Service members served in the Gulf
War—Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm—from August 2,
1990, to July 31, 1991... and while many of these made the
transition from military to civilian life safely, a sizeable
few failed to climb up any higher than the first rung or two on the ladder
of life.
Now, after some 25+ years of trying to make it on their own,
many of them no longer have the strength to hold on and are
falling off the ladder completely.
What happens when after 25 years of
trying to make it as a civilian a Vet finds he has nothing
but failures to look back on... failed marriages, sparse
employment, drug
dependencies, alcoholism, homelessness, broken relationships
with children and family? Thoughts of suicide set in—that's
what happens.
Since 2001 the suicide rate of U.S.
Veterans rose one third, a larger rise than in the wider
population of the country as a whole.
Recent studies (2014) show that about 20
Veterans a day are dying from suicide, or about 7,300 in a
year. While a previous study (2013, see graphic at right)
showed 22 Veterans committing suicide every day, a
seemingly larger number, the
trend is actually increasing and not decreasing, as the
number of Veterans still alive and able to commit suicide is
in itself decreasing, due to deaths from old age. So while
the population of us Veterans able to commit suicide is
decreasing, more and more of us are opting to take our
lives.
The number of Veterans included in the
suicide study covered some 55 million people, from every
state. The study found that between 2001 and 2014, Veteran
suicides increased by 32%, while civilian suicides increased
by only 23% in the same time period. Does that say something
about the stress and difficulty of being a Serviceman, and
the difficulty of making the transition from Service life to
civilian life?
The answer is yes. The fact is that
after making allowances for controlling factors like age and
gender, Veterans face a 21 percent greater risk of
committing suicide than those who have not served in the
armed forces.
As to which of us are more prolific
when it comes to ending it all, the highest suicide rate is
among younger Veterans between the ages of 18 and 29. Yet
because there are fewer younger Vets than there are older
ones, in terms of volume, the greater quantity of dead Vets
comes from us older guys. Of all of the Veterans committing
self consignment, fully 65% come from men 50 or older.
Finally, two other strange statistics
came to the fore from all of the recent studies done on us
Vets:
1) In terms of the impact the use of
VA medical services has had on Veteran suicide rates, the
suicide rate for male Veterans who used VA services was the
lowest, showing only an 11% increase since 2001, compared to
35% for those who did not.
2) As for women Vets, the same holds
true, with the number for female Vets who sought VA help
showing only a 4.6% increase, compared to those who did not
seek VA help. What is not said in this statistic though is
that overall female Vets have shown an astounding 98%
increase in Suicide attempts since 2001.
Consider this then: why are so many
female vets opting to commit suicide… to the extent that in
less than 20 years the number has shot up by 98%?
Could it be the result of the effort by
many leftists, social liberals, progressives, the Democratic
Party, and the Obama administration to give females
more social equality and egalitarianism in the
military... by putting them on the front line? We'll let you
draw your own conclusion.
At any rate, in terms of our original
question as to how we Vets are doing, the answer is
comme ci comme ça. Notwithstanding the impressive gains
that have been made in addressing homelessness among Vets,
overall we’re holding our own, but not much more.
The reality is that many Service
members come home and face significant challenges, key among
them dealing with military induced mental health problems as
well as physical inequities. Homelessness and suicide aside,
on this latter point of physical afflictions, incapacitating
wounds, healing deformities, and debilitating injuries,
technological advances in battlefield medical care and
changes in combat engagement have sharply increased the
number of warriors suffering with these physical imbalances.
Why, you ask? Because advancement in
trauma related medical care has reduced the death rate in
war (compared to previous conflicts), which in turn has
increased the number of warriors that survive their wounds.
So, while helping more Servicemen stay alive is good, what
is bad is that they are living with significantly more
complex and difficult to manage infirmities. In other words,
while it is good that they are alive—as they would have
succumbed to their wounds in earlier wars—they are living a
much more challenging, demanding and impossible to deal with
life of impairment than ever before.
In the end then, one can say that the
quality of life us Vets live these days is a mixed bag.
If you will indulge us here and let us classify a Vet's
quality of life based on how long he served, and what he may
or may not suffer from, you will likely find the following:
– On the psychological health side,
most of us Vets
are living below the norm. Vets with psychological disorders
need help if they are to make it through life, as the impact
these problems have on their happiness and mental
satisfaction is dramatic to the point of being a show
stopper. It's almost impossible for a man with military
related psychological problems, who struggles every day just
to deal with his own internal demons, to create a life of
peace and comfort
for his wife and family.
– On the other hand, if a Vet doesn't
suffer from PTSD or other psychological problems, then
sociologically speaking it is likely that their life is no better nor worse
than those of his neighbors... the ones that never served in the
military.
– As to our level of independence and
ability to live as we wish, for those who recently left the
military after only a short stint—a typical 3 years of
active duty in the form of one war and out, if you will—life
is proving to be a bitch. Finding a place in society for
these Vets is
proving to be challenging, and making ends meet is a day to
day problem. Part of the reason is that these Vets tend to
fall between the ages of 21 and 28. This means that they
typically
goofed off for a few years after they left high school and
then joined the military. With Uncle Sam taking care of
everything for them they never learned the disciplines
needed to live life on their own. To make matters worse,
after they left the military they by and large continued
with their earlier lifestyle, and spent another
couple of years more goofing around and living life both as they
wished and for the most part without purpose. Now that they are ready to settle down they find
themselves with few skills to speak of. Sure, they learned a
craft while in the military, but come on, how many jobs are
their for a demolition expert? These Vets need help in
finding their place in civilian society. If guidance and
assistance isn't provided to these Vets, it will be from
this group that the next generation of homeless will come.
– On the other hand, for those that
recently left the Service and put behind them a 10,15 or
even 30 year career, they are finding that their life—while
stable—is no
better nor worse than that of the rest of middle class
America. Thirty years in the military, while providing them
with financial security at a somewhat younger age than the
rest of America, did not give them a leg up on society.
Instead, like the rest of us, their life simply goes on.
– As for those that left long ago—more
than 40 or 50 years or so (like this author)—life today is
what it is. And what it is is a civilian life. Sure, we may
post our medals on our wall and carry the mental pride of
being a Vet in our heart… but the truth is that except for
our memories, our attachment to—and in many ways
understanding of—the military ended long ago.
For decades now we have been little more than civilians. In
our case too we
are no better than our neighbor next door—and while we may
feel more deeply about America than our neighbors do—we can little
more understand the problems of today’s young Vets than our
government can.
In the end then, as to how we Vets are doing, the answer is: average.
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