Joe Galloway: How We Can Really Honor Our Veterans

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How We Can Really Honor Our Veterans
by Joseph L. Galloway


Memorial Day is upon us again, and the more traditional towns will be flying flags and hosting parades and holding ceremonies to honor the million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who’ve fallen in the wars of history and in the wars of today.

It is good to honor the fallen and to comfort the families and friends who mourn one among them whose death broke their hearts.

This year, however, I’ll depart from tradition and ask that we reflect less on our fallen comrades who are at peace, and more on those veterans — especially those from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — who are alive and need our help.

How strange that today in our country, in a time of war, battles are raging over the need for medical care, educational benefits, employment opportunities and assistance for those who’ve served honorably and come home to begin new lives in a nation they risked their lives to defend.

The shameful thing is that most of those battles are being waged against the very government, the very bureaucracies, the very politicians who sent those young men and women to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe the right word here isn’t shameful, but criminal.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/22/9161/