Category: Support the troops

This week, the week of Veterans’ Day, we’ve been pummelled with the media’s latest attack on the United States. CBS claims that the suicide rate among veterans is above the rate of Americans in general, disregarding that veterans are young and male and so their rate matches that of their peers. (Refuted here by Say Anything and Aviation Week) Is it a tragedy? Yes it most certainly is, but it’s not Bush’s fault – it’s not the VA’s fault. It’s more the fault of our culture (looking at you, CBS).

Associated Press claims that soldiers are deserting at higher rates than ever before (well, since Vietnam). The New York Times reports that a quarter of homeless peple were veterans at some point in 2006;

Recent surveys have painted an appalling picture. More than 300,000 of the nation’s 24 million veterans were homeless at some point during 2006, and while only a few hundred from Iraq or Afghanistan have turned up homeless so far, aid groups are bracing themselves for a tsunamilike upsurge in coming years.

Sure aid groups are bracing – they have a financial interest in inflated numbers – in fact if you scroll down to the bottom of the NYT story, you’ll see where they had corrected their 300k from a 500k number because they were in such a rush to get the story out on Veterans Day they didn’t have time to check the methodology of their polls.

While “only a few hundred from Iraq or Afghanistan have turned up homeless”, New York Times sees a great way to turn public opinion against Republicans – yet again.

Now I’m not calling the NEw York Times liars, but I’ll tell you - quite a few “veterans” I’ve met couldn’t tell the difference between an M16 and SOS. DC is lousy with phony vets – I’ve busted several out in my travels around the city. And none of them pretend to be cooks or clerks – they’re all SEALs and Rangers. In fact, I’m in the process of busting out a guy who made the mistake of pretending to be in the 1st Battalion Rangers at the same time I was there back in the days of woolen longjohns.

I watched some national news program back in 1992, during the presidential campaign where a correspondent was interviewing a supposed Gulf War veteran who was homeless. The correspondent asked the man when he had been in the Gulf and the man replied that he’d been there since “May”. Now either the guy was there three months before Hussein invaded Kuwait, or he was there two months after the war had ended. But the interviewer continued with the piece and didn’t bat an eye.

I’ll never forget that I ran into a “homeless vet” in Syracuse near my office there. He was bumming money from me by telling me he was a veteran. I told him that I’m a veteran, too. His immediate response was “Why are you wearing that suit”? As if I didn’t fit the mold of a veteran because I had a job and wore a suit.

I’ve been in touch with many of my troops since I left the Army and as far as I can tell, they’re all doing great. But the left and the media want to portray us as mental cases boiling under our peaceful facade. Honestly, I am boiling underneath my (reasonably) peaceful facade – at the Left.

Dean Barnett at The Weekly Standard, in his piece (dated 11-26) The Last Talking Point of the Left; the vet-as-victim, told of an email exchange he had with National Guard colonel;

I recently exchanged emails with a colonel in the California National Guard–an attorney when not on active duty–about Bruce Spring-steen’s new song “Gypsy Biker.” The song portrays Iraq war veterans as gullible dupes who shed their blood while “the speculators made their money,” and the colonel wrote;

It’s this portrayal of vets as burnt-out losers with nowhere to go but out on the open road that gets me. I was in court today, a vet, arguing a million-dollar case, in front of a judge who was also a vet. Vets aren’t burned out losers–we’re leaders. For every vet with problems–and they certainly exist, though I would guess in percentages far below that of the comparable civilian population–there are dozens of vets out there building businesses, raising families, and leading communities. Many give up weekends and vacations to stay in the Guard and Reserve. But I guess those guys aren’t cool enough or useful enough. 

The stereotypical vet is the burned-out homeless guy with a torn old green field jacket. I say it should be the dad dropping his little girl off at preschool before he goes to the business he built from nothing while fielding phone calls from his Guard unit’s full-time staff and driving a car with a trunk full of military gear so that, when the next earthquake or riot hits, he can go out and protect his community–again.

But the Left makes it’s points with the public by making the norm less normal – and veterans always get the shitty end of the stick.