If We Really Want to Honor the Troops...

Today is Memorial Day, a day when our country honors the men and women who give their lives so we can have liberty and enjoy various freedoms.  Today, the American flag waves proudly in countless American homes and on top of various buildings.  Tomorrow we will all go back to work and continue with our normal lives.  For two days a year, we pretend that we care and appreciate about our military and on this one we have parades, fireworks, have barbecues, and we eat tons of apple pie.  Lately we have taken our basic freedoms for granted that our troops defend and die for willingly.  We bicker, we argue, and our politics are so dirty the military is now just another political football.  I say this because this is the sad truth of the state of our military, the one we say that we cherish and appreciate so much:

1. The unemployment rate for our discharged military is estimated to be as high as 28%
2. The suicide rate in the Army is up 80% in the last four years.
3. 1,985 U.S. troops (and counting) have died in Afganistan, and 4486 U.S. troops have died in Iraq with countless others returning with brain damage and lost limbs.
4. The rate for PTSD is estimated to be at 11-20% among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 10% for the first Iraq war in 1990 and 30% of Vietnam vets.
5. The military homeless rate is as high as 1 in 3 (33%) of homeless men
6. There were 19,000 estimated violent sexual assaults by the Department of Defense in 2010 alone.  20% of women in the military are or have been sexually assaulted and are more likely to be raped by their fellow soldiers than be killed by enemy fire.

This like many issues doesn't often prompt significant attention until an election is on the horizon.  More is being done to reduce the suicide rate among the troops and there has been a recognition by the Department of Defense that violent sex assaults on women (and men) need to be addressed.  One topic that should be most relevant on this day is why are we still in Afghanistan?  Wasn't the mission to hunt and bring Bin Laden to justice?  Mission Accomplished, right?  Why can't we pull the troops.  These troops that have obeyed commands and risked their lives, and for what purpose now?  Are we attempting to install democracy in a place that may not be ready for it?  Speaking of that, why do we want to clone our country else where because we only recently cleaned our act 50 years ago and for a democracy we are still far from those "socialist" European countries.  We are one court ruling away from not having universal health care before it started, our crime rate is horrendous, speaking of which our criminals have better healthcare than our citizen, and maybe our military.

If we really want to honor the troops we would give them the best opportunities to succeed: a home, health care, therapy from illnesses like PTSD, and an economy that supports their exit from the military and entry into the workforce.  We would bring them home so we can begin to "nation build" here and allow Afghanistan to rebuild itself, find its own identity, and form their own government.  

With that said, thank you military men and women for all you do to defend us (and corporations and oil) and for all that you sacrifice.  I just wish that we as a country treated and appreciate you better.