Monday, March 3, 2008

SGT Freedom Discusses Homeless Veterans

On a serious note, a public service announcement from LT Nixon:

SGT Freedom is good people. I occasionally disagree with his take on illegal immigration and the religion of Islam (I really have nothing against the religion itself), but all in all he is a very energetic supporter of the troops. His most recent video rant takes on the problem of homeless veterans. While homelessness is a problem in America in general, the fact that vets are homeless is an absolute disgrace. I'm not big on social entitlement programs, but veterans have provided an invaluable service to the country and we as taxpayers are contractually obligated to ensure that they have all their basic necessities covered. I used to live by the VA center off the 405 in West LA, and there was a huge amount of homeless Vietnam vets living on the streets. I would always see them on the bus back to Hollywood, one gentleman still wearing combat fatigues and shades screaming to himself during the entire bus ride. Another vet I ran into a lot had the sores on the side of his mouth characteristic of crack abuse. Being a smart ass college kid, I was at first skeptical of his service initially, but he went into great detail about his tour in Vietnam. Some vets may be homeless due to drug/alcohol abuse and a cynic could say "Well, that's their own damn problem", but shouldn't we help them get into shelters to treat their addictions instead of leaving them out on the streets of the LA concrete jungle? The disproportionately larger number of homeless vets (25%) compared to the number of vets in American society (~10%) is the result of trauma suffered while in combat. The IAVA does a lot of outreach for homeless veterans, and VoteVets.Org will criticize pundits like Bill O' Reilly who claims homeless vets aren't a problem. SGT Freedom taking on homeless vets completes the political spectrum (coming from the right) to take on this issue. I'm glad there's some things all vets can agree on.

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