Why Are Many Vets Celebrated While Others Remain Homeless or Deported?

Why do you think some U.S. war veterans return home celebrated while others are deported, homeless, jailed, or dead?

Vets are a cross-section of America with the not-so-simple addition of a year or more of incredibly tense, if not violent, experiences far from home. There are many factors at work: how difficult their experience was, how understanding and supportive their family is when they return, whether they have a career to go back to, what their visa status is, whether they are wrestling with some moral dilemma, and much more. The bottom line for each vet's return home can be radically different, from family reunion, to psychotherapy, to artificial limbs, to falling in love. But one universal part of the mix is the career safety net.

According to the Veterans Administration's Veteran's Affairs Department, as of February 2010 there are 23 million living U.S. vets, of whom 1.8 million are women. The vast majority have transitioned successfully and do well thanks not only to their own ingenuity and luck, but also to their families and sometimes to government support.

About 3.1 million vets receive disability compensation; 280,000 of whom are rated fully disabled. And about 380,000 vets get VA support for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans writes that, according to government sources, about 23 percent of the homeless are vets, and 15 percent of these are post-Vietnam vets. On the tragic pattern of veteran suicide, see this story from the Associated Press on Fort Campbell, which suffered 21 soldier suicides just in 2009 alone. According to Raw Story, 18 vets kill themselves every day and 20 percent of the 30,000 suicides in the U.S. are by vets.

As a U.S. Marine reservist serving stateside in the 1990s, I remember many eighteen and nineteen-year-olds choosing whether to join the Marines full time or instead go to college. All of us who chose infantry ended up at Camp Geiger trudging through the mud together. Even well before the likelihood of seeing combat, Marines I knew were flipping out about the "other shit." While blowing things up, fighting each other on some training course, or learning first aid, we'd ask: Should I break up with my girlfriend since I'm going to be away for long periods of time, or marry her? Should I rush through and then go to college, or try to make a career out of the military? What am I going to do after the military, especially if I'm a weapons guru or infantry grunt with few skills other than saving, killing, and carrying?

Every training ratcheted up another notch of intensity. There were the long dull days, but also days of carrying seventy pounds of gear in 102 degree heat for ten hours, or running with full gear through a live fire course, or getting pelted and burned with tear gas, or learning how to recover and identify dead bodies. Every month was another level of suspense about what the great big fire would be like: combat. Should we make future plans, or live for today and not jinx coming back?

While my best friend and others I trained with ended up going with the U.S. military to Afghanistan or Iraq or both, I transitioned to a civilian career managing humanitarian aid or researching human rights in war zones overseas, including some trips to Afghanistan and Iraq. The experience of preparing to work in a war zone either way was one of a slow build up of suspense, a kind of suspense that only an extremely empathetic lover who knew all the details or a fellow military person or crisis responder could really understand.

But then, after the first several shocks of war, seeing blood, realizing you were almost killed, and absorbing the horror from hundreds of locals you meet, the experience seems to break you into two, forever.

The "you" that has seen man's inhumanity up close is forever scarred, and that "you" is forever irreconcilable with the other you, the you who goes Christmas shopping at the mall or makes French toast for the family, and the people back home. The challenge was not to pick one, to be forever a combat vet, or else abandon that guise and be lovable husband-father living in denial of the past. It was to continue to be both, but have a comfortable means of accessing both sides of yourself at the right times.

I've seen how most veterans and others who worked in war zones have no worries coming back whole and being sweet with the family and then, separately when necessary, taking time to work through hard memories in a game of football, paintball, prayer, counseling, or rowdy but safe misbehavior.

However, there are a few really tricky turns that can throw a returning vet off their game. The broadest challenge is career and financial stability. What if you did everything right, did the right thing in defense of your country, were tough, smart, and overcame the odds, but then you received orders that your visa to the U.S. will expire and if you don't get a work visa you'll be deported? Or if you arrive back during an economic downturn, and as you try to find a new job with your combat CV your family gives you a hard time about the delay, and refuses support? Or maybe you're ready and able to work, but are forced, due to losing a leg, to change careers from something physical to something computer-based?

The Department of Defense and Veterans Administration do keep up with their role in the reintegration of veterans. However, reintegration of former combatants, as we've seen in any country dealing with war, is a humongous, multi-sectoral challenge. While the DoD and VA provide directions and resources, a fleet of government and non-governmental agencies are beginning to step up and support families with veterans.

For telling examples of this growing sector of career transition support, there is the U.S. Government Veteran's employment website, the phenomenal West Coast-based agency, Swords to Plowshares, East Coast-based Veterans Across America, the regional but growing Veterans Green Jobs, and the link to rural America, the Farmer Veteran Coalition. There is also a fantastic initiative known as the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities.

Who's rallying for support for veterans in transition in addition to these agencies? The advocacy community includes the well-known Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America; the progressive vets rally point, the Truman Project; the warriors-turned-peacenik start-up, the Veteran's Peace Initiative; and as an example of the grassroots kind of organizing there is also the Transitioning Veteran.

On the urgent, controversial issue of U.S. veterans of other nationalities threatened with deportation for visa reasons, check out the Veterans for Common Sense and a newer targeted rally by Banished Veterans.

For more on post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans, read Fuoco and Droke's "Wounded Warriors, Wounded Families" and other stories on the DART center for journalist coverage of trauma; take a walk through the VA's National Center for PTSD Resources; and link to Lily Casura's blog and many social media resources with Healing Combat Trauma.

Whatever debates there are regarding the conduct of war and defense, those are separate from the quest we all share in making sure returning veterans are safe, secure, and integrated with the rest of us.

Photo credit: U.S. Army (Zabul, Afghanistan)