Do you really appreciate your Veterans?

With all of this recent discovery of the trials and tribulations that veterans have to endure daily just to get those benefits that they were promised and those that they earned, one would think that this was just a flux accident and that these occurrences are not as common as many have claimed.  Those that think that way would be gravely mistaken.  For years now, promises made to those who were willing to get up their very lives to keep this country safe have been reigned upon by so many. It is nice to sometimes hear people say to you that they appreciate your service but because of the numerous obstacles and hurdles you have to overcome just to get those benefits you earned makes that saying mute.  It’s not that we are ungrateful for the sentiment but we would like to see more accomplish to make our returning journey home a little bit more easier to make that sentiment mean what those who say it think it does.

Maybe the best way to explain this and how it should be considered is this.  I was promised that if I gave this country 4 years of my life, it would help me go to college, secure a decent job, cover medical expenses for me and my family and help me buy a home.  None of these except the medical coverage only for me came even close and after close to 10 years of service, surviving not just 1 conflict with foreign hostilities but 4 of them.  I am still waiting for decent disability payment, that home, re-payment of the education loan that I had to pay and medical coverage for my family.  Today I sit and wait on an appointment with a doctor that was supposed to happen in one week after my visit to the VA Hospital in Madison, WI.  It is now been over a month.  Mine is not unlike the stories you would hear from other veterans if you ever took the time to really listen instead of selectively hearing them.  You may wonder why so many decide to end their existence than continue to deal with the blatant and constant disrespect that they feel each and every day.  Here’s what we know that you might not or have chosen to forget.

It is not the politicians who keep you safe from foreign and domestic enemies all around you.  It is not the media who keeps you warm and cozy in your beds at night.  It is not the economy, corporate America or the weapons producers who make those thinking of harming this nation at bay.  What does all that for you are those who have worn and continue to wear that military uniform?  They do that because those who would see harm come to this nation knows that those who wore and are wearing that uniform is more than capable in expertly operating those weapons.  They know that those who wore and are wearing that uniform will not stop at anything to prevent them from even getting close to disrupting the lives of this nation’s citizens and they know that in order to accomplish their goal of harming this nation or its people they are going to have to be willing to lay down their lives because those American military personnel across that line from them are surely prepared to do so.  That is what keeps you safe and allows you the freedom to treat us like something you find on the bottom of your shoe.

So the next time you go to work and find yourself dealing with a veteran, stop and think of what language you would be speaking right now or what kind of freedoms you would have, had it not been for that veteran and others like them.  Learn to appreciate that all you have is not all because you earned it but mainly because we earned you the freedom to get it.