A key focus of my blog is General Education and Current Events. Though often overlooked, our military veterans are essential to the privileges and freedoms we enjoy here in the United States. As such, the right thing to do is to honour them, and take care of them as best we can when their service is over. The following contributed post is entitled, Why We Should Be Honouring Our Veterans.
* * *
While it’s great that we have a Veteran’s Day to honour our veterans, why is it just the one day? What about the other 364 days of the year? Are they not veterans then? Should we not honour them and be thankful for them every day?
Veterans are expected to go back to civilian life dealing with the mental and physical disabilities they got from their time in the service. There are a lot of people who do try to help them by making care packages for soldiers overseas and helping the veterans in their community. It is because of veterans that we can sit here today with no restrictions on what we can write or say.
Of the 21.4 million Veterans in the USA, still, six-per cent remain unemployed after they leave the service. 3.2 million soldiers have had to leave because of a service-connected disability and a quarter of million veterans enter the civilian world each year. They can fill in a VA form 21-4142 and hopefully get some disability benefits, but is that enough? We all know what happens to a football or basketball star after a career-ending injury, but do we know what happens to our heroes? It is our responsibility as a country to make a gesture of thanks, to remember those who served for us and asked nothing in return. Living under a flag that represents the freedoms so many others across the world are forsaken would be impossible without them.
Thanks to veterans, we are able to fight for the rights of waiters and bar staff and whether they deserve $15 an hour or not and how that will affect our economy.
Because of veterans, our children are able to play outside, and all they have to worry about is whether they can stay up late or have ice cream for dinner.
Sometimes our veterans have no one. We need to support them as far too often they are alone and find it too tough to get through the hard times. Too many good lives are lost because of this.
We need to look out for our veterans because far too many of them are sleeping on the streets while we sleep in our warm beds. They are not seen for the true heroes they are, and our children don’t realise that these people on the streets are the ones they should be looking up to and not down on.
Without support, society will continue to sweep veterans under the carpet as it is easier to hide them than to actually do something to help them, so we must support our veterans.
Most importantly, we need to look out for our veterans because they have been looking out for us our entire lives, and it is the least we can do.
