Pray for the soul of Jonathan Schulze. In January 2007, in went down to the basement of his home, wrapped an electrical cord around a beam, and hung himself. Jonathan was only 25 years old. And he was a United States Marine.
"[Jonathan] had told his parents that 16 men in his unit had died in two days of battle in Ramadi. At home, he was drinking hard to stave off the nightmares. Though he managed to get a job as a roofer, he was suffering flashbacks and panic attacks so intense that he couldn't concentrate on his work. Sometimes, he heard in his mind the haunting chants of the muezzin—the Muslim call to prayer that he'd heard many times in Iraq. Again and again, he'd relive the moments he was in a Humvee, manning the machine gun, but helpless to save his fellow Marines. "
On March 2nd, I was in the Nashville airport to catch a flight home. I went over to the magazine rack for some reading material and stopped, feeling a chill run up my spine. On the cover of Newsweek was a picture of 21-year-old Marissa Strock. Sitting in a chair with her Army t-shirt and a pair of shorts on, she gazed at the camera, with what was left of her legs crossed in front of her. Marissa is a double amputee, courtesy of an IED in Iraq. My God, I thought, when I was her age, I was in the Army. A difference of a couple of decades and that could have been me. I bought the magazine, read it on the flight home, and got mad.
I urge everyone to read the
Newsweek article about what has become a national tragedy, the neglect that we as a country are showing our veterans. We have all heard by now of the scnadal regarding Walter Reed Hospital and the conditions of some of the wards there, but that is only a small item.
This is not a stand about whether we should be in the war or not. The point is, is that once we have fellow Americans committing themselves to sacrifice for the sake of democracy and freeedom, for the sake of what they believe is a noble mission (let us not forget that our men and women over there are adult volunteers and I grit my teeth when I hear a politician bloviate about our kids in Iraq), then they deserve more than a yellow ribbon stuck on the back of someone's Range Riover driving through suburbia. Consider this point:
"Already, the war has made it harder for the military to recruit new soldiers and more expensive to retain the ones it has. If we fall down in the attention we provide them, who's to say volunteers will continue coming forward?"
But the volunteers will come because, frankly, that is part of the American spirit or drive, if you will. And for that reason, we need to pay attention now to the problems that the Veterans Administration are facing. Notwithstanding the problems at Walter Reed, the fact is that the VA is overloaded and underfinanced.
"Daniel Cooper, the VA's under secretary for benefits, confirmed his department was coping with a backlog of 400,000 applications and appeals; 75 percent of them were still within a "reasonable" reviewing time frame, he says. Yet, most of those claims were filed by veterans of previous wars (a veteran can file or appeal a claim even decades after discharge). As more servicemen and women return from Iraq, the backlog is likely to increase."
Why the problem? I've got good news for you, and I've got bad news . . .
"In Vietnam and Korea, about three Americans were wounded for every one who died. The ratio in WWII was nearly 2-1. In Iraq, 16 soldiers are wounded or get sick for every one who dies. The yawning ratio marks progress: better body armor and helmets are shielding more soldiers from fatal wounds. And advanced emergency care is keeping more of the wounded alive. The VA's Kussman says that soldiers who survive the first few minutes after an explosion have a 98 percent chance of surviving altogether. But that means an increased burden on the VA's health-care system."
What can be done? That is what I am trying to figure out, because my time and money is not unlimited and I worry about a charitable bureacracy using more of my resources that what can be given to the veterans. I am planning a move to Tennessee this summer, so before I look at whether I can arrange my schedule to volunteer at a VA hospital, I first need to get settled there. However, until that time, there can be donations, but I also want to be able to help, perhaps with sending letters or cards to wounded troops. I have found some resources and will be checking them out - I implore anyone who might know of a charity to please let me know:
As a personal thought, I cannot help but think that now more than ever, there is a need for women to step up to help, because so many of the wounded are female troops. Perhaps to some this may sound trivial, but I could see volunteers needed to help a woman who, say, has lost an arm, style her hair and put on some make-up for visits. A lot of us ladies do not like looking like Haggis McBaggis and something as simple as that could lift someone's spirits immensely. When my father volunteered at his local VA hospital with male quadripelegics, he would tell me that something as simple as helping them shave made them feel human again.
The need for our charitable resources can be overwhelming - Darfur refugees, pro-life missions, feeding the poor, etc. I guess the easiest thing for us Catholics to do is to pick one and support it. Think about it: we are over 1 billion strong worldwide and even if 1 out of every 10 Catholics found a mission and dedicated his or her resources to it - wow!
I really want to look into this further and I hope you will take the time to at least read the Newsweek article to get a sense of what our veterans are having to endure.
If all you can do is to pray for them . . . do that.
