As the Troops Come Home From Iraq

Here's a Holiday Gift You Can Give

Dec 23, 2011 - As this month draws to an end amid the usual clamor of Christmas music and frenzied shopping, some 40,000 troops will be returning home from Iraq to face one of the hardest challenges of their lives: turning back into civilians.

A series of hardships await soldiers who return home, including suicide, domestic violence, and divorce. But there are many ways to lend a hand.

Military culture, training, and war itself do a splendid job of “taking the civilian out of a person and putting in a soldier,” as troops like to say, but nobody is offering a course on the reverse process. So, as some 10 years of veteran studies have shown, troops will be coming back to face a series of hardships that, in some ways, can be even more challenging than war itself—so much so that the military has already seen record rates of suicide, domestic violence, and divorce.

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Whatever lies behind a particular veteran’s struggle to return to civilian life, all have one problem in common: they feel lost because they no longer have a mission, a burning reason to get from one day to the next. And that is where hope lies, for a new mission can be found.

Of the 50 or so Iraq War veterans I have talked to over the past five years, the ones who are doing best are those who have found a passionate cause, either to help others or to correct what they perceive as a wrong.

Some have turned to helping veterans worse off than they are through organizations such as the Wounded Warrior Project, Veterans for Common Sense, or Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which advocates for veterans’ rights.

Some have found a mission in supporting women veterans in particular, through Swords to Plowshares, for instance, or by helping victims of military sexual assault through organizations such as A Black Rose Campaign, Make the Connection, Carri’s Dad, or Stop Military Rape, which runs an online Military Rape Crisis Center.

Others have focused on helping gay and lesbian troops, such as American Veterans for Equal Rights, while some veterans, depending on their politics, have found their mission in working for peace through organizations such as Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace.

And yet others have discovered their mission to be reparation, choosing to help Iraqis through the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, which provides legal assistance to thousands of displaced Iraqis, the Iraqi American Reconciliation Project, or the Checkpoint One Foundation, started by Capt. Jason Faler to help soldiers rescue their Iraqi interpreters and their families. read more>>>

I'll add a few more I follow and support myself, like Veterans Administration 'Stand Down' listings which are now starting to be listed for the coming year. Or the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. A group started by these younger vets helping out in disasters Team Rubicon as well as another fighting to remove us from our dependence on foreign oil and into alternatives Operation Free. And another helping veterans in the needed job market in this almost collapsed economy and for the future Veterans Green Jobs taking what a soldier is used to and well trained in many area's to bring innovations back into a once vibrant economy with experienced trades and more.

Those of us who have served or are still serving don't serve varied groups or organizations who need to seek funding from those willing to give or can afford to, we serve the Country and successful organizations for veterans, as well as the Countries responsibility the VA which should be fully funded thus saving in budget needs, should be able to ask for and receive federal government grants, as well as individual state grants, to help them succeed further, along with private contributions. That only comes from a Country, the whole Country, willing to 'Sacrifice' itself for the wars they support!