Many U.S. Iraq vets homeless

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1151148011946&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News

NEW YORK — As a member of the U.S. army National Guard, Nadine Beckford patrolled New York City train stations after Sept. 11, 2001 with a 9 mm pistol, then served a treacherous year in Iraq.

Now, six months after returning, Beckford lives in a homeless shelter.

"I'm just an ordinary person who served. I'm not embarrassed about my homelessness because the circumstances that created it were not my fault," said Beckford, 30, who was a military-supply specialist at a base in Iraq that was a sitting duck for around-the-clock attacks.

Thousands of U.S. veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are facing a new nightmare — the risk of homelessness. The U.S. government estimates several hundred vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan are homeless on any given night across the country, although the exact number is unknown.

The reasons that contribute to the new wave of homelessness are many: some are unable to cope with life after daily encounters with insurgent attacks and roadside bombs; some can't navigate government red tape; others simply don't have enough money to afford a house or apartment.

[EFerrari]

1. Here in San Francisco, Gavin Newsom claims to have reduced

homlessness by 30+% and it's just not true. My same homeless neighbors are still living in and around the low chapparal by the beach.

And our local VA hospital is struggling to stay open.

This can't go on forever.

[Erika]

2. I'm sure W will give huge grants of our $ to private contractors

so they can tell us all is fine and W has spent more on vets than anyone in 20 years.

Yeah, he's been hot and heavy on war policies that end up killing and maiming our troops at the highest rate since Nam.

The way W has treated our vets is shameless.

[EFerrari]

11. They started attacking the VA the same frickin day they deployed

the first troops to Iraq. Tell me that isn't some kind of willful destructiveness. The same day.

[blues90]

3. This is a nightmare , a real nightmare

I have read about this before . It is a crime of the century .

My voodoo energy may be weak but I focus all of it on placing bush and his band of lying theaves so they end up on the street for the rest of their lives .

It is so sick these filthy rich bastards who stole everything and continue to rape the country live on without a care in the world and so very many people who ask little and have a heart suffer so much .

[babylonsister]

4. This is appalling, disgusting, etc. Soldiers are good enough

to represent our country, but not good enough to care for them when they need it?

[Selatius]

5. History is repeating itself. It's Viet Nam redux.

I've heard that up to now around 500,000 US soldiers have cycled in and out of Iraq. Who knows how many of them have come home mentally disabled and unable to cope with life. Nevermind those who have physical scars and those with smashed bodies. Many people were permanently fucked up by Viet Nam, and I don't see any reason to believe it will be different the second time around.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Add to that a tad of the

WW I vets, taht marched on DC... and were attacked by the Hoover administration... the man who followed orders was Chief Of Staff McCarthur

[Erika]

9. It will be different this time

W and the GOP has slashed benefits.

[alittlelark]

7. Veterans should be allowed to reside at ANY US base

barracks they show up at the front gate of. The military should consider it an honor to house them (vocational support would be nice as well). Some may just need the comfort of routine and familiar surroundings to 'get it together' or take a breather from our corporatized predatory system.

It could help.

[Erika]

8. W and his group aren't into the feel good things at all

These people were utilized for corporate good. If they didn't have funds, that's their fault. You know those poor kids who enter into service and try to rip off the taxpayer for benefits. Rich kids have smart enough parents that their kids don't serve and become such a liability on the rich.

[alittlelark]

10. I understand b*shcos thoughts - the the US public might

really like the idea. Relatively low cost, 'makes them feel good' - supporting the troops and all that.

I see the odds of it happening as being about equivalent to the odds of having the 2004 election results overturned.

[EFerrari]

12. It's a good idea and it'll never fly because our vets are the evidence

of their war crimes. Walking evidence -- which is why they have to be marginalized if not hidden in any way possible. :(

[porphyrian]

13. That's how republicans support our troops!

Cut veterans' medical funding to give multiple tax cuts to the richest minority during wartime!

I hate the fucking traitors, and I want them out of our goverment now.