Veterans' needs

“These struggles, and the undisputed governmental failures that have exacerbated them, raise two significant questions that persist well after the wars’ end: What are veterans’ needs, and what is the nation’s obligation to meet them?”

This chapter discusses the collection of challenges and struggles that a minority of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans face following their return home. It is explained that the pairing of these struggles with governmental shortcomings work to further elevate these issues. While reading this chapter, it became apparent to me that the failures by U.S. leaders and policy-makers to identify veterans’ needs and provide aid is not a new problem but one that has been present all throughout American history. This can be seen, for instance, after a wide set of wars -- including the Vietnam War, World War II, and even the Revolutionary War (262-264), and now the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. Despite the widely held notion that America should support its troops and veteran, “the sense that veterans deserved benefits in exchange for their sacrifices and required sufficient services to ease their return to civilian life collided with claims about the need to reign in government spending, to promote personal responsibility, and to eradicate fraud” (263). This disconnect between the two demonstrates to me that the public support for providing veterans with aid is largely inconsequential and consideration for the actual implementation of such assistance seems to be very narrow. It appears to me that, while most would likely agree that veterans should be supported, few push to actually accomplish this and the needs of veterans are left largely ignored.