Heroes

Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine wrote an amazing essay entitled "Our Armies, Ourselves." in which she details the lack of support our nation gives to it's veterans. The story she tells is often spoken of by flag wavers in Congress and the Media, yet neither has even shown the slightest interest in providing any true support for our vets. With one in five veterans suffering from severe depression, one can only imagine the devastation being done to the troops in the Middle East, who are fighting enemies that are focusing on damaging the psyche of our soldiers as well as their bodies.
The problem is downplayed by many top officials, yet the effects can be felt by everyone. We can't expect our soldiers who are coming home with war related mental problems to simply cope with their experiences. Many of the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home from a battlefield that most of the nation feels they should never had been in. These soldiers have had friends die in the fighting, and often they watch their comrades being sent home without a leg or an arm.
We as a nation seem to forget that these men and women risked their lives so you don't have to. The government must provide therapy and medical support for these vets. Money is often the issue when it comes to such projects, yet we ignore the price tags that came with the wars the vets fought in. We are so quick in jumping into a war, yet once it's over, the players are just discarded and forgotten. That's no way to treat a hero.