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Truth Sucks - Homeless Iraq War Vets in L.A.
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 This should give you pause: Iraq War veterans are already showing up at homeless shelters, including some in Los Angeles, UPI reports.
PTSD, ill-treated war injuries, substance abuse problems - all the classic wounds that drive vets out of society and onto the streets - are being cited by young men landing at shelters across the U.S. after rotating out of Iraq, according to the piece.
Here's the story of one Iraq vet who landed in L.A.:
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Lance Cpl. James Claybon Brown Jr., 23, is staying at a shelter run by U.S.VETS in Los Angeles. He fought in Iraq for 6 months with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines and later in Afghanistan with another unit. He said the fighting in Iraq was sometimes intense.
"We were pretty much all over the place," Brown said. "It was really heavy gunfire, supported by mortar and tanks, the whole nine (yards)."
Brown acknowledged the mental stress of war, particularly after Marines inadvertently killed civilians at road blocks. He thinks his belief in God helped him come home with a sound mind.
"We had a few situations where, I guess, people were trying to get out of the country. They would come right at us and they would not stop," Brown said. "We had to open fire on them. It was really tough. A lot of soldiers, like me, had trouble with that."
"That was the hardest part," Brown said. "Not only were there men, but there were women and children -- really little children. There would be babies with arms blown off. It was something hard to live with."
Brown said he got an honorable discharge with a good conduct medal from the Marines in July and went home to Dayton, Ohio. But he soon drifted west to California "pretty much to start over," he said. It was probably naive of me to think that fate couldn't possibly heap any more indignities on the young men the Bush administration is shipping off to the front. But this is just another wave of reality from the abhorrent offense we're committing in Iraq.
To the hawks, red-state lemmings and heedless America-firsters who still see our illegal invasion of Iraq (and inability to escape it) as a just conflict, a new generation of brain-scarred kids will be easily pigeonholed as the "hard price of freedom." And likely, they'll brush these backyard casualties aside with the sort of numb dismissal they reserve for other homeless people.
For what it's worth, there's a vigil scheduled for Saturday night at Hollywood and Highland. You can go burn a candle and chant a chant or two.
Or you can write to the people in charge.
Or you can just ignore the thought of 23-year-old war vets sleeping in the bushes by the 405.
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| Posted by: mack_reed on Sunday, December 12, 2004 - 10:37 PM
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