The men and women of the United States military work day and night to ensure us of our freedoms but yet we still do not give them the proper care when they come home. Some veterans do not know they need any form of help while others just ignore problems like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) until they think it goes away. While they may not see the affects it has on them and their families it hurts their family dynamic and forces the veteran to become more distant. Even the veterans that realize they do need help will travel to a non-Veterans Affairs (VA) facility because it is closer even though the non-VA facility does not know how to look out for and treat PTSD in patients the same way a VA facility would. This is important because treatment varies depending on where they go to receive it. The reason that veterans do not get the health care they need after returning home is because VA facilities are too spaced out, the government is slow to help them, and they feel too embarrassed / don’t know they need to ask for help. 

Veterans give up their time and freedom for us American citizens to be able to have ours. Yet we still fail to be able to help them like we should after they return home. One of the main problems is that the facilities are too far away from where most veterans live. This causes a problem because veterans are not going to travel great distances just to get health care when there could be an adequate center in their town that they will go to and get inadequate care because they do not know how to specialize in veteran health care. Only half of the veterans in 2002 were eligible for Veterans Affairs health care, even then some were limited to only having the health care for 60 months after their discharge. Hinojosa states that only one third of all veterans from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq only 40% of them use the VA’s health services. Currently if a veteran goes to a non-Veterans Affairs facility most of them will not get checked like a veteran, for PTSD and other mental health issues. Having physicians ask about the status of a veteran is important because it can help them notice substance abuse quicker and easier than if it were a regular citizen. By doing a few short test that can easily be administered in a clinic it gives the physicians a better look at the veteran and can help then see what form of treatment they need. If physicians monitor the whole family it can help the veteran readjust to life as a civilian so they do not feel like an outcast. Garcia is a psychologist that focuses on preparing veterans on coming home, how they can adjust back to civilian life. He uses cognitive therapy which is a type of mental recalibration, to help veterans adjust. His main focus is on veterans with PTSD and helping them move past their problems and leave them in the war zone. Garcia tells a story of one of his patients, Carlos, that listened to tapes of his combat experiences until they no longer haunted him. Most veterans have to be retrained to be civilians, they are used to not having their back to a door and always having one eye open in large crowds, these are just a few of the things that they have to retrain themselves to do to be able to feel normal again. 

The government is one of the resources that should be most helpful towards veterans, yet it seems to be the opposite. Flournoy’s article in the New York Times shows how hard it is for veterans to find jobs after they come back home from war. Only 41% of veterans rated that the government was doing a good job at helping them get readjusted to their civilian lives back home. After 9/11 the percentage of unemployed veterans was at 10%, most thought they would have an advantage after being in the military but they were disappointed when the only thing they received for their service was unemployment. Less than 1% of Americans have served in the military so therefore it is not easy for them to understand what veterans go though and how their skills are considered useful. Obama did help veterans by starting the “Joining Forces” campaign that challenged business owners to hire 100,000 unemployed veterans or their spouses by the end of 2013. Business owners went above and beyond and hired 380,000 veterans and their spouses, while this is good more still needs to be done. Companies need to work together to help veterans succeed, as well as the government needs to work more on getting health records electronic so there is easy access to states when they need it. Veterans do not come home to the White House and the federal government but rather their small cities and communities. Having more men and women from service in the military would greatly increase the safety of all parties involved since they have experience in protecting others. One veteran tells his story and said that “when I raised my right hand and said, ‘I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America,’ when I gave them everything I could, I expect the same in return”. This soldier by the name of Sergeant Christopher Steavens was injured in the line of duty, he filed a report to the VA to ask for medical care and seven months later there is still no response (Chandrasekaren). To help this problem the government and Department of Veterans Affairs should communicate more with private companies and non-VA centers. This will help veterans get the care they need if they cannot make it all the way to a VA facility. To start this process, they could begin by computerizing all of the veteran’s files, they are currently all paper so sending information about their health care is not as easy as an email. The Pentagon, which hold all of the veteran’s paperwork on their health care, was offered a free software program to make the paperwork electronic and they denied it. Another way that the government could help is that the Department of Veterans Affairs could work closer with the local and state governments making it easier for them to get their health records and help the veterans more effectively and more efficiently. There needs to be more plans to help the men and women that worked day and night and gave up precious time with family to be able to defend our country and our freedoms. Soldiers give their lives for our country and when they come back they don’t have a life to come back to because their transition back into society is so difficult and the government does not do much to help the process. The men and women that fought for our country deserve more than we are giving them. 

Veterans serve and give up so much to be able to protect our country and are seen as indestructible heroes. Over half of the 2.6 deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have mental or physical health problems and feel disconnected from the rest of the normal world. One in two veterans say they know another veteran who has attempted suicide and more than one million of them have relationship issues with family and friends (Chandrasekaren). These are all major indicators of PTSD which can be helped by going to a VA center to receive treatment. The problem with this solution is that most veterans do not want help, they think they can solve the problem themselves. Almost all veterans are proud of the job they did overseas and are proud of serving alongside such brave men and women. Johnson stated that “I left the war zone, but the war zone never left me”. Some veterans feel that people that weren’t in the war itself couldn’t possibly get what it felt like and the kind of problems they have when they return home. PTSD is not the only problem that veterans come back home with, Veterans from the Vietnam War came back with disabilities from Agent Orange, which is a chemical that was sprayed as an organic pollutant. There is also the Gulf War Syndrome that is still unexplained as to how veterans get the chronic symptoms. Symptoms of this disease are fatigue, headaches, joint pain, indigestion, insomnia, dizziness, respiratory disorders, and memory problems. The only problem veterans come back from war with is not just PTSD, it is multiple disorders and they take a while to go away and sometimes never fully leave. Some other veterans, like Taylor Urella, did not waste time trying to get people to understand but rather created things like VETSsports for soldiers that never got the opportunity to play sports because of their injuries. Tammy Duckworth is another veteran that overcame the odds and instead is a congresswoman and fights dealing with veterans issues in Illinois (Moore). 

The reason that veterans do not get the health care they need after returning home is because VA facilities are too far apart, the government does not quickly assist them, and they feel too embarrassed or don’t know they need to ask for help. There is abundant evidence that shows that the government does not help them the way that they should and that most veterans think they receive adequate care. All veterans are given the reputation of having PTSD when about 20% have diagnosed PTSD, this makes it hard for civilian employers to see past their stereotype. Civilian employers also have to get over the misconception that moist veterans are trained in the military to take orders and not to lead, they are great leaders as well. The ACA and GI Bill helped the veterans some but there is more that the government should be doing for our veterans that fight everyday for our freedoms and give up time with their families as well as their lives. 

The reason that veterans do not get the health care they need after returning home is because VA facilities are too far apart, the government does not quickly assist them, and they feel too embarrassed or don’t know they need to ask for help. There is abundant evidence that shows that the government does not help them the way that they should and that most veterans think they receive adequate care. All veterans are given the reputation of having PTSD when about 20% have diagnosed PTSD, this makes it hard for civilian employers to see past their stereotype. Civilian employers also must get over the misconception that moist veterans are trained in the military to take orders and not to lead, they are great leaders as well. The ACA and GI Bill helped the veterans some but there is more that the government should be doing for our veterans that fight every day for our freedoms and give up time with their families as well as their lives. 
