Help Our Heroes

You Can't Go Home Again

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:03:00 +0000

In 1980, I deployed to the western Pacific and Indian Ocean areas aboard the venerable aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV-43), a World War II era flattop that was, without a doubt, the toughest clunker on the high seas (I say that with great affection for the old girl). We spent seven months away from home, including 120 consecutive days "on station" in the Indian Ocean and northern Arabian Sea as a show of force to Iranian militants who were, at the time, holding 52 American citizens hostage. While we never engaged in any actual combat, there are enough frightening events in the "normal" life of an aircraft carrier to affect a person's thinking.

Near the end of the deployment we were steaming toward Hawaii and, after that, home. I was serving as a member of the Master at Arms force (basically the ship's police department), and was on patrol with another man when we started discussing our impending homecoming. Like all service members who have been away from home for an extended period, we were both excitedly looking forward to the many things we take for granted in America that aren't always available in other countries or aboard our Navy's ships. However, I was also aware of a certain dread lurking within myself, a feeling that I no longer belonged to the world that I had left behind nearly seven months before. I had been part of things that only my comrades in arms could fully comprehend, and deep inside I knew I was forever changed. The homecoming I was so anxiously anticipating was also scaring me to death, and scaring me in ways that nearly being blown overboard by the exhaust blast from an A-6 Intruder couldn't even compare to.

My experience reminded me of a neighbor who served in Vietnam. When he came back to "the world," he was ecstatic to be home, and yet he would have bouts of panic that would leave him cowering in a corner of his bedroom, clutching anything he could find that might serve as a weapon. The only person who seemed to be able to talk him out was his stepfather, a World War II veteran who could understand the horrors his stepson had seen and that formed the basis for his panic attacks. Eventually, with considerable counseling, my neighbor started to get over the panic attacks and realize that the things that triggered them, which would have represented very real threats in the Vietnamese jungle, were harmless parts of everyday life in America.

Now we are in another war, and American men and women, including my brother and my nephew, have served or are serving in combat zones where mortal fear is a way of life and horrors that make the Friday the 13th movies look like children's cartoons happen with far too much regularity. While we are wiser about the existence of PTSD, especially among troops who have served in combat zones, we don't really have enough in place to treat it. As my own experience shows, even service members who don't serve in combat zones are prone to a certain level of separation based stress that makes the familiar suddenly seem unfamiliar: it's difficult to fathom just how deep that stress goes when compounded by combat service.

I can't speak for all vet centers everywhere, of course, but our local vet center is so overwhelmed that they have to turn away veterans who aren't suffering from combat related PTSD - and that means veterans who are suffering from depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or any mental illness besides combat related PTSD. Our nearest VA hospital is over 100 miles away, and its mental health department is only slightly less overloaded than our vet center.

Sadly, one result of this may be showing up in local suicide rates, which are significantly above the national average. Admittedly, some of this may be the result of other factors, but if even one life could be saved by improving mental health care for local veterans, it's worth every penny.

As with anything involving the federal government, change will come slowly if at all. That's why we started the Help Our Heroes website. We want the website to be a place where veterans (military and emergency services, American and allied) can make their specific needs known and where caring people can help these heroes on a one-on-one basis. Until the very slow wheels of Washington get rolling on fixing the problems, we need to involve ourselves. After all, these men and women put their lives on the line for us: we owe them far more than we're being asked to repay.

For more information, visit the Help Our Heroes website.

Giving Veterans' Care Some Teeth

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 09:56:00 +0000

During a veterans' health screening "stand down" in Kitsap County, Washington (as reported in the April 30, 2008 Kitsap Sun), about half of the veterans examined were found to have dental problems. While it may be extreme to assume that this is true of the entire veteran population (estimated by the Bureau of Census as 24,500,000 people - which would leave us with over 12 million who have dental problems), I think that we can safely assume that most or all of the more than 1,500,000 veterans with incomes below the poverty level also have or will soon develop dental problems, because when your choice is to pay rent or get a dental checkup you pay the rent and hope your teeth last.

It's easy to say that "the government" should do something about this, but in a nation that has a government, as Abraham Lincoln said, "Of the people, by the people, and for the people," we have to recognize that the government isn't simply our representatives in Washington, DC, the state capital, the county seat, or city hall: we the people are the government. Our representatives will do what we the people demand if enough of us demand it loudly enough.

As of this writing, I would have to say that the Veterans Administration is doing what they can, but their budget forces them to limit dental care to veterans with "service connected" dental problems. Unless Congress provides more money for veterans' health care, we can complain about the VA all we want, but there is nothing they can do other than try to tell us why the can't do any better.

The plight of these impoverished veterans especially saddens me when I consider that convicted felons have better health care than these veterans. I once had a homeless veteran with very bad teeth tell me that he was considering robbing a bank: if he got away with it he could use the money to get dentures, and if he got caught they would give him dentures in prison. It's a pretty sorry state of affairs in America when someone who put his life on the line for the freedom of his countrymen is reduced to even considering committing a felony to get a basic benefit that is provided to prison inmates but denied to real American heroes.

There is an old saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, but Washington grease guns tend to be pretty slow. I have already written my Senators and Congressman (I had one response outlining the Senator's health care reform plan and one enclosing a form so I could report my "problem with the VA" - both of which tell me clearly that my letters weren't really read), and we can all write in as well, but knowing Washington we will bury a few thousand veterans who died from extremely bad dental health before anything gets done on Capitol Hill. We should consider petitioning Congress a long-term solution at best.

In the short-term, the only solution is direct action. Are you a dentist or denturist? If so, give a little time and professional skill to treat the people who helped keep this country free for you. If you have the financial ability, pay the dental bill for some poor veteran to get his or her teeth fixed or replaced with dentures. If you can do nothing else, write letters to the editor of your newspaper and bring the plight of poor veterans and the indefensible disparity between our care for our veterans and our care for our prison inmates into the public arena.

I can't believe that Americans don't care about those who protected their freedoms. Get involved in telling other Americans what is happening to our heroes, and I believe the help they need will be forthcoming.

The Problem of Homeless Veterans

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:38:00 +0000

As I write this, the trial of Anthony St Dennis for the murder of homeless veteran Forrest Clayton ("Clay") Salcido has just begun in Havre, Montana after a change of venue from Missoula. According to prosecutors, St Dennis and co-defendant Dustin Strahan brutally beat the 56 year old Navy veteran to death with no provocation other than seeing him as a "bum" that no one would miss because he was somehow subhuman.

Like many Missoulians, I knew Clay Salcido - not well, but I knew him - and the man I knew was a gentle soul who was always ready to help a friend or make peace with an enemy. If anyone deserved such a violent and excruciating death less than Clay Salcido I have never met them.

There is nothing more we can do for Clay Salcido, but now is the time to look at homelessness in general and particularly at homelessness among veterans and take some kind of action to prevent horrible crimes like the one perpetrated on Clay from happening again.

According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, there are over 195,000 homeless veterans in the United States and Puerto Rico. Currently, the VA funds enough beds for only about 4% of these veterans. That leaves over 188,000 homeless veterans "on the streets" and dependent upon family, friends, charities, and bridges for something so simple as a place to sleep.

Admittedly, many of these veterans, like many homeless people in general, have substance abuse or mental health issues. However, that isn't an excuse to not help them, but rather an exacerbating issue that simply means they need our help that much more.

Obviously I have some bias toward helping homeless veterans, for several reasons. One is that I'm a veteran, another is that I've been a homeless veteran, and a third is that I feel that our veterans are owed a little something after willingly putting their lives on the line for our freedom. This isn't to say that veterans should be excused from being productive citizens, but the horrors that some veterans have endured so that you and I wouldn't have to can snap the mind, so many veterans may need a hand up. It is no mistake that veterans make up 11% of the population but 25% of the homeless population: a veteran is more than twice as likely to be homeless than a non-veteran. Something must be done.

You may not be comfortable taking a homeless person into your home, and that's okay. There are still ways that you can get involved. Encourage your church, your VFW Post, or any other religious or civic organizations you may belong to to adopt one homeless veteran. Put that veteran in a cheap apartment for six months, help him get food stamps, file veteran's benefits claims, make and keep VA and counseling appointments (the VA actually has some excellent, if overworked, mental health professionals on its payroll), develop employable skills, and find work or create a microbusiness. This isn't too much for most organizations, and you will be helping a fellow human being who put his life on the line for your freedom to reintegrate into society, while preventing another tragedy like the murder of Clay Salcido. As Marine Corps Chaplain Father Dennis O'Brien wrote:

"It is the soldier, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag."

The Politics of Heroism

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 01:30:00 +0000

I’m a day late this week getting a post to the blog. Instead of thinking about what to write, I’ve been watching too much news and analysis, especially about the attacks on General David Petraeus by some political factions in the country.

In my opinion, General Petraeus exemplifies the kind of people Help Our Heroes is all about. While I doubt that the general needs the kind of charitable help we seek for American and allied heroes on our website, he does provide a very visible instance of the kind of hero who places his own life and welfare “on the line” to protect the lives and freedoms of his fellow citizens. A veteran of 33 years of service (37 if you count the 4 spent at West Point), General Petraeus has been decorated more than three dozen times (not counting earned “badges” for things like parachute jumping and marksmanship), including a Bronze Star for Valor (this has been a point of contention with the “General Betray Us” crowd, but it was apparently earned during a mortar attack in 2003 when Petraeus was still a Lieutenant General in command of the 101st Airborne: this is from secondary research, I haven’t personally read the citation). I find it telling, not in the “Betray Us” fashion, but as a former military man who understands how the military mind works, that General Petraeus never talks about the Bronze Star award and only wears it when prescribed by uniform regulations, demonstrating one more trait I see all the time in heroes: not touting one’s own heroism. In the military mind, if you have to say that you’re a hero, you aren’t.

There are always those who will fall into the “class warfare” trap, claiming that a ranking officer like Petraeus gets decorations for being in the general vicinity of an action while an enlisted man would have to be killed to receive the same award, but, while I concede that the military is somewhat political, the distinction isn’t as broad as these claims. There will also be those who will compare apples and oranges: they will complain that Petraeus has a Bronze Star for being in the vicinity of a mortar attack while their great uncle twice removed lost a finger to frostbite in the Ardennes in World War II and wasn’t awarded the Purple Heart: if you know anything about military awards, you know that the Purple Heart is awarded for being killed or wounded by an act of a hostile foreign force. Since frostbite isn’t an act of a hostile foreign force, the failure to award a Purple Heart is immaterial. Certainly the hero who lost extremities in the Ardennes or at the Naval Air Station in Adak, Alaska due to service to the people of the United States deserves our thanks, our accolades, and, if needed, our help, but the Purple Heart or the Bronze Star are not appropriate awards any more than the Medal of Honor would be an appropriate award for the two times I was nearly blown overboard from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

I will not hide the fact that I disagree with the actions of now Senator John Kerry after his return from Vietnam, and I feel that he either lied or excessively generalized (I would have thought Yale would have taught him better than that) in his testimony before Congress. However, that takes nothing away from Kerry’s Vietnam service, because a person’s service and politics are different aspects of their life. Aboard Constellation and Coral Sea we had liberals and conservatives, communists and fascists, black power advocates, white supremacists, and people who just didn’t care at all. Every one was a hero, because every one put his life on the line, day in and day out, to protect the lives and freedoms of his fellow Americans. For all of our political disparity, when we won a “Battle E” we did it together, when we patrolled the Persian Gulf as a show of force to the Iranian terrorists who were holding 52 Americans hostage we did it together, and when we lost a shipmate his race or political beliefs didn’t matter, because first and foremost he was one of us, a brave American defending his country. We didn’t view ourselves as heroes, but in retrospect I was privileged to serve with more than 10,000 of America’s heroes on those ships, and I am proud to have had that opportunity.

Help Our Heroes exists because some of our heroes, some of the men and women who are so well exemplified by General David Petraeus, need our help. For every vote you cast, for every time you get to speak your mind without being punished for saying something the government doesn’t like, for every free breath you take, there is a real American or allied hero who could and should be thanked. Their politics have no bearing on their service, the medals they did or didn’t win are immaterial, and in some cases even the kind of discharge they received may belie the value and valor of their service. What matters is that, for a period of time, they placed your freedom ahead of their own life and safety: that’s what heroes do.

If you would like the opportunity to say “thank you” by helping a hero one-on-one, visit our website at http://www.helpourheroes.net/.

It Isn’t All About Who You Help

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 06:19:00 +0000

Previous entries have placed the primary focus on the person needing help, but those providing the help are equally important. This week I wanted to look at some of the more self-regarding reasons to get involved with helping others.

In his book Motivation and Personality, psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that humans have a certain hierarchy of needs. The most basic needs, of course, are those of survival and safety: food, shelter, security, protection. Just above these, Maslow identifies the very human need for socialization. Above that is the need for recognition, and finally at the top is the need for self-actualization. Maslow identifies self-actualization as self-fulfillment, or becoming everything one is capable of being.

Interestingly, every need above survival and safety finds partial fulfillment in helping others, especially when that help is rendered one-on-one. This goes beyond the “warm fuzzy” feeling of making a charitable contribution, and lasts far longer.

Need more friends (socialization needs)? You will never make more loyal or lasting friends than the ones you make helping others. Looking at my circle of friends (not social acquaintances, but truly close friends), I realize that I met almost all of them in one of three ways: they helped me, I helped them, or we helped someone else.

Naturally, there are those people you will help who are so self-absorbed that, once they have what they need, they will forget you. It is important to understand, though, that in most cases that seeming self-centeredness is the result of not having met their more basic needs. It isn’t a lack of appreciation for your efforts, but rather the kind of “hand to mouth” existence that makes the next meal a concern before this one is finished or next month’s rent a worry as soon as this month’s is paid.

Looking for that pat on the back (recognition needs)? No trophy you can ever win will mean as much as the smile on the face of someone you have helped. Contractor Mike Holmes (Holmes on Homes, Discovery Home), who specializes in fixing what other contractors fouled up, has said many times that the best rewards he receives from his work are the smiles and words of thanks from those he helps.

Perhaps the best thing about the recognition of those you help is that it isn’t diminished by your perception of physical awards. A few years ago I was looking through a storage shed at my dad’s house and found a bronze medal that I had won at a high school track meet. While I could remember winning the medal, the grandness of the award ceremony was diminished by the fact that the medal was tarnished and somewhat smaller than it had seemed in my memory. By contrast, I once provided a few groceries and a special treat for the kids to a family that was struggling to make ends meet. What I did took no special skills and cost very little, but every time I remember the smiles as those children found their treat, they get just a little bigger and brighter.

Self-actualization is impossible without helping others. A Buddhist proverb says that if you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path. The fact is, humans are naturally interdependent, so the only way to become all that you can be is to help someone else come a little closer to being all they can be. While donating to charity may help many, it isn’t a question of how many you help or even who you help: your self-actualization depends upon how you help. The many helped by the charity you support financially will never be more to you than faceless statistics, but the person you help one-on-one will become a permanent part of you, and you will be richer for it.

Mother Teresa said, “If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” In reality, you can do both. Don’t stop supporting those charities you believe in, but don’t forget to help someone directly with that need they have that you were destined to meet. To find real heroes who need your help, visit us at http://www.helpourheroes.net.

Why Help Our Heroes Only Includes Military, Police, and Firefighter Classifications

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:12:00 +0000

When I built the Help Our Heroes website, it wasn’t my intention to leave out anyone who honestly deserved the label of “hero:” that is, anyone who has protected the lives, property, or freedoms of Americans – or, for that matter, our allied nations. As you might imagine, though, trying to come up with a website that allowed people to easily post their needs and others to easily find the people they wanted to help was not an easy task. The fact that I’m not exactly a database prodigy didn’t simplify the job, and the whole thing would have been completely overwhelming if I hadn’t narrowed the classifications. Using the military, police, and firefighters also allows those of you who decide you would like to help a listed hero to check the legitimacy of their service claims.

That said, we don’t screen people who ask for help through Help Our Heroes. I mention that as a way of warning you to check the person out before helping if their true status is important to you. With identity theft running rampant, don’t be surprised if they send you a photocopy of paperwork with Social Security numbers and sometimes even portions of their names obliterated: they need to check you out, too.

One of the reasons I set the site up with geographic as well as service links was to allow people who want to lend a hand to search by geographic area as well as or instead of by service. For example, one of our current listings is a veteran in Montana in need of dentures: it wouldn’t make much sense for a dentist in Alabama to offer to help unless he was either ready to pay the veteran’s travel costs or would somehow be able to do the work in a part of Montana near the veteran’s home.

On reflection, I realized that the geographic listings could serve another purpose: heroes who don’t fit neatly into a service classification still live somewhere, and they could submit their requests for help for listing in just the geographic listings. This gives us a way to accept, for example, a listing from someone who chose not to serve in the military or as a law enforcement officer or firefighter, but who helped pull people from the rubble of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City or is the widow of a business traveler killed taking Flight 93 back from the terrorists.

We will, in the near future, be modifying the Help Our Heroes website to clarify that all American and allied heroes are welcome to submit their requests for help, but it isn’t necessary to wait. If you feel that you qualify as a hero or the dependent or survivor of a hero, feel free to submit your request for help (find out how at http://www.helpourheroes.net/). If you are thinking of giving your time, skills, or money to help a hero, stop by and take a look at the site. Either way, thanks for your service.

What Can Happen When You Help a Hero

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:29:00 +0000

Last week I told you about Roger, a story that seems to go from sorrow to sorrow until it ends in tragedy, but a story that illustrates all too vividly the “throw away” view we take of so many of our heroes once our need for them is diminished or they are no longer able to do our bidding. This week I want to tell you a happier story, one that illustrates how you can make a difference in the life of a “discarded” hero and, in so doing, make a difference in untold numbers of lives for years to come. Again I won’t be using real names, but only because I have long ago lost contact with the hero I’m writing about, and I never divulge real names without permission.

Jim was an Air Force veteran who had spent a portion of his enlistment in Da Nang and the rest at the former Forbes Air Force Base (now Forbes Field Airport) near Topeka, Kansas. After completing his enlistment, he became a firefighter in a major midwestern city, serving some 15 years, first as a line firefighter and later as an arson investigator.

Jim was looking into a warehouse fire that had happened under what a fire captain had termed “unusual circumstances.” Even though a badly burned building such as this one is inherently unsafe, firefighters are in the risk taking business and, as Jim told me, you can’t do an arson investigation without inspecting whatever remains of the building. He was climbing a stairway that he thought was reasonably structurally sound when it collapsed, dropping him onto a pile of rubble that broke his back and left him paralyzed below about chest level.

Heroes who are permanently disabled on the job do receive some compensation from whatever level of government they serve, and Jim was no exception. The city covered all of his medical bills and retired him from the fire department with a disability pension and most of his benefits intact. While the compensation was much less generous than many professional sports “heroes” with much less serious disabilities receive, it is the most that a real life hero can expect.

Jim’s disability cost him more than his job and the use of his legs. Soon after he was released from the hospital, his wife of 17 years moved out and filed for divorce. Since being a firefighter was the only vocation Jim knew, he felt as if his usefulness as a person was gone and began to slide into deep depression. He had been considering ways of ending his life when he met Craig.

Craig was a retired stockbroker who was teaching an investments class part time at a local community college. A man of deep faith, Craig often said that God had blessed him only to allow him to be a blessing to others. Craig saw in Jim a man who still had much to offer, but who needed a helping hand to see and achieve his potential. Craig decided that he had been brought into Jim’s life, in the words of the Book of Esther, “for such a time as this,” and he made helping Jim recover his self worth his top priority.

Craig visited Jim almost daily, and the two men often talked until the wee hours of the morning. It was during one of these conversations that Craig’s prayer for opportunity was answered when Jim said that if he hadn’t become a firefighter he would have wanted to be a teacher so he could help to shape the minds of the nation’s future leaders. Craig told him that many of the students at the community college were in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, and that he saw no reason Jim couldn’t still become a teacher if he wanted to. Money was no object: Craig was willing to invest in his friend in whatever amount was needed. Not wanting to press Jim, Craig told him to think about it and went home.

Jim did think about it. For weeks he imagined what his life would be like and deliberated his ability to succeed in college classes. Eventually he went to the community college and asked about financial aid. Finding out that he would be eligible for a Pell grant that would cover about 70% of his school expenses, he filled out the paperwork for the grant and for admission to the college.

On Craig’s next visit, Jim told him what he had done. Craig was elated. He told Jim not to worry about the expenses that weren’t covered by the Pell grant, he would pay them as a gift to a friend. He also told Jim that if he ever felt that trying to go to college was becoming too much for him, he could call him or come by his office or home any time.

Getting from no college credit to a teaching degree isn’t an easy task, especially for someone who hasn’t attended school in over 20 years, but with Craig’s encouragement and financial support, Jim completed a semester, then a year, and eventually his degree. During this time he also met Sandy, another “non-traditional” student who was working to improve her professional lot from a nursing home medication aide to a physician’s assistant. During the few weeks between the university handing him his degree and the state sending him his teaching certificate, Jim conferred a gold band and his last name on Sandy.

The last time I heard from Jim was more than 15 years ago. At the time, he and Sandy were still married and living in a small town in Missouri: she was working for the local doctor and he was teaching social sciences at the high school. He was still in contact with Craig, who had just taken another discarded hero under his wing. Jim told me that he felt like he was making a difference in his community that would eventually benefit the nation. He was happier than I had ever known him to be.

Because he helped Jim, Craig is a part of whatever impact Jim has on the world. Because he has continued to help discarded heroes, Craig has compounded his own impact on the world through theirs. Maybe, like Craig, you have been blessed with finances or skills, and maybe it was, as Craig believes, so you could bless others. If you see yourself in either Craig (or in Jim), pay us a visit at www.helpourheroes.net to give or request help: your investment in another, or someone else’s investment in you, may be paying big dividends to society long after you’re gone.

Why Help Our Heroes Exists

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:47:00 +0000

In spite of what sometimes seems like endless (and needless) government intervention in our lives, especially since 9/11 and the “Patriot” Act, Americans enjoy more personal, political, and economic freedom than the citizens of any other country. For every free breath we take, we have a vast cadre of heroes to thank: our military personnel and veterans, our police officers and former police officers, our firefighters and former firefighters, and the families of all of these. Many of these heroes traded their own well being and even their lives for the people of this country, and they and their families deserve more than we can ever give in thanks.

I want to tell you about one such hero. “Roger” (I won’t use or divulge his real name in deference to his family, so don’t ask) was the son and grandson of career soldiers. He had, for most of his life, dreamed of earning an appointment to West Point, but his high school grades didn’t quite meet the mark. Still, he wanted to be a soldier, and enlisted in the Army in 1966. Like many of us who served during and immediately after the Vietnam conflict, he went in a naïve boy but quickly became a hardened and somewhat embittered man, aged beyond his years.

In 1969, during his second tour of duty in Vietnam, Roger was badly wounded. He worked hard at his physical rehabilitation for nearly two years, and was finally cleared to return to duty and resume his Army career. He requested a return to Vietnam, but was instead transferred to Fort Ord as an infantry instructor.

While Roger’s body had recovered, he still battled the psychological demons of his combat experiences, his injury, and his long road to recovery. In addition, he was battling an addiction to the pain killers that he had been given during his rehabilitation, and that Army doctors continued to prescribe. His body no longer needed the pain killers, but they helped to ease the effects of his psychological injuries.

By 1973 Roger had branched out from the pain killers to a number of illicit drugs. He failed a drug screening and, a short time later, got into an altercation with his First Sergeant. He was tried by a court martial and found guilty on drug charges and assault on a superior. After considering his record, the court martial elected to end his Army career by reducing him in rank to Private and giving him an other than honorable discharge.

Feeling that he had disgraced his family, Roger decided that he couldn’t go home. He roamed around the country, working out of temporary labor services, still battling his drug addiction and his demons. While he eventually did break the drug addiction, he could never outrun his own psyche. In 1985 he dropped out completely and began living under bridges and in homeless camps, panhandling to eke out a meager living.

You won’t find Roger looking for help on the Help Our Heroes website, but he is one of the reasons the site exists. About five years ago, I saw Roger for the last time. It was Sunday afternoon, and I was enjoying a summer day in the park when I saw him walking toward me. We had known each other for a few years, and I was one of only a few people he trusted with his story or his real name. He told me that he was planning to go to “Sally” (a nickname for the Salvation Army) the next day to see if he could get some “new used” boots, then he was going hunting to get meat for himself and his camp mates. He offered to save a venison roast for me, but I declined, telling him that he should save his kill so he and his camp mates could eat. I didn’t bother with a warning about it not being deer season, because I understand, as Mark Twain said, that, “principles have no real force except when one is well fed.” I slipped him a couple of dollars and told him to get some potatoes to go with the meat. We parted company smiling.

Wednesday afternoon I ran into one of Roger’s camp mates, who informed me that they had just found Roger’s body, partially eaten by animals, that morning. The coroner, noting an entry wound just behind the hard palate and an exit wound near the crown of the head, ruled his death a suicide. Roger had finally become too tired to run from his demons anymore, and had ended the chase in the only way he could think of.

Roger was given a hero’s burial, if a hastily screwed together plywood coffin and a quick graveside service led by a shocked preacher and attended by a handful of homeless people is your idea of a hero’s burial. It was nearly three years before I located Roger’s brother to tell him what had happened. He bought a marker for Roger’s grave, but nothing more was, or could be, done.

Roger, and other veterans I have known, made me think about how disposable we view the defenders of our freedom as being. Both sides rush to use them as political pawns, but once the crisis is averted or the political maneuvering has been completed, we expect them to fade into the background without a word of thanks. Our safety and freedom mattered to them, but their welfare means nothing to us. One need look no further than the story of Marine Corps Corporal Ira Hamilton Hays to see just how far we will let the defenders of our liberties fall when we’re done with them. If you aren’t familiar with the story, it can easily be found online.

The idea behind the Help Our Heroes website isn’t to provide another charity spending big money to ask for your donations. We haven’t and won’t file for recognition under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and while we welcome small donations to help pay for the website, I will gladly pay its costs from my own pocket for the rest of my life if just one deserving American hero, or the family of one American hero, is helped by my efforts. Our goal is to put a face on those who sacrifice daily for your freedom and safety by asking you to help them directly, one on one, not for a tax deduction, but for the chance to say "thank you" to those who put their own concerns and even their very lives aside to maintain the liberties we enjoy as Americans.

Whether you want to help or are a hero in need of help, visit our website at http://www.helpourheroes.net/ to find out more.