Editor's Note: This article is shared from The Spokesman Review, written by Meaghan Mobbs, and published on November 11, 2018. It is hard-hitting and to the point, which is why I felt compelled to share the story. The first passages of the story are quoted below, and then a link is provided to take readers to the originating website for the full story.
Meaghan Mobbs: We must meet the unique needs of post-9/11 veterans
Sun., Nov. 11, 2018
By Meaghan Mobbs
Special to Tribune News Service
Humanity has been at peace for just 8 percent of recorded history. While the origins, causes and meanings are debatable within their own fields of study, war appears to be an indelible human endeavor. While the hope and purpose of a democratic society is to only send its military to battle when all other nonviolent options have been exhausted, our nation has been at war 222 out of 239 years.
Before conscription was abolished, the draft, in various forms, was used six times: the American Revolution, the Civil War, World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam. While every military person, unless they give their last full measure of devotion, becomes a veteran regardless of combat service, of the 20.4 million living veterans, 77 percent of that population served during wartime. To date, Gulf-War era veterans, which includes the post-9/11 global war on terror (GWOT) generation, account for the largest share of the veteran population. There are now more wartime all-volunteer veterans than wartime drafted veterans.
Over the past 17 years our military has endured the longest protracted war in our nation’s history, fought by men and women who chose to serve. The shifting landscape and composition of our veteran population has been largely obscured as the Department of Veterans Affairs and the “Big 6” veteran service organizations have scrambled to meet the increasing and complex needs of our aging Vietnam veterans.
Read the rest of this exceptional article HERE, at The Spokesman website.