Hello Thomas and Friends

   This program of adopting soldiers is a wonderful way to express your care and appreceation for our military friends. I would love to see everyone get involved in this program.

    There is another segment of our society that needs our care and support too. It is our homeless veterans. There are estimates of between 350,000 and 800,000 homeless veterans living on the streets of America during the course of any given year. Presently, 1 out of every 4 homeless people in this country is a veteran. Already, there have been nearly 2,000 veterans of the Iraq war showing up in the shelters and soup kitchens. The VA has repeatedly underestimated the number of veterans who would need help returning to society once they were discharged from the service. Many of our veterans are not receiving the medical care they need and were promised when they joined the military. This is particularly true for those needing mental health care.

    To add insult to injury , the Pentagon has just surpassed any previous ignorance regarding our veterans and active service members. Upon enlistment, our soldiers have been offered a bonus to encourage people to enlist. Many of our soldiers have been injured so seriously that they are unable to complete their tours of duty in the war zones. Well, it has been decided by the Pentagon now that soldiers who cannot complete their tour of duty , even because of serious injury, must repay the government the money they received in their enlistment bonus. Yes, you heard that right. If you join the service and receive an enlistment bonus, you must pay that money back if you are injured so seriously that you can no longer perform your military duties.

    The best thing we can do to help our military people is to bring them home. The so called democratic government that has been established in Iraq is not and will not ever be what we may have hoped for. The government there is controlled by the Shiite's. The one militia in Iraq that is most closely alligned with Iran. Why keep sending our troops into a civil war to uphold a government that stands against everything we believe in as Americans. WE need to put our money into taking care of the veterans that we already have who are injured, without jobs and homeless. We need to take care of the families of our fallen heroes of past and present. We cannot continue adding to the roll call of injured, homeless veterans. Our soldiers are coming home from the war and finding the worst part of their battles still ahead of them. Yes, we all need to support our active service members the best we can but, we cannot just forget about them once they finally do get back home. I believe that our government needs to put a roof over the heads of every single veteran before they ever send even one more soldier into combat.

Sincerely, Bill Vanderbilt