Nice t-shirt. Here's a short note on the design, which includes a link to some comments about it. I find it truly bizarre that some commenters say people may be offended by "the joke". What joke?
The artist designed the shirt in response to the revelations about Walter Reed Army Hospital that surfaced in March. Remember that? The American public found out, for about a minute and a half, how the US really supports its troops. (Those links are to wmtc posts about it, which in turn contain links to the story itself.)
A portion of proceeds from the sale of the shirts go to Fisher House, a nonprofit organization that helps wounded vets and their families. That is, does the job their government - who caused their disabilities in the first place - doesn't give a shit about doing.
How many wounded are there?
Most of the sites listing deaths and casualties divide the figures by nationality, with separate listings for US, coalition, Afghan and Iraqi deaths.
On the other hand, there are plenty of sites that don't list Iraqi deaths at all, just the "heroes". (This reminds me of something Lone Primate recently wrote.) Heroes. Wow. Is there a more ill-used word in the lexicon today? No links to those sites here.
What about some US vets who aren't visibly wounded? How are they doing?
Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.
And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.
In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.
Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.
Thanks to James and M Yass.
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