Our Observation

Every weekend at the corner of Red Bug Lake Road and Tuskawilla Road, two men slowly walk the concrete median, begging passers-by for money.

The needy image is unmistakable: It’s the outstretched hat in hand. But in the hands of this rotating group of men collecting what they can, the hats are camouflaged in olive drab.

The men are dressed in ACUs, combat uniforms that still may carry remnants of dust from Iraq or Afghanistan. Free from the horrors of the front line, they stand on a street corner shouldering the burden of memory, of soldiers who may never walk again, of heroes who may never come home.

These men can still stand, and so they do, underneath a hot sun, begging fellow Americans for some change to help our heroes who wage their second war at home.

These are men who swore to protect American citizens — civilians, and each other — against our enemies. They swore to keep us safe. But in the words of cartoonist Walt Kelly, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

We’re a country that counts on its soldiers to protect us when we need them most. But when they return to our shores, they can never be certain that we will return the favor.

Make no mistake, we are a country that reveres its veterans. We salute them in line at McDonald’s, then we give them a free meal. We thank them for their service as we pass them in the grocery store. If something good happens to a veteran, it’s rendered all the more special by virtue born of sacrifice. If something bad happens to a veteran, it saddens us just as equitably.

When we give deference to their sacrifices, we do it proudly. We cheer them openly. We let them know that not only do our veterans matter, but also that we, the people, salute them.

But when we go home for the evening, when we close that door, we forget. We forget, because we don’t know what that sacrifice entails.

It rarely ends on the battlefield. In increasing numbers, we’re finding that our soldiers’ sacrifices haunt them to their graves.

Acute injuries from war can become chronic, lingering long after the soldier is discharged from the military and considered physically able. The onus is frequently on the wounded to prove otherwise in order to receive medical care.

That proof is sometimes far from obvious. For those who escaped the physical trauma of the battlefield and only suffer from post-traumatic stress, their reward is a lifetime of depression, anger and terrible nightmares.

And despite the benefit of improvements in the medical field and in psychological diagnosis, we’re losing the battle to bring our soldiers back from the battlefield. In the past two years, more U.S. soldiers died of suicide than in combat, according to government figures.

A February report paid for by the New York State Health Foundation found that veterans, compared to non-veterans, are four times more likely to suffer from major depression, and eight times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Of those few who sought treatment, only half received care described by the study as “minimally adequate.”

Those veterans with brain injuries out of sight and out of mind walk invisibly among us, struggling to do things that were once second nature: Carrying on a conversation. Driving a car. Holding a job.

We count on soldiers to protect us … but they can never be certain that we will return the favor.

And after they’re discharged from the military, many soldiers are finding it hard to access expensive treatment to help them live a normal life again.

In July a group of more than 1,000 veterans, backed by the National Veterans Legal Service Program, had to sue the federal government to get treatment for mental health issues incurred during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a class action lawsuit, that group won the right to disability benefits after being discharged from the military with PTSD.

For those soldiers not a part of that suit or ones like it, the options grow slim outside the Veterans Administration hospitals, though groups such as the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust and Operation Homefront try to bridge the gap between veterans’ sacrifice and our own to make them healthy again.

For the rest, they’re in a hospital if they can afford it; they’re in the gutter if they can’t.

But for those soldiers who can help themselves, their fight continues here. For the few who have the courage to ask for help, their new mission is to remind us of the sacrifice that we can’t see.

They’re hard to miss. This Veterans Day weekend, perhaps with an American flag attached to our car flying in the breeze, we’ll drive by them. They’re standing in the middle of the road, with a hand outstretched, begging you not to forget.