Betrayal of Our Veterans
"Those who don't know the value of loyalty can never appreciate the cost of betrayal." (unknown).
Why are we betraying Americans in general and our Veterans in particular?
Sharon Toney-Finch is a disabled Vet who did two tours in Iraq and founded Yerik Israel Tony Foundation (YIT), which she named after her child who was born prematurely and lived for “7 months and 14 days.” The mission of YIT is to provide assistance to families with preemies and homeless and low-income Veterans in need of living assistance. Much Respect to Ms. Toney-Finch
YIT was temporarily housing 20 homeless Vets in hotels in Newburgh, NY while the Vets were being helped to find permanent housing and learning skills necessary to successfully reintegrate into society. More accurately, the Vets were temporarily living in those hotels until they were evicted - kicked to the curb - in order to make room for illegal immigrants.
If this was “only” about 20 Vets being kicked to the curb, I could maybe bite my tongue and move on, o.k., no I couldn’t. In any event, this is about more than “just” 20 Vets.
In California, State Senator Durazo introduced SB-227 that will provide $300 per week for up to 20 weeks of unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants if they work 93 hours over 3 months, which do not have to be consecutive, in a 12 month period. California has 10,395 homeless Vets. New York City is housing illegal immigrants in school gyms. New York has 990 homeless Vets.
I don’t think we should house anyone in school gyms - it’s a safety issue - nor should we just willy-nilly give people money - it’s a common sense issue. However, if we’re going to, I would imagine some of the 11,385 homeless Vets living on the streets in these two states would enjoy an extra $300 a week or a warm gym to sleep in, yes?
I know a few Vets, well I know a lot of Vets. Some served for altruistic reasons like patriotism, sense of duty, to give back, etc. Others served because it was a way out of poverty, a means to earn assistance for college, a way to learn a skill, etc. Ask ten Vets why they served and you’re likely to get 12 answers. But, and this is the important part - we all served our country, which is short for saying we all served the citizens of our country.
America asks a lot of our military. In the last 106 years American troops fought eight major wars, 6 of them weren’t declared wars, but they were wars none the less:
World War I (1917-1918): 116,516 killed, 204,002 wounded;
WWII (1941-1945): 407,318 killed, 671,801 wounded;1
Korean War (1950-1953): 54,246 killed, 103,284 wounded, 8,106 MIA;
Vietnam (1964-1973): 58,193 killed, 303,604 wounded, 2,583 MIA;
The First Iraq War (1990-1991): 147 killed;
Mogadishu (1993): 18 Killed, 84 wounded;
Afghanistan (2001-2021): 2,312 killed; 20,066 wounded
The Second Iraq War (2002-2011): 4,421 killed, and almost 30,000 wounded;
If my math is correct, that’s 1,997,390 casualties - 643,171 killed, 1,332,841 wounded, and 10,689 MIA, and these numbers do not include those killed and wounded in “minor” actions like Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, etc. In fact, since 1900 I found a total of only 28 years out of 123 that we have not had troops committed to fight somewhere, and it continues to this day in places like Syria.2
No matter how much we demand of them, there’s not a Vet I know that’ll tell you the government or American people owe them more than what they were promised. But I think for what we demand of them, and what they give, we certainly should prioritize their welfare over the welfare of illegal immigrants. And yet we don’t.
In 2022 there were 33,136 homeless Veterans, which is 55.3% fewer than the 74,087 there were in 2010 - a positive development the government points to often. However, what they gloss over is that most of this decrease occurred between 2010 and 2016. They also fail to mention that much of this decrease seems to be due to our Veteran population shrinking.
Today the largest group of Veterans are Vietnam and Vietnam era Vets - and we’re getting old, and just like the WWII and Korean War Vets, we too are starting to die off.3 In 2010 there were 21,798,077 Veterans, by 2022 the Veteran population declined to about 16,100,000, a 26.1% reduction. In other words, almost half of that 55.3% decrease seems to be due to our Veterans’ dying rather than the effectiveness of government programs.
However, what is really infuriating is the Heritage Foundation estimates that $35.23 billion dollars per year is spent on illegal immigrants in Texas, California, and Illinois alone, which works out to be $872,008 per homeless Vet. Rent for a 1 bedroom 644 square foot apartment in Los Angeles - not known for being inexpensive - can be had for $3,600 to $3,825 a month, or $43,200 to $49,900 a year. I’m not saying we should just pay the rent for all of our homeless Vets. What I am saying is we need to prioritize helping our homeless Vets in particular and all our homeless in general before we provide over $35 billion in benefits to illegal immigrants.
Yes, there are programs for Vets and non-vets who are homeless, but they are obviously not very effective. I also understand that to solve the homeless problem will require addiction rehab and mental health programs…I think $35 billion would cover the cost. I also understand that some, if not many of the homeless will not want to participate in any program. I also understand that we need to get our homeless Vets and the rest of our homeless citizens off the streets before we get illegal immigrants off the street. And yet here we are, kicking Vets out of temporary housing so illegals can move in. Our government has this bass ackwards.
I guess it’s easier to provide some semi-effective programs for homeless Vets who gave so much to this country, and hope their declining numbers take care of the rest of the problem…while providing feel good help we can’t afford to those who are here illegally and have given nothing to this country.
Yea, I know, our Vets weren’t promised this help and they’re not asking for it. But all things considered, we owe them this help and they shouldn’t have to ask…
One last thought. I’m pro-immigration - legal immigration. My problem here is kicking our Vets to the curb in order to help people who are here illegally.
Includes non-combat deaths such as training exercises, accidents, etc.
If you include the deployment of troops to rescue Americans or protect American interests that did not end in combat the number of conflict free years in the last 123 is Zero.
I am a Vietnam Era vet, not a Vietnam Vet. The difference is Vietnam Era Vets served during the Vietnam War but never served in Vietnam. A Vietnam Vet served in Vietnam during the war.