The Persona

Okay, my Monday tirade. I'm not asking for a bacteria count on the "milk of human kindness," but something been eating at me for years. At the risk of offending some dear people, here goes.

I want to see actual data on "homeless veterans." I've known a lot of veterans, probably more than most people. I have never seen a homeless veteran. Further, I’ve never seen definite proof of one.

Before I receive bushel baskets of claims, let me repeat: I’ve never seen verifiable proof of one and will readily admit that some exist. I’d just like to know how many.

The last time I asked a "homeless advocate" who claimed to help homeless individuals who are also veterans, how she determines such status, she looked at me like I was crazy. “Determine? They tell us.”

"Do you check their DD 214?" I said.

"What is a DD 214?" she said.

She actually asked me what a DD 214 is.

I cannot relate what I said to her as I try to keep this site more or less family-oriented. When she had recovered, she did offer, “Well there are some who may “assume the persona.”

Assume the persona? You mean lie?

Let me just say this. If there is one homeless veteran in the United States of America, not one cent should be spent on any aspect of the military until that person receives help.

I simply want to know that the term “homeless veteran” isn’t being thrown about in an effort to broaden support for someone’s favored mission. When some ultra-rich star donates money to build homeless shelters, it is proper and fitting that they do so. I am aware, though, that the publicity takes on a higher aura when the news reports say that they are building homeless veteran shelters.

Who could not laud the efforts of anyone who provides help to “the least of those among us?” I simply want to know that America isn’t, once again, being duped by impostors. They have performed one of the most evil deeds ever exacted on military veterans in America. Pretending to have served in, and been damaged by, a military they never entered—or entered and didn't remain—they garnered a horrendous amount of the publicity that should have gone to real veterans of my era. B. G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley documented this in their 1988 work Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History. Please read it.

I’m not a cynic or a cruel person. I simply don’t like to see my brothers and sisters who served our country, some of us un-thanked and un-appreciated, demeaned by stereotyping and false assumptions.

Veterans I know, almost without exception, left the service, came home, went to work, raised families, and never looked back except to learn from the experience. They aren’t neurotic. They aren’t dope fiends. They aren’t sociopaths. I’ve never known one to stand on a street corner and beg for money because they served their country. Nor are they homeless, as far as I know.

If any are, let us document them, help them, and send the impostors who “assume the persona” into the shame they deserve.