Taking care of our veterans

NPR ran a story the other day about Iraq and Afghanistan veterans asking for financial donations from fellow citizens via the internet. The organization the story spotlighted on is USA Together, a non-profit based here in Silicon Valley.

Here is what they say about themselves:

We are a group of people, some with military background, others without, that have come together to help this amazing group of Americans.

We are based in Silicon Valley and think that there is a power that the internet can bring to solving this problem.

We have no political, religious or other affiliation or agenda and represent a variety of backgrounds.

The only problem here is the fact that we need this organization so badly. Our veterans are entitled to quality health care, an education and general assistance when they need it - we can all agree on that. We made good progress last year when the new GI bill passed, giving them more money for education, modeling the benefits our WWII vets received when they returned home, but there are still problems. The last administration preferred to dump money into private companies to fight our conflicts and underpay their own voluntary soldiers - then soldiers returned home to moldy hospital room, debt, broken home lives and inadequate health care, especially mental health care.

A lot of reform lays ahead.

Until the government gets back into the business of caring for its citizens, rather than stealing from them, organizations like USA Together are a good cause to support, if you're lucky enough to have anything to spare right now.