Thank You for Being Expendable

Thank You for Being Expendable - NYTimes.com:
"Before, I thought it was a miracle that I survived the Iraq war.
Now I’m thinking it’s a miracle I’m still alive after dealing with the V.A. for so long.
The V.A. motto was taken from Abraham Lincoln’s second presidential Inaugural Address, and can be seen etched on a huge metal plaque outside the Washington headquarters:
“To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

...If you want to know what the price of freedom looks like, go to a V.A. waiting room — wheelchairs, missing limbs, walking wounded, you get all of the above.

One day not long ago, while waiting for my PTSD medication, I struck up a conversation with a Vietnam veteran, who told me the message he’d gotten from his treatment at the V.A., and his country, was not “Thank you for serving,” but “Thank you for being expendable.”
I agreed with him.

Soldiers are expendable in war, and veterans are expendable and forgotten about when they return.

That’s just the way it is.