Veterans Challenges

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was founded in 1930, and today, “operates one of the largest health care delivery systems in the nation, with 168 medical centers and more than 1,000 outpatient facilities organized into regional networks” (GAO, 2017). The VA employs nearly 350,000 people at its facilities and serves approximately 9 million veterans each year (VA, 2017).

As of 2014, there are 22.5 million veterans in the United States. According to Veteransinc.org, between 529,000 and 840,000 veterans are homeless at some time during the year. Did you know 33% of homeless males are veterans? Aside from homelessness, 70% have substance abuse problems, 45% suffer from PTSD, and there are 22 veterans who commit suicide every day. The problems don’t end there, homelessness is just one problem for our veterans. 573,000 were unemployed in 2014. There are many causes for unemployment such as PTSD, war injuries, or lack of knowledge in the work field.

They claimed Iraq and Afghanistan veteran polls have been taken, it shows that whatever improvements and actions being were taken were not enough. Fifty-nine percent of the people rated the job the government was doing to help was good, while fifty-six percent rated it as them doing poorly. In an article by CNN news nineteen veterans have died because of delays for medical treatments from the Veterans Affair. Those nineteen veterans were only a small proportion of that group. A number of eight-two veterans who have died because of delays for medical treatments like colonoscopies or endoscopies. Some people like my father (Jason McLain), who is a retired veteran, believes that some doctors have their own personal bias toward veterans. Jason McLain stated, “When I go to the VA they do not help me as soon as I need their help. Although when I go to any other civilian doctor’s office they help me right away with any of their help”. A website by the name of Free Grants Community stated that success and failures of the Departments of Veterans Affair are frequently the subjects of political promises and debates. There are many places that can help with benefits or homelessness, simply anything veteran(active/retired) need. A six-year veteran stated that there are places to help but emphasizes that you have to pursue yourself. After you are done with the military to go back to school and to keep getting educated. Besides the fact the regular ordinary citizens complain that veterans are not getting enough help, there have been complaints against all employers for discrimination has blames the economic crisis and ballooning deficits for the inability to provide for more

The issue of veterans’ health care has dominated public discourse for many years, with various statistics

To begin with, veterans are the reason why we still prosper and have freedom in the United States of America. However, on an article about veteran employment the

Over the past 15 years, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) has seen a dramatic increase in the average degree of disability, growth in the number of compensation recipients, a rise in the number of medical issues claimed and an increased level of complexity of claimed issues. To illustrate this point, prior to the September 2011 terrorist attacks, 333,700 Veterans received compensation at the 70-100 percent level; however, these figures rose to over 1.1 million by the end of 2013. Additionally, since 2009, VA’s disability compensation workload rose 132 percent. This is in large part due to an unprecedented demand resulting from over a decade of war, military downsizing, economic issues, increased outreach, the addition of presumptive conditions and an aging Veteran population.

Current funding for veteran healthcare care is low and insufficient because of the large number of veterans, who are being discharged from the military as the country transitions to a democratic President. According to Dr. Rachel Nardin in her article about veteran healthcare, “Soldiers get excellent acute care when injured on active duty, but as revelations of poor conditions for soldiers receiving ongoing outpatient care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted, service members often have trouble getting the care they need once active duty ends” (Nardin 1)

It’s possible to distinguish higher levels of employment among female veterans than female non-veterans. In fact, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (2016) reports that around 34.2% of women

Federal contracts or subcontracts of the unenclosed amount of money to hire veterans. Many companies want performance so maybe they can help them and everyone else works hard at their job. According to (cf. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1ff.), 76% of veterans are jobless. Veterans can adapt to new situations because they are taught to adjust to circumstances as well as we are. ''Business leaders are mainly concerned with one thing; performance'', said Schultz. People should stop thinking about titles and think about people's actions. Veterans should get justice because people discriminate them. Some may say veterans shouldn't get any special consideration because they get precedence on jobs anyways so why to get special consideration also. But that's because they have done something special for the country, so why not get

From 1944 to 1952 the VA supported almost 2.4 million home loans for WWII Veterans. Many Vets used the education and home loan benefits, very few Vets participated in one of the bill’s most debated obligations the unemployment pay. No more than 20 percent of funds set aside for Veterans were ever used.

Contrary to the perception that our nation’s veterans are well supported in fact many go without the services they require of which they are

Currently, our country needs to do more to employ our veterans. From a survey conducted by IAVA (Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America), 8% of 1500 vets who took the survey reported

For starters, former Vietnam soldiers find it harder to find a stable job, that helps sustain themselves and their responsibilities they might have had before war, like a family and or children. In the article titled fighting for employment: veterans in the 40s and today, Jordan Moore a former war soldier states, “the military and the workplace are very different”, this proves why it could be difficult for veterans to assimilate society regarding the nature of a work environment. They probably have difficulties differentiating what is acceptable at war, between what is acceptable at work. Which may cause overthinking, from the veteran, which can lead to extensive amounts of stress.

T. Stecker, J. Fortney, F. Hamilton, and I. Ajzen, 2007, address that mental health symptoms have the likelihood to increase within post deployment for military veterans, especially for the ones who have seen combat. An estimated quarter of recent war veterans who are currently receiving care in the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Health Care System have reported mental health problems. Soldiers who have served in Iraq come home suffering from depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Statistics of Iraq soldiers meeting the criteria for depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is greater than the soldiers who served in Afghanistan. The mental health symptom rates for soldiers who served in Iraq were as high as 20% for PTSD, 18% for anxiety, and 15% for depression.

With the raising minimum wage and additional jobs created due to the economy, I would think that homeless population has decreased. The fact is homelessness has increased over 12% in two years. This is unbelievable; our government has not done anything about the homeless issue. Despite the millions of dollars given to Los Angeles County from the federal governmental, nothing has been done. Another statistic I found amazing was the decrease of the homeless veteran population. As much as I want to believe this statistic is true I believe it is not. I see many homeless veterans in the streets and at the veteran’s hospital begging for money. I am a veteran that served in military for five and a half years. Many of my friends are homeless because of posttraumatic stress disorder. Numerous veterans begin to struggle after separating from the military. Not having someone overseeing his or her actions results in unruly behavior. The military is down sizing because there is no more war. They are offering service members to leave the military before their contracts end. In some cases the military has bought off contract giving the service member money to terminate their contract early. Many of our service members including myself joined the military at an early age. These young adults do not have any work experience prior to joining the military. After leaving the military many of the military