In Medford, Oregon, on Sept 4, 1955, when I raised my right hand to join the Navy straight out of high school, it was barely ten years since the end of World War Two, and eleven years since my Uncle Bill’s death as an Army machine gunner on the German border in 1944.

Four years later, on September 4, 1959, I folded that uniform and tossed it and my seabag into the attic, doing what every veteran did before me: I returned to civilian life. I didn’t have to be thanked. None of us did, before and after our service. Whether it took four years or twenty, we had simply done our job.

It was sometime in the late ’90s when the Gulf War and 911 brought military sacrifice into view that the phrase became popular. Veterans returning home back then struck a nerve. Partly because of the lack of recognition and disrespect given to Vietnam veterans? Our collective guilt for this oversight? Perhaps, but this new wave of damaged men and women returning could not be ignored. 

It’s time to deal with today’s reality. Thank you for your service doesn’t cut it

How can anyone balance “Thank you for your service” with the treatment of today’s veterans? Given the importance of this current reality, you cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth. 

* 1,000 VA probationary employees fired.

* Vendors supplying the VA with critical resources have hundreds of contracts rescinded.

* Researchers engaged in clinical trials terminated, along with their findings.

* 83,000,000 VA employees to be laid off in August.

All of this is justified as “savings” and not as factors leading to lives that will be lost. Have we lost our sanity as a nation? As a people who once paraded heroes down its streets and offered unbounded love and respect, is this our “new normal?”

To allow for this will not only have profound effects on recruiting people into service branches that are already struggling to maintain our forces, it will further drive our veterans into financial jeopardy, and from there to suicidal ideation and the act itself. 

Where does that fit into the spreadsheet?

Don’t say your thanks – show your thanks

JFK: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

Google veteran charities in your hometown and meet with them personally to volunteer your time. The National Veterans Foundation offers some great avenues: visit wounded vets in nearby VA facilities. fight homelessness, eviction, and foreclosures affecting vets and their families, perform home repairs, or do household chores for them. 

Or, just search out a veteran (there are 16,000,000 of us), have a conversation, or merely listen. Studies show that isolation “destroys [veterans] slowly from the inside out” and is called by researchers “a silent killer.” Over 200,000 veterans separate from active duty every year. Perhaps one could become your friend. Hello in there.

We at End Veteran Debt welcome volunteers, subject matter experts, donors and philanthropists, fellow charities, whether veteran or supporters, and NGOs sharing our mission of removing debt and reducing the horrendous suicide rate of both veterans and active-duty service members. Whatever the social ill visited on this community, you can be sure that debt – of necessity or predatory – will compound that pain.

One last thing – making this clear – this is not a political rant

Don’t paint me with that brush to discount my message. You’re the one with eyes to see and ears to hear. Use them. The way veterans are being treated is wrong. It needs to be righted. 

And you are just the person to do that.