Home Front

Originally published on Facebook by Joaquin Rafael Roces on Monday, May 30, 2011 at 11:16am

"I am your Memorial Day Parade;
your fourth of July firecracker
exploding in the grave.
Oh say can you see?
after the ticker tape falls,
will you remember me?"
Excerpt from "Johnny Come Home," Copyright ©2007 Joaquin Rafael Roces III


According to Workforce Management and David Chu (undersecretary of Defense for Personnel) each year 250,000 military personnel leave service, about 150,000 come off active duty and an additional 100,000 Nat'l Guard and Reservists go back to civilian life. In Nov 2007, Dept. of Labor stats noted 22,073 veterans were on unemployment insurance, and 35% of Iraq and Afghan War veterans were homeless. This year, the U.S. Army Vice Chief of Staff announced a dramatic rise in those soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, jumping from 30 percent of the wounded population to 65 percent of the population or 8,500 servicemen and servicewomen. CNN reports that last year 165 veterans committed suicide. There are 3.27 million veterans collecting VA disability and 837,000 currently unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of Veterans Affairs (May 2011). Between 2010 and 2011, the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation has sought to fill positions for Disabled Veteran Outreach, but both times state leaders refused to fund the position. After the parades, and the weekend BBQs, and the endless photo ops, politicians waving flags, using our stumped bodies like some obscene back drop to their 2012 campaign, after the ticker tape falls, Senator, Governor, President, will you remember me?

Roces served as a Marine Rifleman in the US Marines
and is a disabled veteran.

                                              

From a Greatful Nation

Originally Published on Facebook by Joaquin Rafael Roces on Friday, July 22, 2011 at 7:58pm

Taken by Joao Silva in October 2006 while on patrol with a US unit in Iraq. He managed to photograph a series showing a soldier being shot by a sniper and then recovered by other members of his unit. The series of shots won an honourable mention in the World Press Photo awards.

So, as the Repubs abandon the talks to raise the debt ceiling, I am left wondering whether I will be recieving my VA check in August. It's not enough that under George II, we had the largest and most significant cuts in VA benefits coincide with the largest influx of combat related wounded personnel. Unlike George I brief entanglement in 1999, this war is at 10+ years, so the impact is not just one generation of wounded personnel, but several generations. Unlike me, these men AND women, suffer far worse injuries. Of course, Boehner spent a total of 8 weeks in the US Navy during the Vietnam war, but never completed basic training. Cantor never served in the military but had no qualms pushing for the invasion of Iraq. While other men and women were sent off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, his son Evan finishes his fourth year at the University of Virginia and Jenna is a Sophomore at Univerisity of Michigan. From Dec 30 2007 to May 29 2011 while Evan was in college 555 Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2003 32,102 Americans have returned wounded, broken and scarred. At least Jenna and Barbara Bush joined the Air Force and served in Iraq. The first photo that pops up in Cantor's official website, is Cantor shaking hands with aging vets. Cantor loves to wrap himself in the American flag, while 'other' Americans are buried underneath it. Then he has the audacity to make his campaign speaches standing on their graves. Now, the two threaten to delay 70 million checks that many Americans depend on from disabled veterans to unemployed Americans to the elderly and disabled. Unlike Boehner and Cantor, for these Americans, these checks are their 'bread and butter' necessary for their survival. The VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. About another1.5 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing. These checks are not an "entitlement" but something they EARNED. Something we owe to them,to forfeit on such a debt would not only mean a fiscal betrayal - forfeiting not only on a debt of numbers, money and dollars, but on a debt of honor as well.

Check out this article from Veterans Today: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/01/deficit-hawkoprite-eric-cantor/