Veteran's Coming Home to a Broken America

With a new president in office promises of our far away loved ones coming home is a dream come true, and and couldn't come soon enough for the men and women that have been serving and sacrificing for our country for the past eight years in Iraq. These veteran's will be welcome home with open arms by our people, but unfortunately not so by our economy. The article I read was called "Are We Ready to Welcome the Soldiers That Obama's Bringing Home from Iraq?", this title caught my attention because of the severity of our nation's financial situation. We are living in a day of the highest unemployment rates, greatest economical debt, and the most poverty and home foreclosures we've seen in decades, so the prospect of our veteran's coming home to unemployment checks is tragic although not surprising.

Although these men and women signed up for their duties, we still owe them everything we can offer them for making a stand and sacrificing all that they have while in service. They have been far away from home, enduring 3rd world conditions (missing out on our everyday luxuries), and witnessing tragedies so that we may not have to. Foutunately this week president Obama released his budget for veterans, which appears promising for our returning tropps. This budget reveals increased spending on health care and other veteran's programs bout appromiately 11%, and, an influxe in VA funding of $25 billion over five years.

The author (Paul Rieckhoff) of this article found at alternet.org seems the be skeptical of the budget. He explains how the budget plan is optimistic but still very vague, in that it does'nt mention one of Obama's campaign promises; additional funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. This advanced funding wouldn't cost anything, however it would help all goverment funded veterans' hospitals plan their budgets sooner, and possibly prevent "care-rationing" that many VA hospitals go through when budgeting is prepared too late.

Only time will tell if we will be able to repay our protectors for their 8 years well done. Hopefully Obama's promise was not only a "campain" promise.

I read an article called U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship on the New York Times Website. This article explains how the American Military will soon be offering citizenship to skilled immaigrants who have been living in the United States on temporary visas in as little as 6 months, by recruiting them into military possitions.

This article grabbed my attention because of the constant debate over laboring immigrants, (especailly for the area which we live in.) I think that this program will greatly enhance our already excellently skilled military by offering native knowlegde of cultures and languages that our goverment considers straigically pertinent. (Spanish will not be a language of interest). To enlist, temporary imigrants must meet specific criteria; they will be expected to prove that they have lived in the United States for a minimum of 2 years and have not left the country for more than 90 days. Prospectives will also have to pass an english exam.

Language experts will be mandated to serve in active duty for four years, and professionals in the health care career will be served three years of active duty or six years in the reserves.

Only 82 percent of the 80,000 Army recruits last year had high school diploma, so obviously the need for specialized skilled professionals is at large. This program is an excellent way to attract the skill needed and provide the dream of citizenship and a potentially life long career to those who truly want them.