Is This What Our Vets Fought For? We’ve gone AWOL on them…

November 11th, 2010. By Hunter West

It’s Veteran’s Day today. A day when the country stops (hopefully), to give pause to those brave men and women who fought the great fight, so that we may be free. 

But there’s more to it than that. Our veterans served with honor, on behalf of their countrymen. Their country. 

What would they think of how [much of] America conducts itself today? 

Greedy banks granted mortgages, and loaned money to people who could ill afford to support the payments, all in the name of getting more business on the books than the next guy. That’s the simple answer for the sub-prime mortgage mess that resulted in the burst of the housing bubble and driving the US economy into a deep recession. 

Thousands have lost their homes, their jobs, and their livelihoods due to greed on the part of others. 

Is this what our veteran’s fought for? 

Some drug manufacturers sell pharmaceuticals while knowing they could be harmful—even more harmful than standard protocol allows (i.e.: the benefits outweigh the risks). And yet they carry on. 

Some appliance manufacturers sell products that are substandard and could prove harmful. And yet they carry on. 

Some automotive manufacturers sell vehicles to a trusting public while harboring knowledge of a potentially serious defect capable of harming, or even killing innocent people. And yet they carry on. 

Fines are paid willingly. So long as a corporation is making a greater rate of return from a defective product, than the costs (including litigation and financial penalties) associated with keeping that product on the market, the product stays. 

That’s just good business. 

But is it honorable? 

Does it reflect the honor by which our veterans fought? 

Did they lay down their lives so that politicians could lobby drug regulators to approve medical devices that were deemed unsafe, because the manufacturer is located in their home state?

Did they suffer horrific injuries so that the executives of failed banks rescued on the backs of the taxpayer, could collect generous bonus payments in deference to their actual performance? 

Did they put themselves at danger in exchange for substandard care and abandonment when it came time to care for them once they became frail and infirm? 

Have they lived a lifetime with horrid, painful memories and emotional scars so that we could screw each other in the name of freedom and the American way? 

They may have fought for, and won our freedom. 

But we have failed them in the enjoyment of our freedom, coveted so dishonorably. 

Tags: VA Benefits, VA Claims, Veterans, Veterans Day, Vets

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