In the time of the crusades the world had 1 million citizens, they believed the world was flat and it took a year by sea in the best ship of the line, something the moors didn’t have so there was no chance of the enemy being slaughtered in the name of god could ever come back to the homeland. Every knight who returned from the holy crusades was given his own duchy a castle and villages to earn taxes from.

In Modern times a soldier of the royal regiments if he fought with honour would move up the promotions, and would by the time he was a brigadier be a knight of the realm,”a sir” and by the time he was a General in charge of entire battalions would retire a lord and his generations would be for ever more “Lords and Ladies”. In my home country of Australia every soldier returning from world wars 1 &2 was guaranteed the right to a house on a large block with a back yard, a front yard, a garage for service to his country on a zero interest loan. When my brother and brother’s in-law returned from Vietnam they were guaranteed fast tracking into any Government job they wanted, my brother in-law worked until retirement as a high ranking member of the South Australian Fire Brigade. All of these wars the chances of nuclear or chemical (except for ww1) were non- existent, and the chances of the enemy Following them home was nil and we, all except for Vietnam gave ticker tape parades called them heroes and lay the world at their feet.

But what do we see in the story below? we see the forgotten warriors, we see homeless vets they serve with valour. These men and women have the highest of training ,language explosives, weapons computers and instead of utilising their talents by say replacing the inept TSA with returned veterans we go through the motions of paying lip service to mental health treatment and then one day when they don’t show up for an appointment they don’t look , they don’t worry he’s not AWOL ’s not military anymore he’s home he’s crazy and he’s gone. the VA stats look good, they can say they are curing them quickly but the only thing they are cured from is the hate they feel for the uniform, they are tired of the walls closing in so they swap camp Lejeune for a card board box camp under an over pass somewhere they swap Iraq for central park and they swap dignity and brother hood for barely surviving one day at a time. The republicans judge the democrats for a lot, they point the finger at the assumed ineptness of the current government,but as the child of a military family Mr Obama everything the whining bureaucrats complain of fades in comparison to the fact that you broke the code, You never leave a man behind you never leave a soldier you bring every one home. When even one warrior who layed his life on the line for us is left with a life less lived, you sir are a disgrace and not until every soldier is brought home every warrior is out from under the bridge and cared for the rest of his life you have no right calling yourself a commander of anything.