On the day President Obama spoke at the memorial service for the 13 soldiers who lost their lives in the tragic November 5th shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, a young Marine reservist mistakenly identified a visiting Greek Orthodox priest who barely spoke English as a Muslim terrorist, chased him down two blocks and beat him with a piece of iron rebar.
On the same day a Senate sub-committee met to take testimony on the continued and rising occurrence of homelessness among veterans where no Republicans came, veteran John Allen Muhammad was executed by lethal injection, for the random killings committed 2002 in the DC beltway with the help of Lee Boyd Malvo .
The original name for the holiday we currently call Veteran’s Day was Armistice Day — a multinational holiday commemorating the end of the international conflict called World War I. Yet on this day in 2009, there is no peace to celebrate, either on the ground or in the hearts and minds of the soldiers we send to kill in the name of protecting our republic. Our soldiers, particularly our Gulf War soldiers are finding it increasingly difficult to come to peace within themselves.
In 2008, there were 143 suicides among Gulf War veterans. This is a 25% increase from the previous year, with 121 suicides. Conversely, over the last fifteen years, some of the worst acts of domestic violence were by Gulf War veterans. Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of Gulf War I, assisted by fellow veteran Terry Nichols, exploded a truck filled with chemicals and fertilizer at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including children in the site’s resident day-care center. John Allen Muhammad, the DC sniper was another Gulf War I veteran.