Vets Org. on Iraq: This is 'supporting our troops'?

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This is 'supporting our troops'?
Sawyer County Record
http://www.haywardwis.com/record/index.php?section_id=37&story_id=235234
Editor:
The abrupt closing of the veterans' clinics in both Hayward and Rice Lake is yet another example of the poor treatment of veterans that has been happening all across the nation. Clinics close in our area. Returning vets are denied benefits elsewhere while 200,000 vets are estimated to be homeless. While vets with post-traumatic stress disorder are being denied benefits, record numbers of them returning from the Middle East are committing suicide. Almost 4,000 American service people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more have been injured and maimed. Yet, while vets and their families struggle here to live with the physical, psychological and financial wounds of war, the war-makers demand hundreds of billions of dollars more for this tragic and needless war.
And what about the innocent Iraqis that we were supposedly liberating? The prestigious British polling firm Opinion Business Research now estimates that 1.2 million Iraqi citizens (citizens, not combatants) have died violently since the American occupation of Iraq. Millions more are refugees. God knows how many wounded and maimed there might be. When will this madness end?
Veterans for Peace is a national organization comprised of 120 chapters throughout the country. It advocates for veterans' rights and is working with groups all across the country to bring this war to an end. Our membership includes veterans and associates of all eras and duty stations. We raised enough money to provide hospitalized vets in our region with two thousand hours of phone cards to call home this Christmas. We will work to ensure that the vets' clinics in Hayward and Rice Lake are re-opened, and we support current legal action against the VA for failure to provide needed benefits to veterans.
The national organization has endorsed the Iraq Moratorium effort, and our newly founded Chapter 153 up here in the Northwoods is growing. We are working locally with Peace North to put pressure on our congress people to truly support our veterans by providing needed services and to truly support our troops by bringing them home. Please join us for our vigil for peace this Friday afternoon, Dec. 21, in Hayward, from 4-5 p.m. at the corner of Highways 63 and 27. For more information about Veterans for Peace you can go to www.veteransforpeace.org