What grinds your gears as a veteran that civilians don’t understand?

Posted 8Nov2018.

I have to use last years’ data due to the inaccuracy of data for this exact moment…

In 2017, the U.S. population above the age of 18 was approximately 251,047,650. That same year, the veteran population was around 18,204,605. This means that roughly 7.25% of the eligible population has served in the Armed Services.

Yet, every time there is a shooting involving someone who, no matter how remote their connection was with military service, the media has a field day in quickly painting us with their sloppy and broad brushes of inaccurate stereotypes.

Think about that 7.25%… That’s all veterans – combat veterans, those who deployed but never left the base, and those who never left the country.

Just because someone has served does NOT imply that they are ticking time bombs of PTSD-fueled rage. If PTSD is the main part of the equation, then that brings into question anyone who suffers (or claims to – but that is another rant for another time)… whether they have served or not.

This brings me to the next part of this whole “grind your gears as a veteran” bit: cost.

“The annual cost to society of anxiety disorders is estimated to be significantly over $42.3 billion, often due to misdiagnosis and under treatment. This includes psychiatric and non-psychiatric medical treatment costs, indirect workplace costs, mortality costs, and prescription drug costs.”

That emphasis…? Yeah, that is important in relation to another set of numbers:

$2.5 billion and 48.1% (projected)…

This is the price tag of the 2018 mid-term elections for the House and Senate positions, compared to the estimates of how many eligible voters actually cast their ballots. While it is noteworthy that these recent elections showed a considerable improvement in participation, it is still nothing to be proud about.

So… what really grinds my gears is that we (the veteran population) are often made the villains – even though we constitute less than 10% of the population, while money being spent on political campaigns can’t guarantee involvement of even half of our population… and that’s for direct elections of representatives who are responsible for ensuring funding for PTSD care for anyone in need. What really grinds my gears is that the costs I have offered for the election are only those funds for that particular purpose – nothing else. What truly grinds my gears is the evidence that we are not all evil liabilities…

We are just as frustrated – in my case, even more so – when senseless violence occurs at the hands of a few truly broken individuals… veteran or not. There is always help out there… veteran or not.