Jackson Free Press

My father-in-law, Vietnam War veteran Timothy Cheeks, wants more tolerance this Veterans Day. Tim works in the Healthcare for Homeless Veterans division of the Mississippi Veteran's Administration Hospital in Jackson, and his stories haunt the soul. Celebrating the sacrifice of so many men and women is a worthy deed, he says, but paying respect on only a handful of days every year is menial; the mental anguish some veterans suffer does not limit itself to a handful of days.

"The state of Mississippi has a lot of homeless veterans," Tim said. "A lot of them burn their bridges, either through the use of alcohol or drugs. And then there are the mental problems: Some of them just don't feel right at home anymore. They don't feel comfortable there. They get too caught up in their experiences. It's especially a problem with a lot of the young guys."

Tim had his own problems. He volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War, in an age where many of his companions had to be drafted. Others refused to go entirely. But his dad served in his own wars, and Tim had expectations to live up to.

This attitude didn't insulate him from the trauma. He speaks of alienation from his own family when he got back, alienation from his daughters, his wife. He speaks of paranoia and the sense of never truly feeling safe, not even in his own home. Home is supposed to put forth the image of safety and security, but the reality of the battlefield is considerably more real--and often lingers long after veterans return to the presumed sanctuary of their homes. Tim's military family offered him the benefit of people who helped him cope, but a lot of young soldiers don't have that.

The state of Mississippi, combined with Louisiana and portions of Oklahoma and Texas, contains more than 7,000 homeless veterans, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. The organization adds that roughly 56 percent of all homeless veterans are black or Latino, even though they only account for 12.8 percent and 15.4 percent of the U.S. population, respectively. Nationally, about 1.5 million veterans with homes, run the risk of being homeless due to poverty, rotten living conditions in substandard housing or the absence of family and social support.

Tim said many veterans returning from something as brutal as a war turn to self-medication to push the violent memories out of their heads, putting them on a long-term path of substance abuse--which trumps all other comforts.

A veteran can be 100 percent disabled and get up to $2,800 a month from the federal government, but the money never survives 30 days when there's a habit to feed. Tim said his agency tries clean them up, but some of them never manage to stay that way.

"There's too much going on inside their heads," he said.

Apparently, there are too many voices and too many memories of entirely too much violence.

It's nothing I'll ever be able to understand.

Treatment is rarely a first-time success, but many vets eventually tamp down or sort through their more demonic memories--at least enough to lead tolerable lives.

On Veterans Day, the only thing Tim asks people to do is to be patient with those broken cases.
"You can't always know what's going on with us, so bear with us. Eventually, we'll get straightened out, one way or another," Tim said.

So be mindful of that person sitting on a curb, with all his possessions packed into a grocery cart. You never really know their history until you walk up and ask them. You might just owe them a favor.