DIY: troop therapy

Despite lack of support from the Veteran's Administration, soldiers returning from war are finding a way to help themselves and each other.  And it's heart-warming to see how they're doing it.  You can find a detailed description of some groups' efforts in an article at Time online (open to the public) by Joe Klein, titled "Can Service Save Us?".

Quoting from Joe's article:

This self-help ethos stands in stark contrast to that of the more traditional military-related charities. Eric Greitens, the founder and CEO of the Mission Continues, is notoriously tough on veterans who come to him with service-related excuses. “People understand the tremendous sacrifices that veterans have made — and they instinctively want to do something for them,” he says. “And that sometimes leads people to give veterans an excuse: Oh, you didn’t show up for work on time. It must be that you have posttraumatic stress disorder. Oh, you’re disabled. Don’t even try. Or, you’re being a bad partner to your husband or wife, or a bad father or mother. It must be that you lost a bunch of friends. We simply do not accept those excuses.” Jake Wood has little tolerance for veterans who see themselves as victims. Posttraumatic stress is, he believes, a condition that can be battled and defeated. “If you’re out doing disaster relief,” Wood says, “you’re less likely to be thinking about yourself and more likely to be thinking about the people you’re helping. You’re also presenting yourself, and other veterans, as a model, as a potential community leader.”

My favorite group of volunteer veterans is Team Rubicon. These guys put muscle and skills where needed.  They helped clean up after Hurricane Sandy, the recent Oklahoma tornado, and other disasters -- as shown in this video.
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The Mission Continues and Team Rubicon are not the only service-oriented groups out there.  There's also All for Good (geared to local needs), ServeNet.org (offering youth opportunities to help and funding for projects), VolunteerMatch  (a portal for matching volunteers with local causes), and Catchafire (a portal for professionals to volunteer their skills).

In case you didn't know there's currently an epidemic of suicides among veterans and active duty military.  Whatever we can do to help diminish these harsh numbers, we must do.

From Forbes comes this thought for the day:

“ The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. ”                                        — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

-- Marge