Remember Your Local Veteran Today

I will be watching my son march with his Boy Scout Troop today in our local Veteran’s Day parade.  Unfortunately, despite our fighting two wars, this parade continues to be sparsely attended as most Americans seem more eager to use a day off to scour shopping malls for Christmas bargains.  As a vet myself, this is deeply disappointing.

Whiles the local mall parking lots are filled with their Escalades and Lexus’, a few or us will be remembering the sacrifice our veterans have made to preserve the freedom that allows such shopping excursions.  A few statistics:

• There are currently approximately 23 million vets in the US ( 8% female )
• There are approximately 2 million World War II vets still alive ( 850 pass away each day)
• There are over 3 million vets receiving VA disability compensation
• There are nearly 400,000 vets receiving disability benefits for PTSD 
• See here for current  New York VA disability statistics

Attend a parade today if you can, say a prayer for our men and women overseas, or simply be grateful that there is not a draft and your son or daughter isn’t in harms way.