Who are the advocates for our veterans?

While the declaration of a nation was inked in parchment, it was the blood of the common man that ensured its delivery.

Like so many concepts envisioned in the safe and comforting atmospheres that easily lend to the tastes of a strategist, the bitter actualities not readily associated with changes apace in pursuit of the acquisition of utopia or the machinations of domination are left for the foul weather soldier.

The very soil the majority of Americans traipse over in pursuit of happiness belongs to posterity only because of the daily vigilance to secure this assumed "given."

The greatest gift we have as Americans is assurance of going to sleep each night with some semblance of political order and waking up to the same policies each morning. Current reports from our foil, the Middle East, have exposed the transitory temperament where chaos reigns and have shown how gracious history has been to America.

The establishment of the United States was based on precautions. The power of government is separated and checked, the will of the majority can find insurance with predicated precedence, and an established shield has been erected to protect the rights of the people, enumerated and in writing. But it was not enough to establish a system within America alone. What measure was in place to prevent interruption from a global audience? America could never be expected to succeed without a concrete extension of the esteemed principles that defined the nation.

Our need for security then became the full-time job of the armed forces. Providing for the "common defense" and securing "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity", the military is more than Thoreau's supposed "arm of the standing government." The armed forces are the sentinels of liberty.

And sadly, these men and women are often unacknowledged by our very government. Coming home from wars missing limbs, friends and innocence, the veterans of foreign wars come back to a society that fails to accommodate or even realize their needs. Government officials lobby for health care reform, but who advocates job programs for returning vets? There are tax credits for first-time home buyers, but what of the homeless veterans?

Americans walk past their safe shores and think not of sacrifice or even threats to that idea of safety. But events like the shooting at Fort Hood have shown how transitory the balance to national security really is, tragically through an attack by an active duty soldier. Capitol Hill speaks of the soldiers in terms of numbers, which are convenient for the abstract, but fail to muster the solidness of reality.

Lists of casualties are the only reminders of America's involvement in two wars. Only then does it seem that the public remembers the faces and stories of lives at war.

Conscription, deployment, retirement. These words plague the mind of the veteran. History has not always proven favorable to the military's image; even society has had its back turned on occasion. But what recourse would America have without these soldiers? Would there be an America as we know it?
Besides the small society formed out of necessity because of overlooked interests, the Veterans Administration, the American Legion, and the VFW seem to be the only leading advocates for our most fervent Americans.

Who is the sunshine patriot now?