Dear President,

As you come into office you are going to have to face many very difficult problems including abortion, global warming, and inequality. These issues are all very important, but one problem that is often overlooked is our veterans and their mental health. Without our veterans, America would not be the country that it is today. Many citizens serve in our military for multiple years and give up their families and safety to protect the rest of us. Our veterans should be treated better when they come home.

I come from a military family. I have had to live without my father for years at a time. I know the stress that a situation like that puts a family in because that was my family's condition every time my dad was deployed overseas. Everyone in a military family has to sacrifice, not just the person serving. If my father served our country and came home with PTSD then I would expect the military to help my father in return for his service. Unfortunately, that is not the case in today's world. When veterans come home and have mental scars, they are often labeled as weak and dishonorable. This conception needs to change.

There are many private organizations that claim to help our veterans, the most recognizable being the Wounded Warrior Project. This charity was rated at a B for their financial score. Another group is the National Veterans Foundation, also rating a B. These organizations are helping, but they are not the most efficient. There are approximately 1,400,000 people deployed every year, and for people in the military the rate of PTSD diagnosis is 11-20%. This is only the reported cases. PTSD and other service-related issues can make it very difficult for veterans to transition back into civilian life, and if the transition is too hard for them, they are often left jobless and homeless. This is not the way that our country's heroes should be treated, as if they were only a tool made to be used and then thrown away when broken. Our veterans deserve better, and our government owes this to them by providing services to help them transition back to civilian life in a positive and healthy manner.

I am writing to you to ask you to honor our military and our veterans, and to appreciate what they do for us. Everything that we have today, even the problems that face us today, wouldn’t be possible if it hadn’t been for our military. Problems such as dress codes and immigration would feel insignificant if we didn’t have our military because we would be worried about survival and freedom. If you brought more attention to this issue, then it would shed light onto the crisis that we are in, and hopefully our country could fix our irresponsible ways, and help veterans get the help that they deserve.

Sincerely,

Mallory Keating, a military child