Bookworm did up a great post on the latest MSM attack on the Bush administration and the War on Terror. Last time it was veterans who become criminals which ended badly for the MSM. They definitely had egg on their face from that one.
Now its veterans who become homeless.
From the article:
This is not a new story in America: A young veteran back from war whose struggle to rejoin society has failed, at least for the moment, fighting demons and left homeless.
But it is happening to a new generation. As the war in Afghanistan plods on in its seventh year, and the war in Iraq in its fifth, a new cadre of homeless veterans is taking shape.
And with it come the questions: How is it that a nation that became so familiar with the archetypal homeless, combat-addled Vietnam veteran is now watching as more homeless veterans turn up from new wars?
What lessons have we not learned? Who is failing these people? Or is homelessness an unavoidable byproduct of war, of young men and women who devote themselves to serving their country and then see things no man or woman should?
~~~ For now, about 1,500 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been identified by the Department of Veterans Affairs. About 400 of them have taken part in VA programs designed to target homelessness.
The 1,500 are a small, young segment of an estimated 336,000 veterans in the United States who were homeless at some point in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
If my math is right (and there no guarantee it is, jarhead remember) those numbers work out to be .004% of the veteran homeless were from the Iraq/Afghanistan war.
So .004% is worthy of a 1,947 word article from the AP? This article from the NYT’s in November puts the number of Iraq/Afghanistan homeless veterans at 400. In two months it went up 1,100. That’s some jump.
And how about that 336,000 number. HUD reports that in 2006 the number of homeless in the United States was
The number of chronically homeless people dropped from 175,900 in 2005 to 155,600 in 2006, according to data collected from about 3,900 cities and counties.
Anyone see a problem there? This article from HUD puts it at 744,000. Pretty big discrepancy there. It even says 41% of that number are whole families which means only 416,000 are singles. I’m thinking that most of these veteran homeless are not taking their whole family with them so the majority of single homeless are veterans?
Come on…..
What these reports do say is its difficult to gauge how many homeless there are because they, well, live on the street. No address or phone number to contact them at.
It really is sad that some end up homeless but does anyone know if the percentage of service members becoming homeless is greater then the rest of society? I’m sure every segment of society is represented in that homeless number but the constant meme’ from the left about wars turning men into homeless is not grounded in reality unless they count the cardboard signs reading “veteran, please give me money” on the side of the freeway. Those guys wouldn’t be putting “veteran” on there to pull your heartstrings would they?
Oh, I forgot, we’re talking about the gullible left here.
Every article I have read researching this post points out how difficult it is to get a accurate count of homeless, so the numbers and theme of this latest MSM hitpiece is basically hogwash. Yes, Erin McClam, we all know war sucks. But we also know that war is necessary. Iraq was necessary, Afghanistan was necessary. There was no draft, men and women joined up voluntarily to serve this country and 1,500 of the over one million who have served couldn’t take it and became bums. But maybe Erin should of written a story about how well grounded our veterans are. If only 1,500 of the million veterans became homeless, that actually shows how well they do, not the other way around.
But we’re talking about the MSM here. If Hillary was in the White House you could bet your ass the meme of that article would be spun 180 degrees.
Oh, and btw, Bush just signed a law giving 1.5 billion of our tax dollars to helping the homeless. Funny how I didn’t see Erin McClam write about that.
That evil Bushitler!
UPDATE
This is James Taranto talking about the earlier Times article that labeled our veterans as criminals:
See author page