Somewhere tonight in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, Atlanta, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver, Milwaukee and hundreds of other towns across the United States there will be between 300,000 and 400,000 homeless military veterans seeking safety, shelter and food. 

Some will find a place to spend the night with the Salvation Army, others with the YMCA, some at State and City shelters, or missions that offer what care they can, but most will spend the night in doorways, under bridges, in abandoned vehicles or houses, in cardboard boxes, on park benches, under houses or in jail—and almost all will be hungry. 

Charitable organizations, like the Food Banks, will try to feed as many of the homeless as they can, especially during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and thousands will get a couple of days of normalcy before heading back into the homeless jungle of despair.

Who are these nameless, faceless veterans?  According to the Department of Veterans Affairs they range in age from their early twenties to their late seventies.  By far most are men, but women make up four percent of the homeless ranks. 

Most homeless veterans are single or divorced, come from poor communities and about forty-five percent suffer from mental illness.  Half are substance abusers and many (no one knows for sure) struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Homeless veterans have served in every conflict from World War II and Korea to Afghanistan and Iraq.  Sixty-five percent served their country for at least three years and still today, forty-seven percent served in combat during the Vietnam Conflict.

The VA estimates that, conservatively, one-in-three homeless men in America have at one time, worn a military uniform. 

They exist in the most impoverished and dangerous parts of town; rampant with muggings, rapes, murder, robbery and drugs, yet they are afforded the least amount of police protection.  Not because the cops don't care, but simply because there are just not enough of them to protect everyone and everything in the cities.  The homeless community holds a low priority.

Untold homeless veterans awake each morning to the realization of what and where they are, but remain unable to comprehend how they got there, or how to escape.  Could PTSD have led so many to the abyss of no return?

At age 40, with the brain function of a child, you go to sleep on a bench or under a bridge and cry yourself to sleep praying that somehow, out of the night your mother or father will find you and welcome you back home, back into a family that still loves you.  But, deep in your heart you know that no one will come.

You wonder why three combat tours in 'Nam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star is still not enough for the VA to care enough to find you and give you the help and care you were promised by the recruiters and your commanders.  You wait, but they never come.

You wonder if your daughter or son still remembers you; if they still love you, or have simply forgotten who you are, or once were.  In all likelihood, you will never know.

There is a slight-built, middle aged man with ragged clothes and filthy shoes walking toward his gas station begging spot.  His face is freshly scarred and his left eye is a mixture of black and blue shades swollen three times its normal size.  From the way he moves his head you know he can no longer see out of the massive blob that only a few days before was a clear, brown eye.

You want to ask him who, why, what, or how all that happened, but you don't.  You already know there are no squealers in the homeless community and you know the law under the bridge doesn’t wear a badge.

And now, as bad as things are for the homeless they are becoming worse due to the greed and dishonesty of so many of our politicians, corporate executives and other highly placed thieves and speculators who have brought us to our new depression. 

With economic depression comes financial depravation for those who are already the weakest of our society and stuck at the bottom of the food chain.      

The VA does want to help, but cannot help those it cannot find.  Homeless veterans need to identify themselves to the VA and seek the help that is available.  Not all can be saved, but many thousands can.  All deserve our help and gratitude for their service and all deserve better than what they are getting today.