Since the era of the Word Wars, America has been involved in many combat situations: the World war I and II, Vietnam war, Korean War, and the recent war in Middle East after the 9/11 incident. In all these wars, there are men and women who received injuries while at service to their country. The essay below explains this in greater detail.
Injured Veterans
According to Disabled American Veterans (2012), the men and women in the military never wavered in their urge to serve their country to their level best. They put their lives on the line so that their nation could be where it is today. Through the many combat situations, these people picked injuries; some severe and others not so severe. For some, they were so lucky to have cheated death, and have to live with disability for the rest of their lives. The veterans who served in the days before the 9/11 seem to have a higher rate of injury (Morin, 2011). However, the largest casualties are those who served in the Vietnam War between 1964 and 1973. These make up 33% of all the injured veterans (Morin, 2011). These people have special needs which need to be considered by the government. The paragraphs below look at some of the major challenges that they face. It is indicated that 1 out of every 10 war veterans lives with injuries. The main aim is to justify the fact that this is among the groups that social workers should concentrate on.
Medical problems feature at the top of the list. Morin (2011) indicates that after leaving the battle field, most of the veterans have had to live with post-traumatic stress. This means that they have a problem adapting to the normal social life as the other civilians. There are others who received head injuries which interfered with the normal functioning of their brains. Rosenbaum et al (1978) argues that these people need rehabilitation services. People with post-traumatic stress and brain injuries need rehabilitation problems which help them to modify their behavior through psychotherapy, vocational training, and cognitive training among others. This indicates that there is the injured veterans need healthcare services to take care of their health matters.
Morrin (2011) has it that the government tries to take care of the health matters of these veterans. However, in a survey carried out on the survivors, those who served before the 9/11 argue that the government has not done enough to support them. This is quite a point of concern. Sandberg et al (2009) also have an input on this issue. They are of the idea that the veterans have psychiatric and neurological disorders brought about by the prolonged exposure to combat situations. This indicates that they need help in dealing with the health challenges that face them.
Another challenge that needs to be addressed is the issue of housing for the injured and disabled veterans. Homes for Our Troops (2012) indicate that the injured veterans at times have special housing needs. For instance, there are those who are disabled and have to be on wheelchairs. Before they went off to combat, they had homes that were not feasible with the needs of an individual on o wheelchair. This implies that their homes need modification to meet their new requirements. However, they do not have the resources to do so. For this reason, there is a call for people to join up and create better housing facilities for these people, in order to make life more bearable for them. this is the same call that is echoed by DAV (2012), where it calls for goodwill people and organizations to come up and support the injured veterans.
In the modern society, one has to be making a good earning in order to live a decent lifestyle. The injured veterans serve the country so that they could create a better future for their families and for themselves. These veterans have dependants who look upon them for support; children, spouses, and family. However, with their disabled status, most of them cannot secure a permanent job. This is mainly because not many people fancy the idea of hiring disabled people or people who have signs of a mental problem (Morrin, 2011). As such, the veterans and their dependants tend to go through hard times. DAV (2012) calls for people to come up and help make life more bearable for the veterans. There are various services that can be offered to them such as disability compensation and pension, death benefits, health insurance, vocational rehabilitation, employment and education. Well, some of these services need advocacy for the government and other humanitarian organizations to chip in. The injured veterans cannot do this by themselves. They need the assistance of people who understand their condition.
Looking at the above account, it can be seen that there are various challenges that the injured veterans have. These include health problems, housing issues, need for a decent earning and the need for reintegration into the civil society. They, however, are limited by their condition such that they cannot deal with these situations. There is the need for help, and this is what makes this population an interest to the social workers. A social worker dealing with this population can help in advocating for their assistance as well as helping them go through some of the challenges that face them. In other words, the injured veterans are among the high priority groups for social workers.
References
DAV. (2012). Services for Veterans. Retrieved on 14th Sept. 2012 from http://www.dav.org/veterans/VeteransAffairs.aspx
Homes for Our Troops. (2012). Building Specially Adapted Homes for Our Severely Injured Veterans. Retrieved on 14th Sept. 2012 from http://www.homesforourtroops.org/site/PageServer
Morin, R. (2011). For Many Injured Veterans, A Lifetime of Consequences. Retrieved on 14th Sept. 2012 from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/08/for-many-injured-veterans-a-lifetime-of-consequences/
Rosenbaum, M. et al. (1978). A Description of an Intensive Treatment Project for the Rehabilitation of Severely Brain Injured Soldiers. Scandinavian Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, Vol. 10(1), pp. 1-6.
Sandberg, M.A. et al. (2009). Beyond Diagnosis: Understanding the Healthcare Challenges of Injured Veterans through the Application of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. The Clinical Neurologist, Vol. 23(8), pp. 1416-1432.
