The Veteran Who Needs Help (Editorial)

On the same day that the editorial on American policy and involvement in China was published this one on the special needs to returning veterans appeared. This editorial could apply today in the early 21st century:


THE VETERAN WHO NEEDS HELP (Editorial)
New York Times: Friday, November 23, 1945

If there is any one thing that the American service man wanted during the war was to get home.

Home, as seen from the front-line hole in the ground, the deck of a fighting ship, the inside of a fighting plane or some forsaken outpost, was heaven. But for many returned veterans it is turning out to be an imperfect heaven.

Bradley Buell and Reginald Robinson, looking into case records in several American cities, find about one-fifth of the veterans “unable to cope, by themselves, with the problems of personal and family adjustment which face them.” The Buell-Robinson report, financed by the Grant Foundation and to be published in the forthcoming issue of survey Mid-Monthly, emphasizes the need for community action on all fronts to ease the veterans transition into civilian life.

Veterans come home to face all sorts of problems. Many of them are emotionally upset and need psychiatric attention. Some find family troubles waiting for them. The investigators believe that for five or ten years to come “there will develop personal and family crises which had their beginnings in this present period of transition from military to civilian life.” The veteran and his family may become what social workers call a “case” –in other words, they need the very best advice and guidance they can get. They need help to adjust themselves emotionally; they made need more financial aid than comes automatically under the GI Bill of Rights –they want education; they will have health problems; they will want to rebuild the social life and friendships war has destroyed or suspended.

Many existing agencies can do various parts of this job: the Red Cross, the charitable and social service organizations, employment services, Selective Service boards, juvenile courts and domestic relations courts, veterans information centers. But too often the veteran doesn’t know just where to go. Too often he feels that he is being given a run-around. The gist of the Buell-Robinson report is that his needs should be more concretely realized, that it should be made easier for him to get the information and the help he requires, and that there should be a centralized community responsibility for him and his future.

He comes close to being one in ten of the population of many cities. If in one out of five cases he is in serious trouble and the trouble is not cured the situation is bad for him and dangerous for his country. The moral seems to be that we need now and will need for years to come a warm aliveness to the veteran’s difficulties and an earnest determination to make up to him the time and opportunities he lost while serving his country.