Marines; as I know them

On top of everything else, we seem to ask our veterans to wade through a pop-culture swamp of slanderous innuendo and cliche - especially our combat wounded veterans

Like some speckled backwash from Vietnam, there are those who try to paint people who have served as broken victims - wounded in mind and body - to be pitied and marginalized. Some who push this image mean well, but most who do don't mean well.

Of course, that characterization does not come close to what the actual picture is. Except for a very small group of people who need help, the veteran is not degraded by the experience - he is enhanced. 

The experience creates the kind of person who runs towards the bombs to help the wounded instead of running away from the carnage. It is the type who decides that they need to help others who have just suffered what they suffered before to know that they are not alone, that this is not an end - that they they need a hug and encouragement - that we are all in this war together.

Great men and women - like these Marines.