I hate rhetoric...

I spoke on a panel of student veterans at a conference hosted by Cal State East Bay today, and one of the speakers uttered the following statement:

“why are wounded veterans not at the top of the list for employment?”

I have friends that were horribly wounded in Iraq. One of the marines in my company suffered injuries to his lower body from an IED blast. He has a very difficult time walking, and will never have children. I’m not at all insensitive to the needs of wounded veterans, but the idea of forcing employers to give them employment priority doesn’t seem very well thought through. It is not the job of American entrepreneurs to provide welfare or disability payment. If a wounded vet is qualified and capable of performing the work involved, that is one thing, but I’m not sure that’s what people are thinking. American service members have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan because of choices made, or rather, not made by the voting American public and therefore they should be compensated by American tax dollars and nothing else. The responsibility for this lies exclusively with the American public.