This morning, I was, unusually for me, driving about at rush hour. So I come to a major intersection, and there are two panhandlers there, a man and a woman, working the cars stopped at the light. The man is carrying the regulation cardboard sign saying “homeless vet, please help.” I get to the next intersection, and there’s another panhandler, this one claiming to be an ex-Marine.
This is a phenomenon that, it sems to me, has snowballed over the years, and now suddenly, every guy with a cardboard sign is a vet. Leaving aside the question of whether or not they really are vets, I have to say that the cumulative message of these signs is a little bit funny – like “Join the service, it’s the surest route to a life of destitution!”
What must the recruiters think when they see this?
Which word in your post could have triggered all the sushi/seaweed Google ads, I wonder?[/hijack]
I see a lot of the “homeless vet” signs. I also see a lot claiming to have kids to feed, and nearly all of them invoke God’s blessing on potential donors, as well.
People know what works, is all I can say. What kind of heartless bastard won’t do something for a homeless vet with hungry kids to feed that will ask God’s blessing on them in return for some coins, right?
No idea what recruiters think. Any of them here that would care to weigh in?
There used to be an alleged “homeless Iraq veteran” who panhandled near a local Quik-Trip. The hand-lettered cardboard sign stayed the same, but several different guys took turns manning it. It was as if they were working the corner in shifts.
When I worked at McDonald’s at age sixteen, I personally witnessed my manager make an offer to a guy holding one of those signs. He told him that if he’d sweep the picnic area outside, he’d give the guy a meal. The guy refused.
The only panhandler I ever gave money to since then was a guy in Nice, France who asked me for some change, and when I asked what he wasnted it for, he said, iwith exquisite dignity, “Well, frankly, miss, I’m going to buy a bottle and get drunk.”
The only panhandler I’ve ever given money to was was a guy in Prague who sat cross-legged against a wall, banging his head against said wall repeatedly, with a hat on the ground in front of him. I’m not entirely sure he was a pandhandler, but I figured anyone who bangs their head against a wall is working harder for their money than I am. Tomcat’s probably seen him, I saw that same guy at at least 6 different places in the city over the course of a couple of weeks.
Having worked in a Veterans Service Office, I can give a few facts on this.
Veterans do make up a larger proportion of the homeless population than the population in general. About 1/3 of the homeless are veterans.
Many of them are homeless because of problems that were caused or worsened during their military service, such as alcohol or drug addiction, or mental problems (PTSD aka ‘battle fatigue’). Often these are chronic problems, and not very amenable to treatment. And frankly, some VA medical facilities just don’t have very good treatment facilities for such problems.
However, our newest crop of injured veterans from Iraq will probably be less of a problem this way. They are mostly suffering from more major injuries, involving amputated limbs (often multiple limbs) of serious Tramatic Brain Injury. So they will be lying around in hospital beds in a coma for year and years to come, or in wheelchairs or prosthetic limbs. We likely won’t ever see them working the intersection to panhandle drivers.