ITS ABOUT DOING WHAT IS RIGHT

Two stories caught my eye and caused me to think...

Does anyone care? How does a person to get to a point in their life where no one notices that you're gone? Do they choose to not have any friends who might care about them? Have they chosen to be "Off the Grid"? Is this person asocial? Where is this man's family? How often have you heard that an entire person's family is dead?

Here's the worst part, how can you (or anyone) be dead in a room somewhere for seven years and have no one notice? Sad. A sad commentary on our society. This story, motivates me to think what could I do to improve my role in society? What could I do to insure this does not happen to anyone? What, if anything, could be done? What could you do?

BERLIN (Reuters) - The decomposed corpse of a German man was found alone in his bed after nearly seven years, police in the western city of Essen said Thursday.
The police said in a statement the man was 59 and unemployed at the time of his death. He most likely died of natural causes on November 30, 2000, the date he received a letter from the Welfare Office found in the apartment, police said.
Next to the dead man's bed police found cigarettes, an open television guide and Deutschemark coins, which came out of circulation after the euro was introduced in 2002.
The man's apartment was in a building with offices and apartments, many of which are now empty.
"No one missed him. No missing person report was ever filed," the police said.

NO FRIENDS, NO FAMILY, NO ONE CARED AND NO ONE MISSED HIM.

...then there is this story about Homeless Veterans. This story really puts me over the top.

People who served our Country, forgotten and thrown to the curb.

Sure the Military takes care of their own...the thousands who retire on great military pensions after 20 or 30 years of service...but God forbid you had to leave the military because of a disability incurred while serving your Country--or maybe you left the military to return to your family and your job back home or maybe after serving you discovered that a career in the military just wasn't something you wanted to pursue....

Veterans of military service should not have to endure the lack of quality care at Veterans Hospitals, the lack of mental health services for our Veterans. I'm sorry but if you served this Country as a member of the Armed Forces, YES, you should have special privileges; with jobs, with education, with learning a craft, with health care and medicine with social services, with buying a house and these benefits should be not be available to those who did not choose to serve their Country and they should be the kind of benefits that the "others" wish they had access to...but that does not seem to be the case.

Please take a moment to review The Services to Prevent Veterans Homelessness Act of 2007 and call your elected representative to ask them to support if not co-sponsor this ACT. Props, kudos and hoo- yahs to Senator Richard Burr!

From the News and Observer (RALEIGH, NC)

The issue of homeless veterans is not likely to help politicians win a lot of votes or lead to happy photo opportunities to make them look good.
In fact, when I asked Sen. Richard Burr about his championing of homeless vets, he couldn't even come up with a decent sound bite.
"It's doing what is right for the vets," said Burr, a Republican from Winston-Salem.
Homeless vets are one of those issues that can easily slip under the radar. They are often troubled men, fighting a multitude of demons -- physical disabilities, booze, drugs, mental illness, or maybe just some very bad luck.
There are more homeless vets than you think. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that on any given day 200,000 veterans are living on the streets or in shelters. In the course of a year, as many as 400,000 veterans experience homelessness.
"To put it in perspective," Burr wrote recently in a letter to his Senate colleagues, "conservatively one out of every three homeless men (and many women) who is sleeping in a doorway, an alley or a box in one of our cities or rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country."
It is easy to dismiss this as a big-city problem. But it's everywhere. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 1,600 homeless vets live in North Carolina. And 40,000 vets in the state live on incomes below the national poverty level -- not homeless, but living on the margins.
No dramatic reason explains Burr's involvement with homeless vets -- no family member living on the streets, no plea from a constituent.
Burr serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. And he is heavily involved in medical issues, so he understands something about the costs of the homeless -- veterans or otherwise -- showing up in hospital emergency rooms.
Which is why Burr has introduced the Services to Prevent Veterans Homelessness Act of 2007, which is expected to be considered in committee in June.
The measure authorizes the spending of a modest $15 million per year -- rising over several years to $25 million annually -- to provide stipends to get homeless vets into permanent housing and then provide support and counseling to help them stay there.
Homeless vets are often people with a lot of problems who need help on many fronts.
Burr, being a conservative, wants the program to start slow to see how it works. He also wants the government to include nonprofit and faith-based groups in the effort.
"When you look at this as a national challenge, clearly it's not enough money to solve every chronic homeless victim," Burr said. "But it would be enough to begin to collect the data we need to prove the success of it."
In the long run, Burr argues, such a program could save taxpayers money by cutting what is now being spent on the homeless arriving at emergency rooms.
But, as Burr says, this homeless veterans initiative is not about money. It's about doing what is right.

This bears repeating-

ITS ABOUT DOING WHAT IS RIGHT