Home is best place to care for veterans

I was saddened to read your story, “Caregivers lose VA stipends and don’t know why.”

My father served 30 years in the military, including WWII and Korea as a bomber pilot, watching his buddies get blown out of the sky around him. There was no help available for him – just a shot of whiskey offered to him at the end of each mission.

Spouses become caregivers when their significant others are physically and emotionally scarred from military service, of course out of love but also out of necessity, and their service to our country is just as great.

Home is the best place for our vets to heal, not a hospital or care facility, and if that means a stipend to the family for care giving then so be it.

Hopefully the vets and their families experience some healing as a result. Why take something away that makes it better, when without it they risk losing what little they have gained? As a taxpayer this doesn’t make sense to me, and as a human being it sickens me.

To those who would deny our vets and their families continued benefits, I say: “Walk a mile in their shoes.”

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 4:07 PM with the headline "Home is best place to care for veterans."