Open Letter to Ted Lieu

For a growing number of our veterans returning home, they have sought broken and imperfect therapy in destructive behaviors to help cope with painful recollections from combat. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a real problem for our troops, one which I fear does not get adequate attention from our leaders in Washington and in the South Bay.

It is a raving shame that some many of our troops suffer as they do, returning from brutal scenes of guerrilla warfare in far-reaching, alien lands. The enemies which this country is striving against have a diminished respect for humanity, not stopping short of exploding young children or putting mothers and other women in harm's way. The toll of taking on so ruthless a threat as Islamo-fascism resists comprehension for anyone who has only heard, and that obliquely, about the trying geographical and cultural conditions which are troops face in Afghanistan, Iraqi, and in other war-torn areas of the world.

 It's time that the United States brought our troops home and provide them the best care we can afford. This country must stop stationing our veterans where victory is undefined and elusive, where the ideal goal of nation-building has been exploded as a vain hoax, and where this country is sinking precious blood and treasure with little return on this nation's safety and respect in the world.

 I implore assemblywoman Betsy Butler, state senator Ted Lieu, and Congresswoman Janice Hahn to appropriate funds away from warfare and towards long-term care for our veterans.