Veterans deserve competent counseling and they need it now.
Pressure the Pentagon and the VA, the President and Congress, until somebody listens.

Increasing numbers of combat personnel are returning to the U.S. with ptsd; several have turned their weapons on strangers, colleagues, their families and/or themselves.  Berkeley poet Julia Vinograd's powerful poem appears below.

Instructions for Soldiers Back from War
(c) Julia Vinograd

Do not kill the waiter
who shoves a hot plate of soup
too close to your face,
there are no grenades in the clam chowder.
Do not kill the waiter.

Do not kill the fat man
who pushes his belly and cart
ahead of you in the grocery checkout line.
His friends are not about to fire on you
from the trees, there are no trees in the grocery
and the fat man has no friends.
Do not kill the fat man.

Do not kill the smiling secretary
who won't let you in to talk to your doctor,
"The doctor is a very busy man,"
she wants to be a tape recording when she grows up.
She's a large boulder blocking a narrow trail
in the jungle. You always smell the jungle.
Do not kill the smiling secretary.

Do not kill the nervous people at work
who talk about the war around the water cooler
as if war were a football game.
They expect you to kill them
if a ghost can kill
and their laughter is all wrong.
You spent years doing what was expected
but do not kill the nervous people.

Do not kill your family
who are not your family anymore.
Somebody loved them and you're living in his house.
You know your gun better than your 3 year old son.
You always will.
Close your eyes in bed with your wife.
Remember the teenage whore who tried to stab you.
Your hands were always your deadliest weapon.
Be polite. Sit on your hands.
Do not kill your family.

Do not kill yourself.
It is a soldier's duty to stay alive
even in the land of the dead
which seems to be all around you.
There's no taste to home-cooked food
but do not eat your gun.
The enemy could appear at any moment.
Wait for the enemy.

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