The New York Times > New York Region > About New York: Home From Iraq, and Without a Home:
Two months ago, she returned to Bronx circumstances that were no less difficult than when she had left them three years earlier; no yellow ribbons greeted her. Now, every day, she soldiers on to find a residence where the rent is not covered by in-kind payments of late-night bus rides to shelters and early-morning rousting. All the while, she keeps in mind the acronym she learned in the Army: Leadership. L is for loyalty; D for duty; R for respect; S for selfless service; H for honor; P for personal courage. “And I is my favorite,” she says. “It’s integrity.”
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A relationship with another soldier ended after she became pregnant, and in early 2003 she flew to the California home of some friends from the military – the Bronx was not an option, she says – to give birth in March of that year. A few weeks later, she did the hardest thing she has ever had to do: she left Shylah with her California friends and returned to Germany to complete her service.
[ . . . ]
A war veteran wearing a backpack, pushing a stroller and carrying a baby stayed in another strange hotel room last night, mostly because the city of her birth does not know what to do with her. Welcome home.
As bad as it is, the single young mother in this piece seems to be doing the best she can. I wish the same could be said of her family (who turns their own daughter and granddaughter out in the street?) and the father of the child (he evidently didn’t get the same training in Loyalty, Honor, and Integrity).
The story notes that many veterans have problems re-integrating into society: for young men, it’s bad enough, but I have a harder time with young women and children on the streets. Shame that veterans are hard to come by in the current political regime: perhaps there would more assistance, even leadership, forthcoming.