Veterans From Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Seek Homes Upon Returning to America
Bob Woodruff and Ian Cameron
ABC News
Jose Pagan is a decorated veteran who survived two tours of duty in Iraq as a road clearance specialist. Just three days after leaving the military he was homeless and living on the streets of the Bronx.
Jose says being homeless after his service is something he never would have imagined. “It was embarrassing,” Pagan says.
“Honor, pride, duty, loyalty, all these things that we — that kick in as a soldier, you know. And then to find yourself here,” as he points to the park benches where he slept for almost two months.
Pagan is one of an estimated nine thousand returning servicemembers from Iraq and Afghanistan that the Department of Veterans Affairs estimates have been homeless. Paul Rieckhoff, director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, calls that a conservative estimate.
“I think even if there’s one, it should be a national outrage. I mean a day when it’s twenty degrees outside and the idea that some men or woman who got home from Iraq or Afghanistan maybe just a couple of months ago are homeless, that should outrage everybody in America.”
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