Martin Bashir   |  November 12, 2012

Prof. Dyson: Remember homeless, unemployed, and PTSD veterans today

Guest host Michael Eric Dyson uses the occasion of Veterans Day to remember those who fought for this country – but now are homeless, unemployed or suffer lingering wounds both physically and psychologically.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> it's time now to "clear the air" and offer a special word of thanks to 22 million members of the u.s. armed services . we start at arlington where the commander in chief made these remarks on sunday. take a listen.

>> -- two fights for this country overseas should ever have to fight for a job or a roof over their head or the care that they have earned when they come home. [ applause ]

>> it would be nice to think that every veteran returning from war has a place to call home, but that is just not the case. in fact, general eric shinseki , the president's secretary of vet trants affairs, says there was more than 60,000 veterans living on the street last year. that's more than the number of all u.s. troops who were killed in vietnam. think about that. surely those americans didn't give up their lives just so their comrades could be left out in the cold. they gave up their lives because they believed in the promise of a better world , and now it's up to us to deliver on that promise. that means ending homelessness among veterans. it also means reaching out to the 1.6 million veterans of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. about 1 in 5 of those veterans are living with post-traumatic stress disorder or a serious brain injury. veterans of those wars are now killing themselves at a shocking rate of one every 80 minutes. that's simply not acceptable. a country that's great enough to flex its muscles throughout the world should be powerful enough to take care of its own soldiers. as citizens of the united states , we owe these men and women a debt that's too big to pay back in full. but we can make a start at least and show our veterans that the america they return to is an america they can be proud of.