My response to this news is as follows:
Short of overthrowing the government, there isn’t anything the VA can do for them.
They KNOW they were betrayed by the current US President and his cronies.
They KNOW all their work, all their sacrifice, was thrown away, that it had less than zero value in the eyes of their leaders.
And on the one hand, they still want, with all their hearts and souls, to love their country… but on the other hand, they KNOW that if their sons and daughters sign up to defend the country they once loved, those leaders will serve their children just as they were served… betrayed and thrown away.
There isn’t anything you guys at the VA can say or do to make that knowledge go away, and there isn’t anything you can say or do to make it better.
There is only one positive suggestion I can make, and that’s up to individuals, not organizations – if you know an Afghanistan vet, spend an evening, or a whole night, or a whole weekend, getting flat-out plastered with him and commiserating with him. There will be a whole big huge shitload of angry, depressive emotion that he’ll need to offload. It won’t be pretty. One drunk session might not be enough, and in fact probably won’t be.
But if you can take some of the pain for him, if you can convince him not to allow his perfectly justifiable rage to make his decisions for him… you might just save his life.