An Open Letter to Bill O'Reily

To whom it may concern,

I am the proud son of a veteran, an American by birth and a southener by the grace of God, though I no longer live in the south. I've watched your show from time to time and there are many times when I've found you to be both abrasive and condescending toward anyone who dares to disagree with you. However I feel I must speak out concerning a recent remark of yours regarding the V.A.'s statistics of our homeless veterans. According to them the numbers show that there are 195,000 (male and female) on any given night (their words here) and perhaps twice that number at some point during the year. I'd like to know what socialist, secular progressive, liberal propoganist site you'd care to blame these statistics on? You had the utter temerity to make a snide "I don't think its that many" comment to your guest as well as making the rather transparent statement that you'd make sure a veteran didn't sleep under a bridge if you were told that someone saw them at such and such a place. How dare you sir?

Like I said my father was a veteran. All of my uncles are veterans. One the teachers I had in college was a veteran of the second world war, one who had helped liberate one of the concentration camps. One of my best friends in the world is serving now. In the history of this country we have NEVER treated our wounded warriors right and its time that the American people spoke out about this. It is beyond the pale that even one veteran is homeless, it is offensive beyond reason that almost 200,000 of them are tonight. It is offensive that I hear so few of the republican candidates talking about what we're going to do about our honored wouned warriors. Our people should have the very best care available. What they get is far from it and as a citizen of the United States I will not sit by and allow this to pass without speaking out. I don't have money, I don't have position or authority; but what I do have is a voice and a blog and I intend to use it.

My question to you is this. What have you done to actually serve your country? Beyond going overseas with cameras and talking about how much you do, what have you done? Have you ever given without turning it into a talking point on your show? Why not use your position to speak out about the horrendous problem of homelessness amongst out veterans? Maybe that wouldn't be good television, or maybe you think you can bully other people into doing it by name calling and dodging the real issues.

I'm not a kool-aid drinker myself, though you will likely try to spin it that way. I am a Christian, the son of a soldier, a gamer, I believe in fair play, justice and equity. I call on you to put your money where your mouth is. Put up the money to help build good low income housing for our homeless veterans. Put up the cash to help them get the mental health care that many of them desperately need. Add your voice to the people you claim to be looking out for and demand better treatment of our soldiers. Show some humility and reach across the board to people like Keith Olberman, and work together to get the word out about this. A lot could get done with the two of you speaking in one voice about this, unlikely though that outcome be.

The proud son of a veteran, and an American

John