Supporting Wounded Soldiers

Government Alone Can’t Do Right By Our Wounded Soldiers (Wall Street Journal)…Jonathan Gurwitz, Jan 3, 2009.

You can’t earmark bravery or budget patriotism.

Private donors are already doing a lot to help recuperating soldiers in San Antonio. In recent years, two “Fisher Houses” were built near Brooke Army Medical Center by the Fisher House Foundation to give family members of injured soldiers a place to stay. And across the street from Mrs. Markelz’s facility is the gleaming new Center for the Intrepid, a state-of-the-art amputee and burn-victim rehabilitation facility built with private funds and donated to the Army.

Private donors are already doing a lot to help recuperating soldiers in San Antonio. In recent years, two “Fisher Houses” were built near Brooke Army Medical Center by the Fisher House Foundation to give family members of injured soldiers a place to stay. And across the street from Mrs. Markelz’s facility is the gleaming new Center for the Intrepid, a state-of-the-art amputee and burn-victim rehabilitation facility built with private funds and donated to the Army.

“This is not about philanthropy, this is not a gift. It’s an obligation. It’s a partial repayment on a debt we owe these guys.”

We live in an era of earmarks and ever-expanding bailouts where there is seemingly little that the government is incapable of doing. But you cannot earmark bravery or budget patriotism. And perhaps that is the best justification for what citizens — and not government alone — should do to aid those who have volunteered to defend their freedoms.