After having signed up for helping a coat drive at the veteran's day parade and spending most of my Sunday, waiting to actually start walking the parade with the trucks, I have learned two important lessons: firstly, it is not easy to coordinate a lot of volunteers, even if you have a lot of people willing to help that does not mean that you will really get to help and secondly that veterans day is about a little more than old, cranky army lovers...
During my yoga class on Saturday I started feeling really uncomfortable and that was only partly due to the weirds positions we had to take. My yoga teacher had gone out to Coney Island the day after the storm and brought people out there food and medication, simply packing up his own van. Apparently, he was able to mobilize more volunteers by the day and they went to different buildings, asking people what they needed and matching their needs with what they had brought. He was outraged that for the first ten days after Sandy, no major aid organization reached out to coney island and when they final got there, they didn't really know what to do. Now, I am sure he gave a very one-sided account and there are quite a few bureaucratic hurdles that aid organizations have to take and they will never be as flexible as a random person just packing up things and going somewhere, but I still go uncomfortable, having donated for them as our work matches the donation... The more I thought about it, however, I think the money will still be put to good use, but you can't help but ask yourself- so what is taking these guys this long? I guess there were a lot of areas that needed (and continue to need) help and FEMA and the red cross could not be everywhere. But there have been quite a few accusations and they have already received substantial funds... I guess it's definitely worth investigating which organization you give your money to and who you support...
Talking about support - actually the veterans were a group of people helping out in the rockaways, one of the areas that was hit the hardest by the storm. At the parade I also learned a lot more about the different groups and most certainly about national pride. It reminded me of a talk show I watched when I was in Germany last. They were talking about the 'double trauma' that German soldiers from Afghanistan suffer from when coming back home. They need to deal with the things they experienced in the war zone as well as with the general public opinion that they should not have gone to that war - I guess almost comparable with Vietnam in this country at some point. And I was always one of those people to think that it's your own fault for joining the army. But I now think that that's probably making it a little to easy - when politicians decide to go to war, it's wrong to blame the soldiers for that decision, even if it was wrong. There also is a huge socio-economic factor of joining the army, especially here in the US. I'm not saying, I need to see the veteran's day parade every year now, but I just thought that I might need to think about the whole topic in a more differentiated way. It sure was a little weird seeing those old guys (and by now WW2 veterans are just bound to be really old), waving the American flag and being escorted all the way up 5th Avenue, past the Empire State building etc. There sure is a whole different level of respect in this country though. When we were asked to hand-out flyers on the coat drive to people watching the parade some of the volunteers said that that would be most inappropriate as these guys had come to see the parade and honor the veterans and we should not be disturbing that - a thought that really wouldn't have crossed my mind...
During my yoga class on Saturday I started feeling really uncomfortable and that was only partly due to the weirds positions we had to take. My yoga teacher had gone out to Coney Island the day after the storm and brought people out there food and medication, simply packing up his own van. Apparently, he was able to mobilize more volunteers by the day and they went to different buildings, asking people what they needed and matching their needs with what they had brought. He was outraged that for the first ten days after Sandy, no major aid organization reached out to coney island and when they final got there, they didn't really know what to do. Now, I am sure he gave a very one-sided account and there are quite a few bureaucratic hurdles that aid organizations have to take and they will never be as flexible as a random person just packing up things and going somewhere, but I still go uncomfortable, having donated for them as our work matches the donation... The more I thought about it, however, I think the money will still be put to good use, but you can't help but ask yourself- so what is taking these guys this long? I guess there were a lot of areas that needed (and continue to need) help and FEMA and the red cross could not be everywhere. But there have been quite a few accusations and they have already received substantial funds... I guess it's definitely worth investigating which organization you give your money to and who you support...
Talking about support - actually the veterans were a group of people helping out in the rockaways, one of the areas that was hit the hardest by the storm. At the parade I also learned a lot more about the different groups and most certainly about national pride. It reminded me of a talk show I watched when I was in Germany last. They were talking about the 'double trauma' that German soldiers from Afghanistan suffer from when coming back home. They need to deal with the things they experienced in the war zone as well as with the general public opinion that they should not have gone to that war - I guess almost comparable with Vietnam in this country at some point. And I was always one of those people to think that it's your own fault for joining the army. But I now think that that's probably making it a little to easy - when politicians decide to go to war, it's wrong to blame the soldiers for that decision, even if it was wrong. There also is a huge socio-economic factor of joining the army, especially here in the US. I'm not saying, I need to see the veteran's day parade every year now, but I just thought that I might need to think about the whole topic in a more differentiated way. It sure was a little weird seeing those old guys (and by now WW2 veterans are just bound to be really old), waving the American flag and being escorted all the way up 5th Avenue, past the Empire State building etc. There sure is a whole different level of respect in this country though. When we were asked to hand-out flyers on the coat drive to people watching the parade some of the volunteers said that that would be most inappropriate as these guys had come to see the parade and honor the veterans and we should not be disturbing that - a thought that really wouldn't have crossed my mind...
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