Thank you for publishing a realistic perspective on the challenges faced by veterans in Theodore R. Johnson’s Nov. 13 op-ed, “Why ‘tough’ veterans like me claim disability.”

As the daughter of a service-disabled Vietnam War veteran, I’m glad that as a society we’re working to treat veterans better than we did in that era. We owe veterans our gratitude and respect. Still, the typical celebratory Veterans Day rhetoric rubs me the wrong way, especially the slogan “freedom isn’t free.” Since the Korean War, how much freedom did our veterans’ and their families’ incalculable sacrifices secure? Were our Vietnamese allies left to suffer in communist reeducation camps free? Are Afghan women free? How about “multigenerational trauma for foreign policy boondoggles isn’t free”?

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