@Arotrios They're always trying to close VA hospitals, even as their burden grows. It's just so wrong.
My grandfather was chief of medicine at that Waco VA in the 70's and 80's, took me on a tour.
There were still WWII vets, who'd been there since the end of the war, living in oxygen tents, some quadriplegics.
I saw them. It changed me.
We didn't go in the psychiatric buildings.
They tried to close it down in 2003 right at the start of Desert Storm. Just cruel.
When we entered the second Gulf War, an article mentioned seeing the soldiers on a plane reading the latest Harry Potter book, how jarring she found that -- that yes, they were reading a children's book because they were 12 when the first book in the series came out.
And now they were soldiers heading off to war.
But still children, really. It was the most heartbreaking memorable telling detail.
Your piece is full of telling details like that.
Lyft driver as unreliable narrator.
This is a good and thoughtful and thought-provoking short piece. I really think it belongs in the pages of the New Yorker or The Atlantic.