In the past few years, I feel like I’ve noticed an unpleasant treand that I don’t really remember in the years past. It seems like I am meeting more and more veterans in prison. Now I don’t know if it’s just because I didn’t really pay much attention in years past, or if it’s that I’ve made friends with more in the past year or so (I regularly ate three meals a day with an older gentelman in his 50’s that served and was a higher ranking official in the Army, serving nearly his entire adult life in the military for about the last year)… or if possiblt more and more veterans are being sentenced to prison after serving their duty and returning to the civilian world.
What I found very troubling was the lack of social services offered to veterans getting ready to release from prison. My one friend that I mentioned had an extreamly had time finding a place to live when he got out. Up to about a week before he released, he had no place to go. I guess I always just assumed the military would take care of those men who messed up after returning from the war zone, but from my experence inside, it really didn’t seem that way.
I don’t know what to make of this. It did spike my interest, and I plan to pay a bit more attention to the way veterans are treated inside state run penial systems in the future.
I want to give a big shout out to any and all Veterans that serve this counrty of ours. Thank you much for everything you’ve done. And if my grandfather, who has passed to heaven can read this, thank you for your service as well.
Have a great holiday weekend to all!!!

Paul Stotts
DOC #93319