Veterans Day: Our veterans need more than compassion. They need our imagination

It’s Veterans Day.

The Washington Post’s Petula Dvorak writes that America’s veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely than a civilian to be unemployed. The jobless rate for veterans last month was 12.1 percent, compared with the civilian rate of 9 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

If there was a segment of the nation’s population more in need of our collective imagination and innovative energy, one would be hard-pressed to find one.

I came across the photo above of Army Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry shaking President Obama’s hand during a ceremony at the White House where Petry was awarded The Medal of Honor — “the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States.”

Petry was honored for throwing a grenade that had been tossed by enemy combatants in Afghanistan — an act that saved not only his own life, but the lives of two of his fellow soldiers. Petry lost his right hand as a result.