When it comes to thanking U.S. military veterans, Americans have many ways to show appreciation

Thanking military veterans can be in-person or through
advocacy. (Photo by Wesley Tingey, Unsplash)

The list of things most Americans can agree on might seem short sometimes. But surveys show it includes an affection for U.S. postal workers, pride in our National Park Service and a shared belief that our military veterans deserve good jobs and health care upon retirement. And while Veteran's Day is in November, the entire month can be a time for Americans to express their appreciation and care for military veterans.

One way civilians can support veterans is by getting to know their backgrounds and thanking them in person when possible. For instance, roughly 20% of the U.S. military hail from rural America and many experience homesickness. While serving in the U.S., most military personnel live on bases across the country. Here is a list of where you can find them. Thanking your serviceman or woman can begin with asking where home is or what branch they served in and where.

Another way to assist current veterans is to help them find viable employment as they re-enter civilian life. To that end, every November, Forbes magazine teams up with market research firm Statista to "survey more than 24,000 veterans (those who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces, the Reserves or the National Guard) working for companies with more than 1,000 employees in the U.S.," reports Rachel Rabkin Peachman of Forbes. Respondents are asked to rate and review their employers "on criteria ranging from work atmosphere and salary to health benefits, career development opportunities, and programs tailored to veterans." Forbes' full list of "Best Employers for Veterans" is here.

Providing medical and mental health care for veterans also needs civilian advocacy. Since 20% of the U.S. military call rural America home, it makes sense that around a quarter of all retired military live in rural places, which can be peaceful and scenic, but can also make getting to and from health care providers challenging. Supporting rural telehealth and broadband expansion can be another way to help veterans thrive.

For people looking for more hands-on ideas that make veterans know they are appreciated, the Wounded Warrior Project has more suggestions here.

One rural community has high rate of soldiers dealing with effects of war

A disproportionate amount of veterans come from rural America, and in trying to "understand the impact of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on the American fabric," McClatchy Newspapers reviewed Department of Veterans Affairs documents to find a small town to chronicle. Reporter Chris Adams chose London, Ky., where almost 200 service members are now veterans collecting disability payments for war injuries. The area has one of the highest rates of disability collected for post traumatic stress disorder, one of the most prevalent ailments associ:ted with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. (Photo by Chris Adams: Zola Hamlin held a photo of her grandson, Staff Sgt. Christopher Hamlin, at her home just outside London. He was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad in May 2007.)

Adams visited London and talked with veterans, preachers, shopkeepers and family members to report about the impact both wars have had on this community. "War and the consequences of war run deep here. At one church, five members are overseas now. At the veterans' halls, the talk by former Iraq and Afghanistan war vets is just beginning. American flags fly up and down Main Street. Patriotism is at the surface," Adams writes.

Three Londoners were killed in action, a higher number than most small towns, Adams reports. Corbin-native and Marine Matt Jackson was killed and his father, Timothy, told Adams many people don't know how the decade-long wars affect them. "I can tell you that until my son got killed, I didn't have a clue how it affects us," he said.

Many London-area service members are enlisted in the Kentucky National Guard. The town's unit is currently on its second tour of duty and their return date is uncertain. This leaves some, like Sarah Doggette, who's husband is in the unit, to raise family alone. Their 4-year-old son thinks his dad is at the London Armory - not 6,500 miles away in Iraq. Doggette coordinates the family readiness group for deployed soldiers from London and told Adams communication between families and soldiers is constant and has improved since the unit's first deployment, something she said helps family members cope. The unit's 124 members are now helping in cleanup and shutdown, including sweeping roads for improvised explosive devices.

London-area soldiers returning from war are also dealing with its heavy toll. Since 2003, 175 soldiers in the London area are on Veteran Affairs' disability rolls, with a total of 917 ailments ranging from mild to severe. Psychologist Cynthia Dunn has helped veterans deal with PTSD, which can last the rest of their lives. She told Adams only a tenth of the veterans she meets weekly are of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but that's likely to change as more soldiers return with the end of both wars and are pushed to attend by family members - "the first line of intervention." (Read more)

Documentary about rural veterans, their families and communities will air on PBS tonight

A documentary highlighting the disproportionate amount of service members from rural areas will air tonight on many public broadcasting television stations. Where Soldiers Come From was the centerpiece of a panel discussion during the 2011 gathering of the National Rural Assembly in which the filmmaker Heather Courtney and combat veteran Dominic Fredianelli discussed the experience of rural youth in active military duty.

The film "follows the lives of young men from Michigan's Upper Peninsula who enlist in the National Guard and are deployed overseas." In a release from the National Rural Assembly, it is described as "a complex and moving portrait of rural young people, their families and loved ones, and the communities that both celebrate their youths' military service and worry about their hometown boys' safe return. It's a realistic and compassionate look at rural America that will resonate for many communities across the country."

To check your local listings for times when the film will be shown, click here. This is Bill Bishop's review of the film from the Daily Yonder, and here you can find the film's trailer.

National Guard members with rural backgrounds help farmers in Afghanistan

As American forces mark their ninth straught Independence Day in Afghanistan, here's a feel-good story for the Fourth, by Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader: "About 60 Kentucky National Guard members returned home Friday, after spending the last year fighting the war in Afghanistan with bee hives instead of bullets, and soybeans instead of shells."

Guard members from about eight states "showed Afghan farmers how to prevent soil erosion and irrigate more efficiently; helped veterinary students sharpen their skills; and empowered Afghan women to start their own agribusiness ventures," Warren reports. "Guard members from across Kentucky were selected for the team because they had skills in areas related to agriculture, such as biology, entomology or veterinary science." (Army photo: Lt. Col. Ruth Graves of Franklin worked with the Kentucky Agribusiness Development Team to demonstrate how to hook up an automatic seeder to a tractor at Al Biruni University in Kapisa province.)

The Kentuckians implemented an idea from their counterparts in Nebraska, "a women's empowerment project that called for distributing hundreds of bee hives to Afghan farm wives" and showing them "how to manage the bees and increase the number of hives as the bee populations grew. The women then collected honey from the hives for sale at local markets and bazaars." They also introduced soybeans as a protein source. Another team is now in Afghanistan, "and a third will deploy there early next year," Warren reports.

Army National Guard, a disproportionately rural force, is sending more soldiers to Iraq

"While the military as a whole is ramping down its presence in Iraq, its most politically sensitive component — the citizen-soldiers of the Army National Guard — is ramping up from 46,000 to 55,000 troops," reports the National Journal. And a graphic with the story illustrates that the Guard comes mainly from rural areas.

"Since its origins in the colonial militias of the 1600s, the Army National Guard has drawn most of its soldiers from small towns," the magazine says. "People living in highly urbanized states are generally less likely to enlist; those in rural areas, more likely."

Reporter Sydney Freedberg Jr. writes, "An Army National Guard unit recruits from its local community and may keep the same soldiers together for decades. That those communities keep producing volunteers six years into a global war speaks to the depth of their military traditions. ... Such ties are strongest in small towns -- not in more-rural areas, where people live too far apart to converge easily at a local armory, and not in large cities, with their abundance of social and economic alternatives."

"In some communities, the local Guard unit is one of the major sources of social cohesion," David Segal, University of Maryland sociology professor and the director of the school's Center for Research on Military Organization, told National Journal. "Being in the Guard is how one earns one's bona fides as a member of the community."

"But precisely because those bonds are so tight, the Guard does not provide the same social mobility that the regular military does," Freedberg writes. "All of these factors mean that the Army Guard has about half the percentage of African-Americans as the regular Army, significantly fewer Hispanics, and a lower ratio of women to men. As a rule of thumb, the lower a state's population density and the lower its percentage of minorities, the higher the percentage of its population likely to be serving in the Army National Guard. As a rule of thumb, the lower a state's population density and the lower its percentage of minorities, the higher the percentage of its population likely to be serving in the Army National Guard." (Read more)