The following op-ed, Why Wounded Warriors Sleep in Dumpsters, written by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 and Bobby Shriver, appeared in the June 9 edition of The Wall Street Journal. An expert on Constitutional Law, Tribe was appointed Carl M. Loeb University Professor in 2004. His most recent book is The Invisible Constitution (Oxford University Press 2008). He recently served as senior counselor for access to justice in the U.S. Justice Department.
Why Wounded Warriors Sleep in Dumpsters
By Laurence Tribe and Bobby Shriver
A group of desperate homeless veterans became plaintiffs yesterday in a suit, Valentini v. Shinseki, filed in U.S. district court against the federal officials responsible for their plight.
There are roughly 107,000 homeless veterans in America. Many of them are chronically condemned to wander our streets because the trauma they suffered serving our country has left them profoundly brain-damaged or disabled with terrible psychiatric conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. These wounds of war are physically invisible, but they are no less life-threatening.
When military service renders our returning soldiers unable to resume their civilian lives—by holding down …