‘Doesn’t quite seem like 20 years’: Veterans needs mount as U.S. passes 20 years since Iraq invasion

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Monday marks 20 years since the United States and allies began its invasion of Iraq, something that would go on until a pull-out in 2011.

For lots of veterans, the effects are still lingering.

For one Lubbock-area group, Monday serves as a reminder to continue helping those who have trouble getting back to civilian life.

“It just got me thinking, really that long? And I’m trying to think about where all the time has gone,” Matt Benishek, the program supervisor for VetStars Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program, said. “It doesn’t quite seem like it’s been 20 years.”

Joining the Marines was the first thing he did once he got out of high school. He joined the effort after the U.S. and allies invaded Iraq.

“We were supplying the front lines, so we were always on the move,” Benishek said.

But, getting out in 2006, he found he did not want to leave those he served with.

“Facing my own inner demons and what not, I felt a calling,” he said. “You know, I felt a higher power pushing me in a different direction.”

That is how he got involved with VetStar in Lubbock and met others like Ciera Starns.

“They can sense, too, that they’re in the right place and they’re going to be OK,” Starns said. “Because they know that you’ve got their back.”

Both now work with VetStar’s Homeless Veran Reintegration Program, doing all they can to help veterans find careers and stay away from homelessness.

Those were services Starns was in need of before she landed the job with VetStar.

“I went a couple months without a job, just Ubering here and there to make a little extra money,” Starns said.

And those services will be needed for a long time.

Brown University’s The Cost of War analysis predicts the cost of veterans care will not peak until the middle of the century. That also comes with an overall price tag of about $2.9 trillion.

“A lot of our veterans are on fixed incomes, trying to live off disability and their VA pension,” Benishek said.

And with that, there is still motivation to make sure whoever needs their help can always get it.

“Something’s got to be done. We’re trying to fill that gap we’re trying to bring on more services that allow us to help service those needs,” Benishek said. “But we can only do so much.

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