OUR NEIGHBORS AT WAR. Northern Star columnist Genevieve Diesing welcomes her brother home.

Three months ago our county instituted Veterans Assistance Commissions in Illinois, and in a referendum passed during last Tuesday's primary election, we increased the group's budget from $50,000 to $500,000 a year. While this boost in funds will only average out to an extra $20 a year in residents' property taxes, it provides tangible and efficient "support" for our troops of both past and present.

This support is needed now more than ever. DeKalb has 6,732 registered veterans and a growing number of them are returning from considerably traumatic duty in Iraq. The skeleton counseling program that our government has made mandatory for returning soldiers is a good idea, but most likely not intensive enough on its own to have a significant impact.

"I know a lot of people who would definitely benefit from [added] veteran services," said my brother, Army Specialist Dylan Diesing, who recently returned to the United States from his year-long duty in Iraq.

"Many people could use further counseling," Diesing continued. "Adjusting is a difficult thing, because [in Iraq] people are used to solving their problems by killing them. It can be hard to become comfortable around large groups of people in small areas ... Anywhere you go without a weapon you feel out of place."

Besides providing counseling, organizations like the VAC have supported veterans through health care payments, transportation, monthly subsidies and education benefits. In the past, local groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars assisted the VAC. Thanks to this
referendum, the VAC will not have to rely as heavily on those donations or draw from city funds to help DeKalb's veterans.

The referendum in question is one voted in March to provide more local funding for returning veterans. There's a division of labor challenge involved. The usual welfare economics argument for funding the military at the national level is a public good argument: the Special Forces and the missile subs protect the pacifist and the hawk, the coastal dweller and the mountaineer alike. Is the same thing true for funding the troops' return to civilian life? Or might communities with a larger proportion of young people (there are lots of Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom veterans at Northern Illinois University) have different willingness to fund and constituent services to render than communities with larger proportions of retirees?