FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 30, 2008

The War Comes Home Highlights True Cost of Iraq War

Interactive Website Releases Investigation on How Washington Cheats Veterans Out of Benefits

(Berkeley, CA – January 30, 2008) On any given night 200,000 veterans sleep homeless on the streets of the United States. Increasingly those veterans are young people who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latest installment of KPFA Radio's acclaimed interactive website, Warcomeshome.org, features the first person accounts of US veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan who are now homeless or without medical care. The stories are produced by award-winning journalist Aaron Glantz, author of an investigative report for Warcomeshome.org, "How Washington Cheats Veterans out of the Benefits They've Earned".

Specialist James Eggemeyer, whose story is featured on The War Comes Home, ended up homeless just a few months after returning home from Iraq with a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by loading the bodies of dead Iraqis into a Blackhawk helicopter. The Veterans Administration took so long to process Eggemeyer's disability claim that he had to live out of his truck while he waited.

The average wait time for a veteran's disability claim to be decided is now 183 days. More than 600,000 disabled vets are waiting. Tens of thousands more veterans, like Specialist Shaun Manuel and Private Durrell Michael, are being denied medical care and disability benefits they were promised after fighting abroad.

"This investigation shows the tragic conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are not accidental. They're intentional," says journalist Aaron Glantz. "The Bush Administration lied to the American people to get us into this war and it lied to the American soldier to get them to fight it." Glantz, who has an ongoing blog on the site, reported from Iraq over the first three years of the war and is the author of the best-selling book "How America Lost Iraq".

"As America's first listener-sponsored radio station, KPFA has a long tradition of media innovation and critical journalism," says KPFA
interim Program Director Sasha Lilley. "Warcomeshome.org combines these elements, shining a light on the human and social costs of the Iraq occupation for US soldiers, while allowing visitors to use their own blogs, email lists, and social networking sites to engage with and broadcast these stories -- and then take action".

Upcoming stories will look at the sexual assault of women in the US military and the fate of Iraqi refugees who attempt to seek asylum in the United States.

To learn more about "The War Comes Home" go to www.warcomeshome.org


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Founded by pacifists in 1949, KPFA is the United States' first listener-sponsored radio station and the flagship station in the
Pacifica Radio Network. Broadcasting on 94.1 FM in Berkeley, CA, and 88.1 FM on KFCF in Fresno, KPFA's signal reaches one third of the state of California. KPFA's website, kpfa.org, serves thousands of listeners all over the world. KPFA's innovative news, arts, public affairs, and music programs have won numerous awards and have helped redefine the boundaries of radio in America.

Inquiries about "The War Comes Home":

Aaron Glantz
Producer,
aaronfglantz[at]yahoo.com

Sasha Lilley
KPFA Interim Program Director, 510-848-6767 ext 209,
ipd[at]kpfa.org