America’s Veterans Are Moving Abroad
By John H Davis
We didn’t fight a war for twenty plus years to live in a country at war with itself. The country made enormous demands of us, we deployed over and over again and paid the cost. We kill ourselves at rates higher than our battlefield enemies ever could. There was no winning our war and now we’re left wondering what it was all for.
Mass shootings, political division, and living in a country on edge is making a lot of veterans buy a one way ticket to a more peaceful life. We’ve fought enough, I spent every day of my twenties training and going back and forth to the Middle East. I don’t want to spend my thirties fighting too. That’s why myself and over 20,000 veterans moved to the Dominican Republic. It’s more than the lower cost of living, it’s not the beaches or year-round beautiful weather. It’s the peace that disconnecting from America provides.
Our struggles aren’t a secret, veteran suicide has become as American as baseball and apple pie. Our problems aren’t a priority for our political class. Around twenty veterans take their lives every day in the United States, the veterans living abroad suicide rate is zero. Because veterans living abroad aren’t just surviving, we’re living. I’m on a mission to tell veterans that sometimes we can live healthier and happier lives outside of the United States. For me and other veterans who have PTSD, the intensity in the air in America exacerbates our internal conflicts. When it comes to healing, sometimes it’s more about the environment than anything else. Plants, veterans, and people can’t grow in toxicity.
A lot of veterans are unaware that we can still receive our military retirements and VA benefits living outside of the United States, we can even use the GI Bill as close as Mexico or as far away as the Philippines. Veterans aren’t wealthy, you don’t get rich working for the government unless you’re in congress. My rent when I lived in Boston was $2,500 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, my rent in the Dominican Republic is $500 and my apartment in DR is nicer.
We gave a lot to a country that gave us little, and veterans are so fed up with the tension, division, and absurdity in the United States that they’re leaving it. Why wouldn’t we? We can live higher quality lives at a lower cost, disconnect from whatever people are mad about today, and heal ourselves after years of war. Nobody knows what direction the next presidential election is going to take the country, but veterans deserve better candidates in 2024 than two Vietnam draft dodgers. More and more veterans are throwing up their hands and moving abroad and Veterans of Foreign Wars posts and American Legions are popping up as far away as Thailand.
After our conflicts, veterans deserve peace. The purpose of all war, according to St. Augustine is of course peace. But St. Augustine lived far before Lockheed Martin. Peace doesn’t seem like it’s going to be coming to America in the next few years. If you’ve ever thought about living abroad, now seems like a good time. On my social media and website you can find more information about veterans living abroad.
John H. Davis
Author of Combat To College an official AUSA title
US Army Ret.
- Ed. Harvard
IG: @john.h.davis.writer
TikTok: Combat.Vet.Abroad
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John H. Davis
Author of Combat To College an official AUSA title
US Army Ret.
- Ed. Harvard
