Crime Victims Deserve Respect Too

In our society, if an armed soldier goes off to war and receives a horrible injury because the "other side" is trying to capture, attack or kill him or her, that soldier is then hailed as a hero, and rightfully so.  On the flip side, if an unarmed citizen walks down the street and is captured, attacked, or killed, that citizen is considered an unfortunate crime victim and is all too often ingnored and even shunned by society.  The victim now makes others feel uncomfortable. The "incident" is discussed only in whispers for fear of upsetting the victim or it is not discussed at all in the belief that if you don't talk about the bad thing, the bad thing won't happen to you.

The crime victim gets no medals, no disability pension and no parades but does get the life long burden of shame. Shame in the sense that they survived and shame in the sense that somehow they brought the violence upon themselves.

The situation typically goes from something bad happened to me, to I am bad because something bad happened to me.

PTSD is an expected and understandable disabilty for war veterans.  For crime victims, PTSD is oten considered a weakness.  They are told to "get over it".

Soldiers, for the most part, volunteer and are trained and armed. They are to be commended for the service they provide to their country.  Civilians, for the most part, are unarmed, untrained and never agreed to fighting an attacker to the death. 

But sometimes they must.