When you've got an extra car or truck lying about with nothing to do, maybe you can assist a veteran and his or her family through the Purple Heart Car Donation Program. Especially in a time of apparently unending war, it is easy to make the case that every American owes our veterans and most especially those who've been disabled in the line of duty.

The Purple Heart vehicle donation program provides help for military veterans and their families who are in need. This program is a great way to help a charitable cause while getting a tax deduction. The Purple Heart Car Donation program includes outreaches that target many of the special problems and addresses the many needs that a wounded veteran may have.

One could also make the argument that programs such as the Purple Heart Car Donation Program are necessary because federal officials aren't doing a very good job of taking care of the veterans that it keeps pledging to do a better job of fixing up. However, veterans groups have rarely felt very well taken care of, so the need for charitable programs has always been a part of veteran life.

Given how the cost of insurance (that veterans are not automatically entitled to) keeps going up for veterans and everyone else, it's no wonder that there is so much work to be done by the Purple Heart Car Donation Program and other veterans' groups. Indeed, the amount of money paid for the demonstrably sub-standard care given at some Veterans' Administration (VA) hospitals, has been something of a national scandal since the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.

So, it may surprise you that an old car or truck may be donated to the Purple Heart Car Donation Program without even leaving your pajamas. From their website, you may fill in all the pertinent information that will allow someone to call and arrange a time for pickup

The Purple Heart Car Donation Program differs from many programs in that it doesn't necessarily just sell your vehicle on the open, wholesale market as many online donation services do. In this case, they run their own, non-profit pick up, delivery and repair services. In addition, unlike many other services, you are allowed to drive your running car up to their offices for donation.

There are many good, charitable outreach missions supported by proceeds generated from the Purple Heart Car Donation Program. For instance, some of the better vehicles are used to assist veterans in receiving their medical appointments. Sometimes monies are used to help families get on their feet during war time, or to even help purchase a prosthetic limb better than the most basic models that are covered by veterans' insurance, despite the high fees charged for such coverage.

That organizations such as the Purple Heart Car Donation Program are even necessary is a surprise to many who have, perhaps rightly, assumed that the federal government was indebted to soldiers wounded in the line of duty. However, the sad fact is that once a medal has been awarded, injuries that may have changed a soldier's entire way of life are not considered the government's problem once the soldier has been discharged.

Take the fact of recent increases in massive head injuries during the second Gulf Wars. Even though bake sales and fund raisers across the nation have been trying to send "after-market" head protection to soldiers in the field, it seems that the money being spent keeping people safe is being diverted. The Purple Heart Car Donation Program isn't currently sending body armor to Iraq and Afghanistan, it does support medical testing and helping veterans afford their medications.

With that said, the prognosis for those with brain injuries is not very good. It is for this reason that charities such as Purple Heart Car Donation Program have been stepping in and providing the young spouses of severely injured veterans the skills needed to help care for them when the VA can't.

It is also notable that although the current Gulf Wars did not produce a high mortality rate, by the usual accounting, the flip side of that is a very high proportion of troops that have been injured in the line of duty - with many of them being sent back into action. Though the Purple Heart Car Donation Program is only a drop in this bucket, the lives it has touched have keenly felt its presence.