Cardi B is only 24 hours into her mandated 15 days of community service and already is seeing life from a new perspective. After her second day volunteering at a facility for military veterans, she took to Instagram Live to update fans on her experience.
“I have learned so much things these past two days, and I have learned things about myself,” said Cardi as she became emotional on Friday (Jan. 20). She added she did not want to cry but that her experience on Thursday (Jan. 19) was especially touching.
“You know we all celebrate Veterans Day, and you know we always say, ‘Thank you to our soldiers,’ but I don’t know anybody who’s been to war,” the “Bodak Yellow” artist continued. “I don’t know any veterans. I don’t know anybody that went to Afghanistan, or any type of war like the Vietnam War, the Gulf Coast War,” she added.
The Grammy winner mentioned that despite hearing about the hardships veterans experience post-service, she really could not fathom the challenges and lack of resources made available to the nation’s retired servicemen and women until she began to witness them in person. “They go through so much and like this country — or a lot of countries, I’m not going to say just this country; some countries are even worse — they don’t, like, provide proper service to our veterans or ex-soldiers and everything,” noted the New York native.
She detailed some of the hardships they endure, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. “A lot of them turn to drug abuse because they trying to escape all of the things they went through. And it’s crazy because you might see a crackhead or you might see somebody shooting dope in the train, and you might just think, ‘Oh look at that dope head, look at that fiend,’ but that’s most likely a veteran that is going through so much mental s**t and has fought for our country, and because he couldn’t get the help he needed, he’s in that situation.”
“It’s so crazy to me how [the government] just don’t give a f**k… This is what they train for, to be a ranger, to be in the Navy and they get injured, and they come back home, and they don’t even know how to adjust to society, so they turn to crimes, they turn to drugs… It’s just so sad that it hurts me,” the Invasion of Privacy artist concluded.
Cardi was given the community service sentence in connection to a 2018 club brawl. She was originally expected to complete the hours by Jan. 17; however, she appeared before a Queens judge that day and was granted an extension. She now has until March and is already proving she is serious about knocking out the rest of the days ahead of the new deadline.
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