Conversations With Homeless Vets Living or working in San Francisco, you can't avoid the homeless. Near our office at Fifth and Mission, I walk past many homeless people every day, yet I never talk to them. And, whenever I read about them, it's about the homeless as an issue, not about individual human beings with unique lives.

For many of them, those lives have included service in the military. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, 33 percent of all homeless men are veterans, as is nearly one-fourth of the homeless population in general.

As the United States ships thousands of troops worldwide to fight the "war on terror," I find myself thinking about what joining the military and fighting for one's country really means. I am fascinated with warriors, probably because as a woman in America, it's an experience I'll probably never have. I wonder particularly what it's like to have served your country and now be living destitute on the streets.

I decided to find out. Over the last few weeks, I spoke with several homeless vets who I met through Dave Hanzel at St. Anthony's Dining Room in downtown San Francisco. Some of them saw combat duty, and others didn't.

I'm not here to weigh in on policy about homeless people -- what care or cash they should be given -- as much as I wish to give a glimpse into their lives. I hope you find the interviews compelling for no other reason than that they reinforce the idea that we are all connected in our humanity. Human life is fragile. We all suffer. And, yet, for some inexplicable reason, most of us carry on.

I've done my best to verify that what the people I talked to told me has some basis in fact. But, with the homeless, it's hard to identify people with certainty and even more difficult to track them down to check the facts. I leave it for you to decide for yourselves. I may even include some obvious tall tales because they're so entertaining. (By Amy Moon, Features Editor, SF Gate ) SF Gate