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The War Inside

Terrance Heath — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:08:44 -0400

Picture by jcolman

If my dad were alive, I know he'd be hanging the flag in front of our house, where it would stay for the remainder of the weekend. A veteran of two wars, Korea and Vietnam, my father was fiercely patriotic. Yet, displaying the flag on Memorial Day and Veterans' Day was as much a show of loyalty and respect for those he served with, and — I think — an acknowledgment of that they each carried home a part of those wars inside of them. I learned early on that my father carried his experiences in Vietnam and Korea with home him.

One of the earliest rules I remember learning as a child was how to wake dad up from a nap. Don't touch him or shake him, I was told. He might be dreaming about being back in Vietnam, or the defensive reflex required to survive there might kick in and the reaction might be violent. So, when it was time to wake him up, we would stand at the door and call to him until he responded, even well into my high school years. Looking back, in think it was a way of not releasing the war inside — the war he carried with him — into our home.

I never knew what my father experienced in Vietnam, or what he re-experienced sometimes when he closed his eyes to sleep. We never talked about it. Even when I wrote a one act play about Vietnam for a high school literary competition. Two of my classmates and I interviewed Vietnam veterans we knew, and placed classified ads to reach more veterans willing to share their experiences. I was surprised by how many were willing, even eager, to talk to three high school boys about what they'd experienced.

But I never interviewed my dad. I was in charge of distilling the interviews into an initial script of monologues that my classmates and I would perform, after they offered their input and edits. But I don't remember my dad ever reading the script. We performed the play at our county literary competition, and won the chance to perform it at the state competition. But I don't remember my dad ever seeing the play, or even talking to him about it.

Years later, when my parents came to visit me in Washington, D.C., I took my dad to the Korean and Vietnam war memorials. I watched him walk the length of the Vietnam memorial, stopping at the names of the men he'd known. I witness his silent tears at each stop. Yet, we never talked about his experience. To this day I don't know what he saw, or what he brought home from those wars.

I think that's because, though he'd brought home his experiences from the war, he wanted to keep the war — the war inside — out of his home.

Though he passed away just over two years ago, I thought of my dad, and all he kept inside of him when I read about two of the most recent Iraqi veterans to commit suicide. Recruiter Nils Aaron Andersson, who suffered PTSD, shot himself at two o'clock in the morning, on the top floor of a Houston parking garage. Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs, who wrote about his PTSD experience, fatally shot his brother and then himself after a cross-state car chase.

News stories about their suicides were published the same week news broke that of a Veterans Administration employee's email suggesting that veterans with PTSD be diagnosed with disorders that carry a lower disability payment.

An internal e-mail message written by a Veterans Affairs Department employee suggested that the agency avoid giving a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and instead consider a diagnosis that might result in a lower disability payment.

The message, dated March 20 and titled “Suggestion,” said: “Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD.” R/O stands for “rule out.”

“Additionally,” it said, “we really don’t or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD.”

News of their suicides — Andersson was one of 16 recruiters to take their own lives since 2000 — came one week before documents released by the VA gave further evidence of the agency's failure to address veterans' mental health needs.

New VA documents obtained exclusively by VCS using the Freedom of Information Act indicate the VA is only paying disability benefits for PTSD to 33,247 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, although 67,717 have been diagnosed with PTSD. According to Sullivan, VCS is calling for an investigation into this apparent discrepancy.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in September 2007 stated that the VA's "lack of early identification techniques" led to "inconsistent diagnosis and treatment" of PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury. According to the GAO, early diagnosis is essential in preventing PTSD's consequences - which could be deadly.

It's bad enough that we sent men and women overseas to fight a war founded disinformation, in insufficient numbers, and with inadequate equipment. But, when they come home with deep psychological wounds from that war, and we give them less than the treatment they need, Memorial Day celebrations and speeches ring hollow.

Let's all pay lip service to Support Our Troops. But if we want to be honest, we should edit those yellow-ribbon bumper stickers to say Support Our Troops — As Long As It Doesn't Cost Anything.

Let's acknowledge that this new generation of soldiers and Marines is amazingly motivated and talented. They're expected to be good killers, good diplomats and ambassadors of American goodwill who operate under impossibly complex rules of engagement in impossibly dangerous and deadly environments.

But if they come home wounded, their brains rattled by the huge IEDs of the new way of war, and if they suffer the horrors of PTSD nightmares and flashbacks, let's dump them on the streets with the least amount of help and benefits possible, as cheaply as possible.

For sure we don't want to improve their chances, better their future prospects, by offering them the same college benefits we gave their grandfathers six decades ago. God help us if they all get college degrees and figure out what we've done to them.

If my father were alive this Memorial Day, he would still display the flag. But not without anger, if he knew how today's veterans are abandoned to fight the war inside — the same one he fought when he came home — on their own.

100-Year Occupation = 100 Years of War

Bill Scher — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:10:39 -0400

Conservatives continue to complain when people bring up Sen. John McCain's support of a 100-year military presence in Iraq. We don't want 100 year of war, they insist. They just want our troops to, in McCain's words, "maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world." So, they demand McCain's words be taken in context.

Fine. Let's go to the videotape!

The problem for conservatives is: to take those words in context invites a broader foreign policy debate whether or not it's sensible and desirable to install permanent military bases in Iraq.

That's not a debate conservatives are likely to win. In a recent CBS poll, 68% of Americans are only "willing to have large numbers of U.S. troops remain in Iraq" for one or two years. Only 6% are willing to have our troops there for more than 5 years, let alone 100.

But as Dick Cheney says about public opinion, "So?"

This is not just about public sentiment. On policy grounds, the goal of a 100-year "presence in a very volatile part of the world," is inherently destabilizing and damaging to national and global security.

Polling of Iraqis shows a direct link between opposition among the Iraqi people to permanent bases and support among the Iraqi people for attacks on US troops. And as our own intelligence community explains, factors fueling the “jihadist movement” include “fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness." In turn, "the Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists."

That's why the policy of permanent occupation has been so destabilizing and detrimental to the fight against terrorism.

Claiming a 100-year occupation in Iraq would be like Germany or Korea reveals an immense lack of foreign policy knowledge, judgment and vision. The situations and political dynamics have absolutely no similarity.

Furthermore, it makes no sense for conservatives to say we will only stay in Iraq for 100 years if Americans aren't being harmed and killed. Americans have been getting harmed and killed for five years, yet that doesn't seem to dampen the conservative desire for a permanent occupation.

Despite the weakness of the conservative foreign policy argument, embodied in McCain's "100 Years" remarks, they are trying to get as many people as possible to see and hear those remarks, repeatedly whining to the media that the remarks are being taken out of context. The conservative blog RedState is now calling on its readers to complain to specific reporters for inaccurate reporting, when as you can see, that reporting was a completely accurate depiction of McCain's position, referring to it as an "100 year occupation" or being "in Iraq for 100 years." (Feel free to contact the reporters on their list and say, "You got it just right! Ignore the conservative complainers.")

Some have at times made a short-cut and characterized McCain's position as "100 years of war." Sure, it's more exact, and preferable, to say McCain backed a 100-year military presence. But you can certainly make the argument that a policy goal of a 100-year occupation will bring you 100 years of war.

And as I noted in a recent bloggingheads.tv appearance with the Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll, conservatives do not accuse each other of lying when they characterize proposals for troop withdrawal from Iraq as "surrender." Here's our exchange:

BS: Is it a lie and a distortion when John McCain says that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to "surrender" in Iraq?

CC: No.

BS: Why? Have they openly said, "I would like to surrender in Iraq today"? Is that what they say?

CC: Well, there's no one to surrender to.

BS: Exactly.

CC: But, saying you're going to -- well, we can get into the details of that in a bit -- but saying you're automatically, no matter what happens in 2009, going to start bringing a brigade home every month, definitely signals that whatever enemies we do have in Iraq have succeeded in getting us out of there on their terms.

BS: That is McCain's interpretation and characterization of what that policy would be. It is not Obama's or Clinton's interpretation.

Just as McCain would say, "I think we can have a 100-year permanent military presence that would just be hunky-dory," the Democratic, liberal interpretation of that is: that is effectively going to bring you a 100-year war.

Conservatives have been characterizing proponents of withdrawal of being "Surrendercrats" for years, without being called liars by the media. They do not want the traditional media to hold candidates and advocates to a consistent standard. They just don't want people to be able to make the simple connection between a 100-year occupation and 100 more years of destabilizing war.

Their problem is their pushback requires hearing McCain's full remarks, which only serves to make that connection easier, and make the choice between a progressive and a conservative foreign policy clearer.

For more on a progressive foreign policy, check out Making Sense.

Where's the Love for Our Veterans?

Isaiah J. Poole — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:48:29 -0500

The nation’s legions of homeless or near-homeless veterans make a mockery of all of those “support the troops” bumper stickers and other symbols of faux patriotism conservative blowhards like to flaunt — which is why right-wing mouthpiece Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel has invested so much in the effort to convince his viewers that the phenomenon of homeless veterans is a myth sprung from the liberal mind of former Sen. John Edwards.

A definitive report on the subject of homeless veterans—compiled by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and based largely on statistics from federal, state and local agencies—has been around since November, and it effectively debunks the dissembling of the O’Reilly spin machine. It is also a stark testament to how much damage conservative government as done to the support services that, if properly funded, would get many of these veterans off the streets—ranging from subsidized housing to mental health services.

But leave it to Robert Greenwald to bring the statistics, and O’Reilly’s unconscionable rants, into sharp, visceral focus. First, his Brave New Films produced a video that graphically puts to shame O’Reilly’s ridicule of Edwards, who highlighted the homelessness alliance findings while running for president earlier this year. How he is ratcheting up the issue with a Valentine's Day demonstration at the mouth of the beast— the Fox News Channel studios in midtown Manhattan.

At the front of the line will be the homeless veterans that O'Reilly denies exists.

According to a press release, "the vets will demand that O'Reilly stop denying the problem of homelessness among former servicemen and women, quit referring to homeless vets as drug addicts, and set the record straight on the challenges veterans face when they return from military service."

The demonstration comes after repeated calls by organizations that work with homeless veterans for O'Reilly to retract his statements. So far, O'Reilly hasn't. Instead, Brave New Films recounts this incident:

A delegation of homeless veterans from Fitzgerald House, an organization that provides housing and assistance to veterans, visited FOX News two weeks ago to hand deliver the petition, signed by over 18,000 people. There they were confronted by O'Reilly's producer Jesse Watters, who ridiculed them for not having watched O'Reilly's program on television in spite of the fact that these were people without a roof over their heads, much less cable TV. The next day, O'Reilly, who had not come down to meet with the delegation, went on air to call the vets "confused," saying that he felt "sorry for those guys" and that they were being "used."

The report by the homelessness alliance details how Bush administration programs have fallen far short of adequately funding services for homeless veterans, from shelter needs to mental health.

But when it comes to supporting our veterans, the conservative failure doesn't stop there. McClatchy Newspaper columnist Joseph Galloway writes in his latest column:

If a society is judged by the way it treats its military veterans, then we who live in the richest nation in the world and those who lead us should be condemned for our shameful neglect and callous disregard for those who defend us.

When 15 million Johnnies came marching home from World War II, a package of benefits enacted in 1944 and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt was waiting for them, extending assistance for education, unemployment and the purchase of a house or a business.

More than half of those who served in World War II—8 million of the 15 million veterans of that war—signed up and had their college tuitions or technical school fees paid by Uncle Sam. They also received monthly checks to cover housing and food.

It was expensive, but for every dollar the U.S. Government spent on educational benefits for WWII veterans, the government recouped between $5 and $12 in taxes paid on the higher incomes earned by college graduates, says the Congressional Research Service.

Contrast that, Galloway goes on to write, to today's efforts to beef up GI educational benefits:

Sen. James Webb, D-Virginia, a Vietnam veteran, has been doggedly pursuing passage of a new GI Bill aimed at helping these new wartime veterans get that education by giving them much the same educational benefits that were extended to their grandfathers after WWII.

Under his bill, which has attracted three dozen other sponsors, the government would resume paying full college tuition for these veterans for a period linked to their times in uniform, but for no more than 36 months or four academic years. Every eligible college veteran also would receive a check for $1,000 a month to help cover living expenses.

This would cost the government about $2 billion a year, which is about what we're presently spending every 36 hours in Iraq.

President George W. Bush and the Pentagon oppose any such improvement of this miserly benefit for our young veterans. Why? The president says it would cost too much and be too hard to administer, and he's threatened to veto Webb's bill if it ever passes.

There is a pattern here. The conservative movement loves to wrap itself around its supposed love and respect for the military, but over the last seven years it has consistently failed to put its money where its mouth is. Even for those who have given life and limb for their country, it seems that conservatives would rather say "You're on your own" and turn their backs than do the hard work of solving the problems veterans face when they return from war.

We need to hasten the day in which it would be the Bill O'Reilly's of the world whose views would be relegated to a dark, cold space under a bridge.

Why Real Security

Robert Borosage — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:02:05 -0500

The events of September 11, 2001 etched the threat of jihadist terrorists into our collective memory. It was not the first act of terror aimed at Americans nor is it likely to be the last. Its zealous perpetrators, though, may not be the most destructive threat we face.

Global pandemics will take more victims. From Hurricane Katrina to California wildfires, catastrophic climate change is likely to wreak widespread destruction. Our unprecedented global indebtedness and growing manufacturing deficit are a far greater threat to our economic security.

Yet 9/11 proved that the threat posed by the violent extremists is real and present—and must be met. But rather than focus on that problem, the United States is mired in an occupation of Iraq that is worsening the terrorist threat and damaging our ability to respond to the other security concerns we face.