Lets take "Support The Troops" first.
We all know about the Walter Reed problems, somewhat updated Here or at least, as the article points out, getting there. This after how many years of our current two theater conflicts?
Or, for those that don't follow, or believe, the toll that War takes on us Strong Human Animals, not just the deaths and maiming but the mental toll, the examples are numorous and will grow even higher with these mutiple tour conflicts.
Like this:
Post-Traumatic stress: Invisible Wounds
When the 20-year-old infantry soldier woke up, he was on the locked-down psychiatric ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. A nurse handed him pajamas and a robe, but they reminded him of the flowing clothes worn by Iraqi men. He told the nurse, “I don’t want to look like a freakin’ Haj.” He wanted his uniform. Request denied. Shoelaces and belts were prohibited.
Every month, between 20 and 40 soldiers are evacuated from Iraq for mental problems, according to the Army.
Individual therapy with a trained clinician, a key element in recovery from PTSD, is infrequent and targeted group therapy is offered only twice a week.
Now what does "Support" really mean, that is outside of false flag waving, slapping a magnetic ribbon on a vehicle, condemning fellow citizens as 'unpatriotic' and in camp with the supposed enemy. It certainly doesn't mean reading about a total lack of real "Support" or real Concern from a society that cheers on, some continue the cheering while sitting on their butts in the comfort of their homes listening and watching the few others who call themselves journalists spreading the fear and false patriotism, sending our military, not in Defense of the Country, but in Invasion and Occupation of anothers.
Battlefield breakdown: The full price of war in Iraq
Tucker walks in pain and says both feet need surgery. He was recently fitted for a hearing aid -- one toll of being exposed to many explosions.
He also has been on medications for sleep disorders and depression that started after his first deployment four years ago. His wife, Nicky, worries the nightmares and sleepwalking will continue in Iraq when she is not around to keep watch.
"From when he first went in and now -- he is not the same," Nicky Tucker tells us. "He's always trying to be the bigger man and take care of himself but there's a point where he has to be looked at and he needs to be taken care of, but the mission always comes first and he has to worry about himself later."
And certainly not taking care of those who need the care when they return!
1,800,000 U.S. VETERANS HAVE NO HEALTH CARE
As the nation struggles to improve medical and mental health care for
military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, about 1.8
million U.S. veterans under age 65 lack even basic health insurance or access to care at Veterans Affairs hospitals, a new study has found.
The ranks of uninsured veterans have increased by 290,000 since 2000, said Stephanie J. Woolhandler, the Harvard Medical School professor who presented her findings yesterday before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Filner says PTSD misdiagnoses cheat vets
The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee plans a summer attack on the military’s disability review system, hoping that congressional hearings focusing on what he called the “terrible scandal of deliberate misdiagnosis” of mental health problems could lead to an overhaul of government policies.
Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., said he expects to have veterans testify they were improperly diagnosed as having pre-existing personality disorders rather than post-traumatic stress disorder, a move that denies service members military disability benefits and could, under some circumstances, even leave them with no post-service veterans’ benefits if their mental health problems have led to misconduct, such as abuse of alcohol or drugs.
Funds for vets and the wounded
Since the president announced an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, deaths of military personnel in Iraq have risen from 138 to nearly 3,600 today. Also, more than 95 percent of the American personnel wounded in Iraq {35,000 to 53,000, depending on how they are counted, according to a recent Associated Press series} have been sustained since the end of major combat operations. Under these circumstances, now would not be an ideal time to reiterate a White House threat to veto the military construction/veterans affairs appropriation if it exceeds the level the president proposed in his 2008 budget. So, the White House has wisely retreated from a veto threat that would have been a political disaster for the president, the vice president and their party. Political ramifications aside, it also would have been a slap in the face to returning wounded warriors.
That's only a few.
Now lets look at "Strong National Defense". We have ever growing huge defense budgets, with appropiations outside of budgets for continuation of our invasions and occupations, and very few even ask the questions of 'Where are these Billions upon Billions really going?', instead thinking the more spent the more secure we are, while those reaping the benefits of the wealth laugh at the rest of us.
For a "Strong National Defense" you first have to have the want to take care of those that serve while they are serving, and than especially taking care of the ones needing the care after they return, no matter the cost nor the lenght of time that care is needed. You want Wars, that cost Billions to wage, than you had better be prepared to pay the Multi Billions needed for the results of!
For a "Strong National Defense" a country needs to remember the lesson of previous failures of it's own National Policies and certainly not repeat those failures, one way is by not engaging the same policies again.
Lets take a walk down memory lane, as to a time, not long ago, of a total failure of National Policy with just two lessons not learned:
Questions Like,‘Would You Rather Fight Them Here Or In Pasadena?’”
From: Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, by Christian G. Appy, U. Of North Carolina Press, 1984
The justification of the war that new soldiers found most persuasive was a version of the domino theory that emphasized the threat to the United States if communism triumphed in Vietnam.
The focus was not so much on the potential threat to other nations.
Instead, the soldiers were most drawn to interpretations that stressed the necessity of the war to prevent a direct attack on American security.
Moskos found these common responses: “The only way we’ll keep them out of the States is to kill them here,” “Let’s get it over now, before they’re too strong to stop,” “They have to be stopped somewhere,” and “Better to zap this country than let them do the same to us.”
John Sack quotes this statement as typical: “The communists win in Vietnam it’ll just be Laos, Thailand, the Philippines, and then we’ll have to fight in California.”
In 1968, Michael Herr found such views most pervasive among the top brass, who were fond of asking skeptical journalists questions like, “Would you rather fight them here or in Pasadena?”
{“Maybe we could beat them in Pasadena, I’d think, but I wouldn’t say it,” Herr writes.}
Many “lifers” - career officers and NCOs -- did their best to indoctrinate their troops with this either/or proposition; either you fought in Vietnam or the entire U.S. population would be attacked.
Soldiers were to believe that even though they were on the other side of the planet, they were truly fighting for the folks back home.
Frank Mathews had his first experience of killing in 1966. After looking at the Viet Cong corpse, he vomited and remained sick and depressed for several days.
An “old salt” sergeant tried to lift his spirits with these words: “Just figure it this way -- that [man you killed] could have been the one that was in the States screwing your mama, or your wife, or your girlfriend, and that’s the reason you killed him.”
This psychosexual version of domino theory “made a lot of sense” to the young soldier.
He was a gung-ho combat volunteer and remained so through the remainder of his tour.
While his motivation centered on avenging the deaths of buddies who had died -- a desire to pay back the enemy -- whenever he looked for a larger rationale for the war, he always returned to the sergeant’s promise that the war was protecting American women.
And this:
“Atrocity Was Intrinsic To The Very Nature Of American Intervention In Vietnam”
“Given The Policy Of Fighting A Counterrevolutionary War On Behalf Of A Client State Incapable Of Winning Widespread Support Among Its People, American Atrocities Were Inevitable”
From: Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, by Christian G. Appy, U. Of North Carolina Press, 1984
One might argue, as I have, that atrocity was intrinsic to the very nature of American intervention in Vietnam; that given the policy of fighting a counterrevolutionary war on behalf of a client state incapable of winning widespread support among its people, American atrocities were inevitable.
In truth, American soldiers were not responsible for the war. Most were not even old enough to vote. {The voting age was not lowered from twenty-one to eighteen until.
1971.}
Harper's own views about the war, as he readily conceded, were confused. In the same breath he could denounce limitations on American bombing and the initial U. S. intervention in Vietnam.
That is not necessarily a contradictory position. In effect he said, we should have won the war or stayed out.
A simple enough argument to state, but one that evades the questions of whether the war could have been won or whether it was worth winning (that is, a just cause) and the further question of why it would be right to continue trying to win a war in which the original intervention was wrong or misguided.
When those questions are broached, Harper's conflicted feelings and those of many veterans are drawn to the surface.
A 1979 Harris survey found that a vast majority of veterans (89 percent) agreed with the statement, “The trouble in Vietnam was that our troops were asked to fight in a war which our political leaders in Washington would not let them win.”
Yet a clear majority of veterans {59 percent} also agreed with a completely contrary viewpoint: “The trouble in Vietnam was that our troops were asked to fight in a war we could never win.”
The general public shared this contradictory view {73 and 65 percent agreeing with each statement, respectively}.
Of course, both formulations have a common appeal: they put the onus of responsibility for the war and its outcome on American leaders, not on ordinary soldiers and civilians.
They also pose the same attractive alternatives suggested by Harper: win or stay out.
As for the moral legitimacy of the war, Steve Harper struggled to defend U.S. intervention. The United States, he said, was helping the people of Vietnam, people who “wanted us there” and who “wanted their freedom.”
Hard as he tried to sustain that view, however, his memories of the war kept contradicting it.
He could not forget how the Vietnamese almost always seemed to be helping the Viet Cong {“they take all the Americans have to offer and give us nothin' and give the VC all they have”}.
Nor did he try to disguise his disdain for the Vietnamese military and government, which he saw as riddled with corruption and unable and unwilling to fight successfully against the Viet Cong {“they'd turn and run, from their officers on down”}.
This Country, our Whole Society, has neither the will nor the want to "Support The Troops", never has, as the same lack of support is repeated over and over, during and long after any policy that puts our military in harms way, nor does any one political party have an exclusive hold on the term "Strong National Defense", if they did we wouldn't need to keep reminding them of what they are Hired to do, not just say!
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