As hundreds of thousands of Americans are sent to fight for an evil cause in the name of fighting an evil cause, can it be any different today? The evidence isn't promising for a different outcome.
On July 11, 2007, in a violent Baghdad neighborhood, Master Sgt. Jeffrey R. McKinney killed himself. His father Charles, a Vietnam Marine combat veteran who was a member of one of the earliest units sent to Vietnam, isn't able to explain to himself what caused is 20-year veteran son to lose it in Iraq. His plaintive question, "What kind of suffering were you going through, Jeff, that brought you to that point?", goes unanswered.
Timothy Bowman of Forreston, Illinois drove to his father's business eight months after he returned from Iraq to get the gun he used to kill himself. His parents have donated his boots to the American Friends Service Committee's "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in his memory.
At least he didn't kill himself in front of his parents, as did Cullman, AL veteran Pvt. Tommie Edward Jones. Jones' mother, Dorothy Screws, has taken up the cause of getting a law passed that would require soldiers returning from intense combat to undergo some type of psychological therapy. “If I can save one soldier, it will be worth it,” she says.
It will prove to be a tough fight, for there is evidence that what little existing treatment exists is doled out more often to white soldiers than to non-whites. Historically, when a resource is scares, it goes to the dominant portion of society.
Sidney Lee, president of the African American Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Association, served as a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger back in the 1970s. He claims in a suit filed in San Francisco against the Department of Veterans Affairs that studies showed the majority of Blacks in Vietnam were combat soldiers (80 percent), who would experience PTSD, a significant number for life, upon return to the states, but doctors refused to diagnose the disease. Lee also claims that, "According to the Pentagon Papers, the reason for this is it provided a legal form of genocide. The reason they had more African Americans in Vietnam in combat positions is because, they said, African Americans were more suited for that war primarily because of their surroundings and the environments that they grew up in.” U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, an 86-year-old World War II veteran originally appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon, is waffling on this case. “Whatever I do, one side or the other is going to appeal,” he complained. Maybe this "majority" should remain silent.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Not to quibble, but why when I read this piece do I feel that the concern over soldier's committing suicide is a tacked on afterthought secondary to the attempt to politicize their deaths as another way to strike out against the Bush administration?
That said, a couple of points ought to be clarified here.
First you don't put military suicides in context. Among Iraq War vets the suicide rate is 17.3/100,000 which is about a third higher than the suicide rate among males of the same age in the civilian population (12.65/100,000). That's distressing, but it's hardly an enormous increase in the suicide rate. Native American youth have a higher suicide rate (19.3/100,000) without even serving in a war.
Second, you suggest that White soldiers are getting treated disproportionately. What you fail to take into account is that the suicide rate among white males is enormously higher than among other ethnic groups. Over 80% of the suicides among males 10-24 years old are white males. The same patterns hold true in the military. So more attention is paid to the white soldiers because statistically they're more likely to kill themselves.
You also gloss over PTSD from previous wars. It is ALWAYS a significant factor for post-conflict casualties. If anything more veterans of WW1 and WW2 suffered from PTSD when the VA offered virtually no treatment options at all. By comparison today's soldiers are kind of lucky.
Dave
2 - Ruvy
Realist,
Without wasting time on stats that I have no clue about, it is a given that war is hell. And when soldiers are used as tools of a corporate establishment, it is even more hellish. Using this article to merely whine that America shouldn't be in Iraq degrades the suffering of the returning marginalized soldiers, and degrades the way the American establishment, having used young men on a tale of nebulous glory, spits them out like apple pits.
A draft where all young men had to serve their country would be fairer than sucking in kids who think something other than depression and war wounds will come from military service for a corporation's interests (defending one's home is a whole 'nuther story). In addition, it might, with time, create enough reservists to execute the pigs at the top of the American corporate-political pyramid.
Fortunately, because we have a draft here, we have that pool of angry reservists....
3 - Dan Miller
Realist,
As Ruvy points out, war is hell. It has always been hell, and it always will be. This is equally true of "good" wars and "bad" wars. It is also true that the primary function of soldiers is to kill people and to break things. That is what they are trained to do best.
Soldiers returning from "good" wars are treated pretty much OK; perhaps not as well as they should be, because after any war society wants to get back to normal, and looking after the soldiers who won the war is a bit of a nuisance. Soldiers returning from "bad" wars are treated quite differently. Returning Vietnam vets were often spit upon and suffered all manner of degradation. Those returning from the Iraq war are treated only modestly better.
There is nothing new in this. Sometime, when you have nothing better to do, read some of Rudyard Kipling's verses about the treatment of soldiers. Sure, he is no longer on the politically correct list of writers, but I think that's because most people haven't read much of his stuff. Here is an excerpt from Tommy
Perhaps the main difference between then and now is that "Tommy" is not regarded as "Savior of 'is country" even when the guns are shooting. Even then, it's "dogs and soldiers stay off the grass."
Dan
4 - Clavos
"Do you like Kipling?"
"I don't know, I've never kippled"
I love Kipling. My dad was a great fan of his (also B. Russell, Dan), and instilled appreciation for him in me.
I was a Lit major in college in the 60s. My profs sneered at Kipling then. It pissed me off, and diminished my respect for them as scholars and authority figures.
/personal reminiscences...
Sorry. As you were.
5 - Dan Miller
Clav,
I'm happy that somebody does. He's one of my very favorites, and I simply can't understand why he is deemed totally politically incorrect and therefore very little read. The Ballad of East and West, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, Gunga Din and others are great. True, they have a certain imperialist tone, but so what? Britain was an imperial power, and proud of it: The English Flag,
Imperialism wasn't Kipling's fault. He wrote about society as it then existed, not as some of us would now like to see it. And he did it damn well.
Dan
6 - Dave Nalle
I imagine a snowball fight will break out in hell before Realist reads and understands Kipling. To accept Kipling's message of duty and responsibility and sacrifice Realist would have to reject most of the basic principles on which his worldview is founded.
Dave
7 - Dan Miller
Dave,
There is always hope. Perhaps global cooling will chill off Hell sufficiently for that to happen.
Dan
8 - Clavos
He wrote about society as it then existed, not as some of us would now like to see it. And he did it damn well.
He did, indeed.
Here's an interesting essay by George Orwell, written in response to a critique of Kipling by Eliot. Orwell's essay, penned sometime during the WW II era, makes your point and is, I think, quite perceptive, though somewhat critical of Kipling's work.
9 - Joanne Huspek
Good piece. As a former Army brat (father served in Korea and VietNam) I can tell you that I see both sides. Back when my father was in VietNam, I was against the war. It felt unnecessary and wrong. This juxtaposition of ideas in my family (where obviously the military was paying all our bills) caused a lot of personal problems for me.
War is indeed hell. On the other hand, I can see how war is necessary. We don't have a draft now, and men (like my dad) sign up for the military. They know the score.
No matter how you feel about war, our returning veterans should always be treated with the utmost respect, and it hasn't always been the case.
10 - bliffle
Dave asks "...why when I read this piece do I feel that the concern over soldier's committing suicide is a tacked on afterthought secondary to the attempt to politicize their deaths as another way to strike out against the Bush administration?"
Because you're a Bush apologist.
"tacked on". Hardly. Realist mentions it on every page, in every paragraph, and almost with every breath in this article. Indeed, it is even in the title.
Dave is just lying to create a distraction. Again.
11 - bliffle
"war is hell. It has always been hell, and it always will be."
A truth that should be given great consideration BEFORE entering a war, not as an apology for a failing rogue administration AFTER the war is underway, as an excuse for mistreatment of soldiers.
Indeed, this lying administration represented the war as a flower strewn path to glory. Before the war. Now they say otherwise, because it better suits their purposes.
Liars.
12 - Clavos
Liars.
You're surprised?
They are politicians.
13 - bliffle
Dave: "...To accept Kipling's message of duty and responsibility and sacrifice..."
When are you enlisting, Dave?
14 - Lumpy
So bliffle this administration told the same lies about this war as every other administration told about every other war. And the outcome didn't match the expectations they built up. Now thereals a surprise.
Are u lefties really this stupid or is it just an act u put on for political purposes?
15 - bliffle
We impeached Politician Clinton for lying about his sex life, a small misdemeanor, but we cannot seem to impeach Politician Bush for lying us into a war, which is a Big Felony.
Have we gone soft on crime?
16 - Clavos
What part of the US Code prohibits a president from lying to engage us in war?
And, if it exists (citation?), why haven't we impeached every single president in power at the time we entered into each of our many wars?
17 - Dr Dreadful
What part of the US Code prohibits a president from lying to engage us in war?
None that I know of.
But there is a part which enables you folks to vote the bastard out of office for doing so...
So, er... what was the deal with that back in '04???
18 - Dave Nalle
Dave: "...To accept Kipling's message of duty and responsibility and sacrifice..."
When are you enlisting, Dave?
At the same time as Kipling, who realized that it's possible to serve your country without serving in the military.
Dave
19 - Dan Miller
Clav,
Thanks for the link to the Orwell piece. I thought the article was interesting but rather "elitist," to use a strange word.
This is, of course, way off thread, but here is a part of Auden's tribute to Yeats on the latter's death. I find the mention of Kipling and his views interesting.
Kipling didn't get much of a pardon (perhaps his descendants should have contributed to President Clinton's library fund), but maybe Paul Claudel, whom I had to look up on Google, did.
Dan
20 - Dave Nalle
I doubt that Kipling would welcome a pardon from those who think that he needs one.
Kipling is still very much current in the military sub-culture in America and I think that would please him more than being forgiven by those for whom he had very little regard.
Dave
21 - Clavos
I hadn't read that Auden poem since my college days and had forgotten that it mentioned Kipling.
FWIW, I had to look up Claudel, too.
Long-lived, wasn't he?
22 - Dan Miller
Dave,
I don't think Kipling has anything at all for which to be forgiven. I just found it interesting that Auden thought he did.
Dan
23 - Lumpy
Bliffle. I'm serious here. Are you on antipsychotics? You go beyond naivete to the point where it's a pathological condition.
24 - bliffle
Clavos: "What part of the US Code prohibits a president from lying to engage us in war?"
How about the US constitution and "high crimes and misdemeanors".
Or is that too naive?
25 - bliffle
Dave sez: "...it's possible to serve your country without serving in the military. "
Right. especially if you have Other Things To Do.
Let's see, while my big brother was fighting a close contact war in the pacific my sisters had other things to do, like working 12 ours a day at a munitions factory loading shells with cordite and mounting warheads.
Tell us about the Other Things To Do that involved you, Dave. It must be pretty thrilling.