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GORDON DUFF: VETERANS AND THE CHANGING WORLD
NEW POLITICS AND ECONOMY BRING CHALLENGES
MAYBE EVEN AN END OF “PERMANENT WAR”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
The “new vets” coming back from an Iraq conflict which we hope is largely over and an Afghanistan strategy that is designed to move from “surge” to negotiations is providing challenges from a variety of directions.
New vets enter a “vet world” that had been dominated by Vietnam era vets. The government bureaucracy that victimized them stands naked now, proven corrupt, judged by a government that, even under renewed leadership may not prove adequate to the task of reforming it.
New vets return to an economy in collapse. Most Vietnam vets returned to an economy with some life, due to collapse in a couple of years with the Arab oil embargo, but nothing on the scale we are seeing. The “anti-war movement” included an open admission that the war had been part of a Cold War policy not thought out by the “best and brightest.” We had been suckers, much as we have been in Afghanistan, but on a scale 30 times bigger.
The Vietnam “draftee” army was urban, better educated, had been thru much tougher fighting and saw opposition to the war as loyalty to their buddies. When I left Vietnam, my Marine unit had these last words for me: “Get us the hell out of here!” Times and people change, or do they?
Today’s military, is all volunteer, or this is how it is presented. Many join out of financial need, too many are rural and less educated, too many officers are products of colleges with vastly lowered standards. Now, with military pay 10 times what it was during Vietnam, the military is a legitimate job option, not “death and slavery” for $90 a month.
Still, it isn’t a life chosen by National Guard and Reserve troops subjected to endless deployments or regular troops abused by a war destined to do more damage to their own family than any enemy.
After 9/11 many joined to redress attacks on America which, to anyone who cared to look honestly, only ended up serving a few corporations while the war on the terrorist took a back seat for years, ending in the usual defeat. You can never beat an army that doesn’t exist and will never enter the field of battle.
During this period, this 8 year disaster, corruption at every level led to, not only a strengthened enemy but a collapse of our own economic ability to wage war. This the nature of defeat in its truest form. The troops aren’t responsible and blaming them is unacceptable. Thus, taking away the few remaining jobs they could hold or destroying their medical records or disability applications is not acceptable and must stop immediately.
Returning troops are not going to get recognition, but more likely blame, seen as the cause of economic collapse. Stories now filling the news talk of overweight troops eating 3 meals a day served by 40,000 over paid kitchen workers putting out meals few civilians can any longer afford. Why are we seeing these stories? Who is telling us that we should resent decent treatment our troops may or may have not had? Give it a thought.
Press tells of a war fought from air conditioned comfort with days separated by Playstation sessions, gourmet meals and handshaking sessions with seas of politicians sharing the joys of their palatial accommodations.
As to whether any of this is true, some is, but I suspect more than a few folks in Afghanistan are freezing their asses off, eating garbage and having more than an occasional ill wish regarding the “steak and Play Station” army. It may be a “Playstation and Guitar Hero army, but none of my 6 kids are in it.
Casualties are down. Does this mean we turn on our military or be thankful that fewer lives are lost? When our own kids become little but political pawns and family tragedies are little more than the news filler they had become in Vietnam, we know America is back to its old tricks.
I expect our returning troops to be bitter and angry. The government they had been pushed into supporting has been discredited. The war they fought is now considered “a waste of time.” Been there, done that. The only thing that kept most, not all, of the country club types from calling me “baby killer” was the dent my driver would leave in their foreheads.
If they, the vets, are angry, then they should speak up, and keep speaking up. The new America will make that right legal again. I wish I could promise every one of them a job. With millions of empty homes and few jobs, a real program of transition, other than unemployment compensation or partially funded education is not being addressed.
With nearly 30 years of phony “conservative values” ending in a resurgence of progressive and democratic values, the “sticker shock” of a new country with a small minority of violent extremists stressing socialist totalitarianism as a replacement for the traditional Republican Party, political life is now clearly operating in a “no rules’ environment. Do not trust the fatass blowhards any more than you trust liberals promising you the moon. If they are on TV or Radio, they are lying. If you don’t know this already, you should “re-up.”
I can talk about what I have learned. Its time to stop being troops and time to start being people. Military values are not American values. If you had a skill, you still have a skill. If you knew how to work, you still know how to work. However, mealtime is not going to be free and you can still get shot at, especially if you live in Detroit.
What you are is our children, our neighbors and Americans. TV can say what it will. Newspapers betray everything. Those of us who work with veterans are here for you. We are told that the hundreds of billions we are borrowing will create jobs. I want the first ones to go to you. We don’t trust the government to keep that promise. Trust us on that one.
For those of you who have had a tough time in Iraq and Afghanistan, I can’t make any of it go away. I can tell you that things will be better, maybe not at first, but it will happen. Never give up, never.
The politicians, the TV freaks, the newspapers, are all nothing. You are not owed everything, but you are owed. You things you earned, and the things we promised you, will, too often end up as lies. If you were in the military, lies will be no stranger to you.
I want all of you home. I want you in school, in good jobs, healthy as possible and to feel that people believe you made a difference. In 1945, there were millions of Americans who thought WW2 was a waste of time. There are idiots everywhere. Screw the bunch of them.
Finding the good in an America that has been at its own throat for 8 years may not be easy. Even the VA can help, though it takes a bit more than a little “massage” to get through the system at times.
If the America of the SUV and huge suburban home is dead, maybe it never should have existed in the first place.
Everything that was ever good here is still good. Everything that has been taken away is gone as though the gods have judged us for our arrogance.
If you are angry or feeling betrayed, we want to hear it. Maybe you are right. You earned the right to scream. Nobody listened before, they may not now, but at least, for awhile, you can still say what you want without being taken away (unless you do it in a VA psychiatrist’s office….careful about that.)
I only hope with all the political rhetoric about money spent on jobs and an end to war that those who deserve the most will have the chance they deserve.
I also ask the rest of us to watch and watch carefully. We have made promises. We have talked the talk. If the folks in Washington fail our veterans and fail our country as they have for 8 years, no more “free speech zones” and armed thugs at every political rally.
No more phony emails about gun seizure or Nazi Republicans sending all of us to concentration camps…..unless we agree to send $500 bucks to: (Move On, the ACLU, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, the “Keep Bush Out of Jail Fund…etc)
Tell Washington that we have had 8 years of bull. Everything they touched they destroyed. Its time they fixed what they can and learn to keep their hands off.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=5216
Posted by Gordon Duff on Mar 9 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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As a veteran of OIF/OEF, your words hit quite strong. And you say the things I want to say.
Not bad, but I still disagree with your view of our men and women in uniform. Why do you think they are less educated if they are more rural? Our urban schools are not even in the same league as our rural schools when it comes to the 3R’s. Urban schools may do an excellent job in teaching how to put condoms on, but that’s about it. Our men and women fighting for this country are some of the best educated in all of America. I know you just don’t want to admit that today’s corp is simply better than “your” corp, but it is. It doesn’t take anything away from yours, but today’s is simply better. Yes, there are quite a few less fortunate folks in today’s service, but the opportunity today’s military gives them is unprecedented. We obviously talk to different folks in today’s military because the one’s I talk to don’t see things the way you do. In fact, I don’t know any that agree with you. I suppose they are all uneducated or brainwashed if they disagree with your opinion?
Good Morning Mr. Duff,
Great article, I’m a Vietnam amputee and know exactly what you are saying, only you didn’t go far enough. You gave a pass to our parents the greatest generation who pulled the VA. benefits ladder up after they got all they could and told the Vietnam veteran to go fu** themselves. The we have had the VA budget slashing of every President since Nixon.
Among items that the Vietnam Vet has been sc**wed on are:
a. Education the WWII GI Bill paid for college and a living allowance at any college the vet qualified for.
b. Healthcare, you were a vet and you were sick for what ever reason the VA took care of you. No drug co-payments, no insurance co-pays. Be it a combat wound or a heart condition the VA was their for the Vet.
c. Disability benefits, the dirty little secret that the politicians don’t like to talk about is the at the 100% level the value of the monthly disability check has eroded by about 40% since 1967.
d. Jobs for veterans, For the Vietnam Vet the VA flat out said we are not an employment agency, go the the state. The unemployment rate for the Vietnam vet who were in actual combat has been at least three times the national rate for the last 40 years or more.
It is my hope that the Vietnam veteran will not be the same a** hole to this generation that our fathers were to us, with the attitude that if it was good enough for us it’s good enough for you.
President Obama has already broke a promise but changing his position on full funding of VA healthcare, there is call for limiting the benefits of the GI Bill even though the new GI Bill doesn’t go far enough, no efforts have been proposed to correct the employment problem that wartime Veterans historically have, al of this and an apparent lack of interest in reforming the VA Administrative system.
To the new administration I say if your serious then show some action. Employment, simple solution ever Veteran with a Purple Heart has a guarantee of a job, with a local, sate or Federal Government to the highest level of their skill, education and abilities and with any private enterprise who does business with the Federal Government. For all Veterans a top of the list for any job opening or internal
promotion.
Healthcare, simple universal lifetime for the Veteran and a Champus type provision for her/his family. The is the least owed to the Veteran.
Disability benefits. Anyone wounded in combat with a life changing injury DESERVES to be afford a middle class life style where she/he can afford to but a home, raise a family in financial security, educate their children and have a comfortable retirement. To do this the 100% disability comp. should be what the Dept. of Labor calls a middle-class in come which right now is about $60 or twice what is being paid. less disability comp should be it’s proportional percentage of that number, example at 50% the disability pay should be $30K and so on. Increases would be tide to this number.
GI Bill, again simple, what was good for grandpa should be what his grandkids gets. Nothing less is acceptable.
The fact is that when the guns go silent, Veterans are forgotten but on holidays where lip service is paid while sucking on a beer. Most of the time Veterans are held in utter distain, the political cut our benefits, employers refuse to hire us, in short we become the scum of society because we did what our fellow citizens didn’t have the courage to do and now hold us responsible for their moral short comings.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
right on, 100 disabled vet are screwed
I don’t agree that the education and quality of todays soldier is less than 40 years ago. I think we were better than WW2 and Korea and I think todays soldier is the best in the nations history. the VA has problems but we have the people in charge who can correct these problems if given a little time.