My first job out of college was with then-Rep. Ron Wyden, in his district office in Portland. I was a caseworker, there to help constituents work their way through the maze of federal agencies when something had gone wrong. One of my permanent, and pointless, assignments was the military; pointless because the Pentagon was little influenced by a member from Oregon who didn't sit on any relevant committees. My efforts were mostly limited to finding lost paperwork, trying to expedite emergency leave requests, that kind of thing.
There was one category of military cases that the casework staff split up on a rotating basis--veterans' work. We had to split it up for our own well-being, both because of the volume of cases and because of how emotionally draining they could be. We weren't in a war at the time, and didn't have returning vets needing our help. But the fight of Vietnam vets for recognition of disabilities from Agent Orange exposure to PTSD was in full swing. VA Medical Centers around the country were understaffed, underfunded and in some instances, the worst place to try to receive medical care. At the time, I didn't know any veterans of real war. Somehow no close relatives or family friends had gotten the call to serve in Vietnam. My memories of that war were hazy, as I was pretty young through the worst of it and shielded for the most part from those images Walter Cronkite broadcast every night into our homes. But I held the prevailing sentiment of kids raised by liberals in the sixties, seventies, and eighties--the Vietnam war was a mistake on many grounds, but I didn't get the individual sacrifice part, the real impact it had on the men who had to serve there until I started working on these cases.
Following the Vietnam war, our service members got a very raw deal. I'm not talking about the urban legends about them being spat upon and called babykiller when they got home. I'm talking about how their government--for 12 years run by those great patriotic Republicans Reagan and Bush the elder--betrayed them. How so many had to fight a mostly losing battle to have the actual physical and psychological damage done to them even recognized, much less compensated. How the most psychologically damaged of them were left to fend for themselves, leaving a crisis of homelessness and addiction. I will never forget the shock of finding out how shoddily our government treated the people who were compelled to sacrifice everything. Nor will I forget the frustration of being utterly incapable--even with the weight of a congressman's name behind me--to do anything to help those individuals.
We saw a repeat after the first Gulf War, with some significant changes. For one thing, there was no Walter Cronkite and no gruesome images of reality on our teevees. We had the "wargasm," night-vision fireworks shows far removed from the action, far removed from the reality. The Pentagon had taken one key lesson from Vietnam--don't let war be seen on television. Don't let on that there are actual casualties in this war, and sure don't let those casualties have an American face. And when the soldiers returned home and began to experience mysterious and debilitating illnesses, the government dismissed the claims, taking more than a decade to recognize Gulf War syndrome. I wasn't doing casework for Wyden any more, having moved on to his DC office to work on policy. But staff in Portland were getting those same calls, fighting the same bureaucracy and beating their heads against the same brick wall.
By that time I had figured out that, as far as the Pentagon was concerned, soldiers were pretty much disposable. That's a given for the people who have to make decisions about going to war--they can't let the human cost of war weigh too heavily in the decision-making. But it has to have at least some weight. That's where the Iraq war comes in.
The absolute cynicism of the "support the troops" propaganda BushCo foisted on the nation was probably the most enraging thing for me personally about this war, and enrages me to this 2,698th day of the debacle. From the lies that sent thousands of men and women needlessly into this war to the criminal lack of preparation that made it even more dangerous--they didn't even provide adequate body armor--the human cost of this war was unacceptable, on both sides of the equation. Body armor, tanks that weren't strong enough, soldiers being killed in their own barracks because of the shoddy work done by Cheney's contractor cronies and gassed by other cronies. That's not even taking into account the insane number of redeployments soldiers and their families have had to endure.
I'm still operating at an almost irrational level of rage over the Iraq War. I still get pissed off at those inane and empty "support the troops" yellow ribbon car magnets, though you see fewer and fewer of them closing in on the end of this decade of war. Because slapping on a car magnet or a ribbon is not a substitute for actually supporting the troops--for matching their sacrifice at home and being exhorted by our government to do so in any meaningful way. Like maybe paying more in gas taxes. And it's not a substitute for demanding of our political leadership a convincing rationale for war.
So when I read Brian Beutler's report on the deficit commission this week, and got to this:
Though most of the commission's work occurs behind closed doors in small working groups, early reports indicate that the GOP's unwillingness to support any significant tax increases are pushing the group toward proposed entitlement slashes and larger budget cuts.
And while Americans might expect that the commission would look at all spending, some members are seemingly using their positions to advance professional interests. A source familiar with the proceedings of the working group on discretionary spending tells TPM that some commissioners, including one military contractor, would prefer to save money by freezing military pay and scaling back benefits, rather than by eliminating waste in defense contracting.
The source said that different members of the commission come down on different sides of the issue. The discussion group is led by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), whose primary aim is trimming fat on the contractor side, but, according to the source, David Cote, the Honeywell CEO who was appointed to the panel by President Obama, is pushing to find savings elsewhere.
"Coburn raised concerns about all of the cost overruns and redundant weapons system," the source told TPM. "Cote made excuses for it all."
According to the source, Cote and other members, including the commission's co-chair Alan Simpson, are focusing instead on "freezing military pay, making military people pay for their health care."
. . . I lost it. I wrote Thursday
Yep, in the middle of two wars, in which our soldiers and their families have been stretched beyond their limits with multiple deployments, cut their pay and scale back their benefits. Make them pay for their own health care. All so the likes of Blackwater--and Honeywell--can continue to suck at the public teat.
I've been stewing over this now for several days, and am no less angry. The impact on the individual lives of these men and women, and the ripple effect out into their families and their communities, remains inadequately acknowledged by our political leadership. I give huge kudos to President Obama for implementing a new policy for veterans suffering from PTSD, but that's not enough. Not when his hand-picked deficit commissioners are seriously talking about creating an even larger burden on our troops so that the military contractors don't have to sacrifice.
That's betraying our troops at the most fundamental level. These men and women--and their families--are still considered disposable by too many of the powers that be. The President needs to take that proposal from his commission off the table, and fast.
And as the war in Afghanistan moves into it's second decade, following the deadliest month yet in that war, this country needs to start having a very serious discussion about what "supporting the troops" really means.