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OpEdNews Op Eds H1'ed 8/29/12 Dying for an Education |
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As a former VA psychiatrist, part of my job was to help returning veterans adjust to civilian life despite the effects of the psychological trauma of combat. One of the major issues we worked on was the problem of overwhelming anger at the senseless brutality of war. Many had come to understand how they had been used to serve not the nation but the corporate powers upon which our so-called leaders depend for campaign contributions. These were the veterans who have the most difficulty adjusting to their return to a society that has largely ignored the wars. Their sense of betrayal is compounded when they hear the excuse "Well, they volunteered, didn't they?"
Although I became reasonably successful
at helping them control their justified anger, when ads come on the
radio breezily encouraging kids to "serve your community one weekend a
month" in the National Guard, I am too angry to listen. In 2000, none of
the men and women in the Guard had any reason to believe that they were
going to be sent to a God-forsaken desert to risk their lives and too
often to take those of others. The Guard's stated mission has to serve
in event of national disaster or to fight in the event of a foreign
invasion. They have never been forced to serve in time of war except in
rare circumstances when there was a universal draft and everyone had to
face the prospect of going to war.
Members of the National Guard join for a
variety of reasons, but most expect to take advantage of the
educational benefits these ads promise. Many join expecting to serve
their community. Others are former active duty service members serving
to advance their careers while they earn a pension. The majority enlist
primarily to get an education. For too many of them, it is simply the
only job they can find in our devastated economy. Until 2001, none of
them could have imagined that they were going to be used in a cynical
"war on terror" whose primary purpose was not to defend America but to
protect the profits of multinational oil and other corporations that
have a financial interest in war itself. Having been used in a cynical
effort by our government to run a war on the cheap, they often return
home to devastated lives.
While members of the Guard may be less
likely to lose their marriages while serving in war than their regular
military counterparts, their marriages often do not survive the stresses
placed on the family when the warrior returns to civilian life. Despite
rules put into place by the government at the beginning of the wars
they come home to lost jobs, foreclosed homes, defaults on student loans
and children who do not know them. Often, it seems as if even their
spouses do not know them. The habits that kept them alive in battle
often serve them poorly in their roles as husbands, fathers and members
of their communities. No one serves in combat without being changed in
some way.
Young people often join the military for
reasons of patriotism or a sense of family duty to uphold a military
tradition. For increasing numbers of others, the only reason to enlist
is that they see no other way to build a future for themselves and their
families. In a twist of irony or by design, they are given few choices
but to serve the interests of those who destroyed their other
opportunities. The costs of America's economic and military warfare
have included sacrificing investment in education and real economic
growth. While all of us feel the pain of an economy that increasingly
functions to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of an economic
elite, none feel it more acutely than those who have risked their lives
to defend "the American way."
While members of the National Guard have
been forced to serve multiple combat tours that compound the harm to
their families, regular military service members have often served as
many as six tours. Even those who are allowed to leave often stay in
because they realize that they cannot function in society as they are,
that there are no jobs waiting for them and most of all, their sense
that they cannot leave their comrades behind to risk their lives for
what increasing numbers see as a pointless cause. With little hope, they
simply continue their duty as they see it, trying to keep their buddies
alive until our so-called leaders come to their senses.
With this background, it is hardly
surprising that suicide and murder rates among young vets are at record
highs and rising. Having been trained to kill and to suppress their
emotional reaction to this soul-searing act, it is difficult to
returning to a civilian life that often seems trivial in comparison to
the recent experience of making constant life or death decisions. While
much is made of suicides and fratricide in the military, it is dwarfed
by the extent of violence directed against self and others upon their
return. In the field, the soldier has a sense of purpose, even if it is
"only" to keep the buddy next to them alive, not for the defense of the
nation. At Fort Bliss, Texas, members of one brigade that suffered a
single fatality in Iraq during a 2010 tour committed seven suicides and
four murders in the year of their return.
It is little wonder that our youth have
incurred severe psychological damage from having answered our
government's call to fight for corporate Empire under the cynical cover
of "protecting our freedom." The predictable result is a loss of trust
in the government that put that at constant risk and whose actions
claimed the life of the men and women to whom they were often closer
than their own families. It is easy to understand why these men and
women can give up on the hope of living in a society that honors their
sacrifices on behalf of all Americans. This despair is expressed in the
increasing levels of violence against themselves and others, most
tragically when the victims are the ones who love them the most.
It is not too late to assure that the
sacrifices born by this small proportion of Americans are not in vain.
If we care about what happens to the veterans of our latest war for
Empire, we will join in an effort to assure justice for them and the
next generation. We cannot allow our children to be raised as cannon
fodder to feed the insatiable lust for wealth and power of what amount
to international corporate terrorists. We can heal the wounds in society
that have allowed those with no interest in America or Americans to
seize control of our government only by a united and determined effort
to end this danger to democracy. To do this, we must take control of our
own government and make our Congress and President put our interests
over those of their corporate patrons.
Together, we can reverse the trend
toward corporate control of our government by fighting to raise
awareness of the fact that we can Take back America for the People by
making support for a constitutional amendment to ban campaign
expenditures by special interest groups a campaign issue in
congressional elections. Corporations should not have the "right" to pay
for the campaigns of their puppets in the Senate under the guise of
"free speech." This is not just another issue to be faced but the one
issue that must be resolved before we can expect our government to work
for any serious changes that challenge corporate interests.
We owe it to our children to leave the
country and the world a better place than we found it. As Jefferson
said, the only way to keep a democracy is to maintain an educated
citizenry. Having grown up in a much more compassionate and just society
that valued the education of its youth, I am ashamed that I did not see
what was happening to it earlier and become involved in political
activism then. We cannot afford to sit idly by and watch a small group
of dedicated activists do our fighting for us. They cannot succeed any
more than can the men and women who were asked to do the impossible for
their nation at such a cost to themselves and to their families. As
importantly, we owe it to their comrades and others who have given the
ultimate sacrifice to ensure that this nation, conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal, shall not
perish from the Earth.
This article was originally published on the website of Soldiers For Peace International:
This article may be reproduced with attribution without prior approval.
This article was originally published on the website of Soldiers For Peace International:
This article may be reproduced with attribution without prior approval.
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Rick Staggenborg, MD Social Media Pages: 
I am a former Army and VA psychiatrist who ran for the US Senate in 2010 on a campaign based on a pledge to introduce a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate personhood and regulate campaign finance.
A constitutional amendment banning (more...)
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