I support our troops as people. I have friends who are veterans. It is part of being American. Though I did not serve myself, I appreciate the risk and challenges that must be associated with making the choice to serve.
Yesterday I was watching TV when an ad came on for the Wounded Warrior Project. It was heart wrenching. A young man, in his early 30's, who is no longer able to care for himself because of injuries he suffered while serving in the US Army in the Middle East. His parents are central to the story, as you might expect. He doesn't have a spouse. His parents care for all of his physical needs and love him very much. The story of the family continues as the father admits that he and his wife are getting old and they didn't know what to do about how to ensure their son would get the care he deserves after they are gone. A sobering thought. The commercial goes on to bring in the Wounded Warrior Project who saves the day.
I think it is wonderful that the Wounded Warrior Project is able to step in and provide assurance to this young man's parents, that he will be cared for after they die. I fully support their work...but am ashamed at the same time that such a service is needed from the private sector, non-profit to be sure but private as well.
Tough my thoughts on the US wars of my lifetime are pretty easy to guess. I am not an interventionist nor an isolationist. There are times when force is the answer. We are human after all and humans do war. It is one of our traits. However, my opinion is that there have been way to many unjustified wars during my lifetime. This poor young soldier may have been wounded in an unjust war. That is hard enough to fathom. What is worse is that with the huge amount of money that we as a country pump into the military (public and private) we don't have enough to ensure that those brave Americans who put their flesh in the way of bullets and bombs are left to mercy and charity instead of having a comprehensive system to take care of them once they get back.
The VA is a great institution. It has its problems, but is regularly underfunded and attacked by politicians, but we as a culture have not come to terms with some basic realities of doing war.
The process of war is inhumane, though a very human behavior. We take men and women out of the roles we proscribe for them in our normal, civilized society and tell them to forget those rules and adopt other rules. Rules where the humaness of the others is reduced to allow these men and women to do inhumane things to them. Is the inhumanity righteous? Possibly, but that does not change the actual fact that we ask them to do it.
When they get back we ask them to return without support, without proper psychological help. Just release them after a debriefing and expect them to revert to those pre-war people they were. And we know this doesn't work. Has never worked. Even with a whole bunch of hero worship we are not doing enough for them.
I appreciate the work of organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project, but wish they didn't have to exist. If we are really for going to war then we owe it to our soldiers and their families to give them start to finish care as a society. Take a percent of the resources dedicated to war and make them help the damage we do to these people. Housing, psychological support, jobs. These are what they need. That tells them that we, as a society care, not platitudes. Not even the well meaning work of these non-profits. They will never be able to help them all. It is a governments job, in my humble opinion.
