Memorial Day has come to be a day when we are all urged to remember those armed services members who have served and who are currently serving the country. This is important and I hope we all have some time to reflect on the sacrifices made by these men and women on our behalf.
Sebastian Junger has a great piece in the WaPo this AM on exactly this point — noting that the wars of this country don’t just belong to its soldiers:
I am no pacifist. I’m glad the police in my home town of New York carry guns, and every war I have ever covered as a journalist has been ended by armed Western intervention. I approved of all of it, including our entry into Afghanistan. (In 2001, U.S. forces effectively ended a civil war that had killed as many as 400,000 Afghans during the previous decade and forced the exodus of millions more. The situation there today is the lowest level of civilian suffering in Afghanistan in 30 years.) But the obscenity of war is not diminished when that conflict is righteous or necessary or noble. And when soldiers come home spiritually polluted by the killing that they committed, or even just witnessed, many hope that their country will share the moral responsibility of such a grave event.
Their country doesn’t. Liberals often say that it’s not their problem because they opposed the war. Conservatives tend to call soldiers “heroes” and pat them on the back. Neither response is honest or helpful. Neither addresses the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder afflicting our veterans. Rates of suicide, alcoholism, fatal car accidents and incarceration are far higher for veterans than for most of the civilian population. One study predicted that in the next decade 400,000 to 500,000 veterans will have criminal cases in the courts. Our collective avoidance of this problem is unjust and hypocritical. It is also going to be very costly.
Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing.
Yesterday, NPR did a long piece about the astonishing backlog adjudicating disability benefits at the VA. Besides not delivering on the promises to take care of these individuals hurt by the wars we send them to fight, I want to know where all of the war hawks and military queens are (and you know who I’m talking about — each and every legislator who never gives up a chance to be seen in the company of someone wearing a uniform and mouthing some stupid platitude or another) on making sure that the VA is working the way it is supposed to. AND in making sure the VA is funded to keep the promises made to help veterans who’ve certainly done their part. For all of the time that John McCain and Lindsay Graham spent bullshitting the world about Benghazi, they could have been working on fixing this.
Remembering the sacrifice is important and necessary — but we’ll be judged as a country not by how many flags are flying at gravesites, but on how well we take care of those who came back from our wars needing some support to fully heal from the experience.
What interests you today?