The Character of America

A few months ago, Nancy Gibbs wrote an essay for Time Magazine which really stuck with me. It was called Our Armies, Ourselves, and subtitled How we treat our veterans says a lot about America's character. These days, it isn't pretty.

The full article can be found here (for a while at least).

The article is still stinging me because it is filled with haunting facts about the war in Iraq. It is no secret to those who know me that I am, and have always been, AGAINST this atrocity, the war in Iraq. As Americans, we were led blindly, I feel, into a rage against a people who did nothing to us, using falsified intelligence, against the United Nations, and without the support of most of the free world, into an ILLEGAL war.

Don't misunderstand me, I support our troops, the brave men and women who signed up to fight for the fabric of America. The freedoms which make America special are worth fighting for and I wholeheartedly support the people who make it their livelihood, and often give up their lives, to do so. I support them so much that I want to bring them home. And I want them properly cared for when they are home.

From Ms. Gibb's essay: "Wars are like icebergs: much of the cost remains hidden, and the near doubling of the defense budget since 2001 does not cover what lies ahead. Better body armor and trauma care mean new life for thousands of soldiers who would have died in any earlier war. But many are broken or burned or buried in pain from what they saw and did. One in five suffers from major depression or posttraumatic stress, says a new Rand Corp. study; more than 300,000 have suffered traumatic brain injury. The cost of treating them is projected to double over the next 25 years. Four hundred thousand veterans are waiting for cases to be processed. The number seeking assistance for homelessness is up 600% in the past year."

DID YOU READ THOSE STATISTICS?

She continued, "In the face of so much need, too often comes denial. At a May 6 hearing, lawmakers lit into officials from Veterans Affairs after an e-mail surfaced from Ira Katz, its chief of mental health, on suicide rates of soldiers in its care. The subject line: "Shhh." The VA had been insisting there were fewer than 800 suicide attempts a year by vets in its care; the real number was closer to 12,000."

For the love of Pete, let's bring those brave souls home and start taking CARE of them properly!

EDIT: An anonymous poster took a position that the war is, in fact, legal. As I said in my reply, legality is a fact, not an opinion. And so, I give references to that fact below:

Kreiger

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