If you’re an Illinois veteran of OIL, OIF, or OEF, and live in Illinois, you’ve got some mortgage help available to you.
Two new tax laws affect Illinois veterans and their employers. The Returning Veterans Homestead Exemption gives qualifying veterans a one-time $5,000 reduction to their home's equalized assessed value. The Disabled Veterans Standard Homestead Exemption provides a reduction in a property's equalized assessed value for a veteran with a service-connected disability. Also the Veteran's Tax Credit is a new state income tax credit available to employers for every qualified veteran they hire. For more information about the Veteran's Tax Credit or the property tax exemptions for veterans, visit the Illinois Department of Revenue website or call the Illinois Department of Revenue at (800) 732-8866.
The Veterans’ Tax Credit is an especially interesting idea, because there’s a lot of anecdotal data out there about returning vets finding their jobs either no longer exist or have been filled by someone else in their absence.
There are two Federal laws protecting the civilian jobs of soldiers called to active duty. The Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act not only protect your job, but have provisions to safeguard your financial situation against unreasonable interest payments and other debts while on active duty.
Check with your Battalion or Brigade S1 for specific instances. You should also be given specific information during your REFRAD or discharge processing.
If you’re a veteran of OIL, OIF, or OEF, or have served six months on active duty since 9/11/201, I want you to know that the evil libruls in Massachusetts, who hate America so much they want to destroy everyone’s marriage by allowing same-gender couples to have the same rights you and I have, also hate the troops.
Hundreds of veterans' bonuses are going uncollected in the State of Massachusetts. Thanks to the state's Welcome Home Program, Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans receive $1,000 while other veterans who served more than six months since Sept. 11, 2007 receive a $500 bonus. However, only about 13,000 of the state's 27,000 eligible residents have applied for the bonuses. Massachusetts veterans can call the State Treasurer's office at 617-367-9333, ext. 859, to request bonus application materials.
You can tell they hate the troops because they’re begging people who haven’t yet applied to call in for the application.
I like to check the Sitemeter stats – see who’s visited, what interested them enough to visit, how long they stayed, and what brought them here. That’s how I learned how many visitors I get from pentagon.mil, CENTCOM.mil, and the various services. It’s curious why they would pay attention to a little pishker of a site like this. I find they usually arrive here after googling for a photo and that brings them here.
I had a morning visit that intrigued me because it came from a technorati hit, and that lead me to a TBI survivor who apparently had trouble placing a comment on yesterday’s story about the VA’s uphill battle to respond to the massive number of vets with PTSD and TBI problems. I liked the comment. The lady has a blog. It’s interesting reading, because those of us who are not challenged really have no comprehension of how difficult simple every-day things can be.
Thanks so much for this excellent post! It brings together some great into that people really need to know. I’m a long-term (35 of my 43 years) traumatic brain injury (TBI) survivor, who never received assistance or help (or even acknowledgement) of my condition. I was head-injured when I was 8 years old, and when people didn’t see any immediate physical problems, they just assumed things would work themselves out. Well, they didn’t. I had to work them out, myself. That’s the bad news — years and years of isolation, confusion, false-starts, problems with peers and teachers and parents and family… problems at every turn, with no explanation of what was going on with me. Growing up with a TBI taught me a lot — most of it thanks to the school of hard knocks.
But I have to say, there has been light at the end of the tunnel. Recovery from and successful living with a TBI is possible! I’m living proof! I’ve been through the darkest of valleys, and today I’m in a stable marriage of 17 years, I have a long and productive career history with some of the top businesses in the world, I have a satisfying social life, a healthy emotional balance, and peace of mind. All this, despite living on the margins and having tremendous difficulties over the years with this TBI.
In spite of all the difficulties (perhaps because of them), I have learned to live successfully on my own terms, drawing on my own resources and making sure my own needs are met. If I had depended on folks around me to help me out, I don’t think they could have done nearly as good a job as I’ve done. That’s one of the problems with TBI — it impacts the very part of you that you depend on to identify your needs and communicate them to others.
Even though the VA and the current administration are NOT living up to their responsibilities, there is hope. Each person can find their own way to health and balance… so long as they’re not locked away in a prison of ignorance and fear. TBI survivors are all too often on their own, but it doesn’t need to be the end of the story. Each and every one of us can live up to our true potential, even in the face of limitations. Even in the face of government neglect, PTSD, and brain injury!
I’m glad you liked the post. I noted you have a great deal of information about this injury, and some very helpful links to resources. If any of my readers want further information I hope they’ll visit your corner of blogtopia (y!sctp) and learn about how we’re treating this problem.
Broken/Brilliant has a great mission statement, and I wish her all the success possible.
Soldiers get killed and wounded in combat. That’s what war is. Some die quickly, screaming, their life’s blood spurting out, staining their buddies as they try desperately to save them. Others die slowly, inch by inch, day by day once they get home. They have no visible wounds, so amputated limbs. Their minds are dying.
Saving them is the job of the VA, which hasn’t done well in the past. The professionals at the VA are trying to win that battle.
The only outward sign of something amiss at Garry Naipo's household in this community of well-tended homes south of Fort Lewis is the ragged, yellowing lawn.
"It used to be like Safeco Field out there," Paoakalani "Paoa" Naipo said of the lawn his father no longer trims every three days. Before, Garry Naipo would forgo watching football on the weekend until the grass was cut. Once he started so early on a Saturday morning, his wife, Alii, rushed out, as she put it, "to save him from the neighbors."
Then Garry Naipo, a grandfather of three, went to Iraq -- boomeranging from cul-de-sac to combat and back in 15 months, a journey that would change his life -- and that of his family -- in subtle, corrosive ways.
Naipo, 51, is one of thousands of National Guard citizen soldiers who have left established jobs and families to answer a call and come back altered men and women. On the outside, they look fine, the same even. They blend in at work, in the grocery line, at their children's soccer games. People tell them they're lucky. They're not dead.
They don't bear the grim signatures of combat, the missing limbs or shattered skulls. Their wounds, though, are as insidious as they are invisible. Many return with brains and psyches damaged by chronic exposure to the hammering of blast waves and the afterimages left by bodies blown apart.
They come home, but not back to themselves.
“This portrait of Garry Naipo and his extended family was taken just before he left for Iraq in January 2004, when his National Guard unit was deployed. Alii Naipo says her husband came home from Iraq ‘a different man.’ She's been his main advocate in seeking help for him for post-traumatic stress disorder from the VA.”
This citizen-soldier answered his country’s call and came back a changed man. Combat changes many of us, and we don’t revert back to the person we were before.
In Iraq the exposure to significant bomb attacks has created a huge new class of wounded soldier: the Traumatic Brain Injury.
Veterans Affairs doctors estimate 60 percent to 65 percent of soldiers have experienced a significant explosion, or multiple detonations, by the time they leave the service. "Our mouths drop sometimes at how many blast events our servicepeople have been exposed to," said Jay Uomoto, a neuropsychologist with the VA Puget Sound.
That, in turn, has likely left many with undiagnosed mild to moderate brain injuries, a prognosis that some fear is setting a long fuse that could eventually swamp the system with disabilities as they emerge in the months and years to come.
There are pages of research information about this consequence of combat in Iraq, but not a great deal has reached the public about the scandal of the Army’s disgraceful soughing off of this injury.
Surprisingly, the VA recently announced that only six percent of GIs suffered from TBI. They must have been working from figures supplied from the Army. Soldiers with brain problems that were obvious to their buddies were certified as sound, and discharged into civilian life with no VA referral and no chance for disability payments for their wounds.
A VA mandatory screening program that took effect in April has looked at 61,285 veterans of the wars. Of those, 19.2 percent were identified on the screening questionnaire as potentially suffering from traumatic brain injuries and were referred for more tests.
While evaluation continues, VA spokeswoman Alison Aikele said officials believe, based on a smaller sample, that the final result about 5.8 percent will be diagnosed with TBI.
Just a few months ago, as Mr Bu$h was preparing to address the VFW, telling them what a Great Warrior Leader he was and how Islamofascism is the greatest danger ever facing the country, a group of real patriots was demanding the Bu$h malAdministration deal honestly and completely with the human consequences of its policies.
As President Bush prepares to address the 108th annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City tomorrow, Democrats today called on the President to offer more than the same empty rhetoric and broken promises on the issues that matter to America's veterans and military families. Despite years of promises, on President Bush's watch the Administration has allowed conditions at VA hospitals and medical centers like Walter Reed to deteriorate to appalling levels, has failed to accurately project the cost of treating thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and has jeopardized the personal financial information of America's 26.5 million veterans. Worse, the President's budget proposals have consistently shortchanged the VA, with his 2008 budget including a two percent cut.
Garry Naipo’s been home for two years. He has trouble with his memory, trouble with his speech centers, his fingers are going numb, and he spends his days sheltering in his garage, which he sweeps out daily.
“Since returning from Iraq, Garry Naipo leaves his house less and less. His routine is to go to work, then come home to the bunker of his garage, which he cleans on a daily basis. "My safe place," Naipo calls his garage. "I just want to feel normal," he said recently. "I want to stop looking over my shoulder."
And he’s had little help.
Although he suffers ringing in his ears, is going deaf, has memory lapses, difficulty retrieving words, problems concentrating, anxiety and anger outbursts, he has yet to be medically evaluated for concussive brain injury. A few weeks ago, more than two years after his return, he got a questionnaire in the mail regarding blast wave exposure, but he said he hasn't been able to organize his thoughts enough to answer it.
Regardless of how the symptoms are labeled, his family is sure of one thing: Iraq transformed the man they knew as husband, father and grandfather -- and he's come back to a culture that, for the most part, has hardly noticed.
Those of us who have watched the trainwreck that is George Bu$h and his elitist policies realize he has no thought for soldiers once they have been expended, physically or mentally, in the ego-war of Iraq. They make great backgrounds for his political photo ops, but beyond that their deaths and maimings mean nothing to him.
The Army is fixing a problem with their newest uniforms and it’s a good thing.
WASHINGTON — The Army is retrofitting 1 million uniforms to bolster pants that have been tearing during the rigors of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Soldiers in Iraq began reporting "crotch durability problems" with their combat uniforms in July 2005, according to the Army. Jumping into Humvees, hopping from helicopters and scrambling after insurgents have popped inseams on the baggy pants.
Rougher terrain in Afghanistan prompted complaints this past August from soldiers who said their uniforms gave out quickly.
"This is a result of soldiers working in steep and harsh terrain and literally sliding down steep hills and mountains," Army spokesman Sheldon Smith said in an e-mail.
Single-stitching has caused most of the blown-out inseams, said Erin Thomas, an Army spokeswoman. The new trousers are more durable, she said.
There has to be nothing worse than crawling around the rocks of Afghanistan with a ripped crotch in your ACUs. I speak from experience when I tell you that that 1/100th of an inch of fabric covering GI Joe may not be bullet-proof but when it’s torn you no longer think of that one bullet with your name on it. You become convinced every bullet is engraved with the name of your best friend and his two sidekicks.
A torn uniform inseam is no laughing matter, said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank.
"Any well-made uniform should maintain its stitch in virtually all combat situations except direct fire," he said. "It is a serious problem if it becomes a distraction to the war fighter who needs to concentrate on completing a mission."
The Army unveiled its current combat uniform in 2004. It has a digital camouflage pattern and pockets that can be reached while wearing body armor. The half-cotton, half-nylon uniform is supposed to last six months. U.S. plants make hundreds of thousands of them a month.
Soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan receive two sets of combat uniforms and two sets of fire-resistant ones. By January, all of the uniforms soldiers receive will be made of fire-resistant material.
I no longer have my jungle fatigues of course, but I think the seams were double-stitched. I don’t claim to having a perfect memory because, you know, white hair and all that, so I wonder whatever possessed procurement managers to not put that little item into the specifications?
Props to the Army for creating the uniforms with fire-resistant material, although it’s probably tragic they didn’t take that step from the beginning. Flame is an automatic side effect of combat involving motorized vehicles. Aviators and tankers uniforms are made from Nomex® fiber – why not GIs who are automatically associated with vehicles in today’s mechanized Army?
I've said it before, and it bears repeating: ALL Army procurement boards should have lower-rank EM on them. Colonels are too busy thinking about their retirement double-dip job with a DoD vendor to think enough about the troops.
Jordan Fox joined the Army, wanting to help his country. The patriot, from Mt Lebanon, PA, joined the Infantry (which really is the ONLY combat arm that matters) passed through training, and then elected to go through sniper school, passed and went to the one place in the world where the Army needs snipers, and that isn’t in Fort Drum.
While in the sandbox, he did his duty, saw combat, got promoted to PFC, and got wounded seriously enough that he was discharged.
(CBS) Jordan Fox received a $10,000 signing bonus when he joined the Army. The Mt. Lebanon man served his country in Iraq, where as a sniper he survived machine gun battles and a roadside bomb that knocked him unconscious and blinded him in his right eye.
The injury forced the military to send him home. A few weeks later, Fox received a bill from the Department of Defense, saying he owes the military nearly $3,000 from his original enlistment bonus because he couldn't fulfill three months of his commitment.
"I tried to do my best and serve my country and unfortunately I was hurt in the process and now they're telling me that they want their money back," Fox told CBS station KDKA-TV.
It’s a simple story. Man steps up to the plate. Gets wounded and is disabled because the Army doesn’t need any one-eyed snipers this year. Gets discharged and then is asked for a rebate on the unused portion of his enlistment bonus.
ARRRGHHH!
Surprisingly, the man actually pitches a bitch, believing that there is no reason for the Army to act like a bunch of cut-throat corporatists, feeling that just because George Bu$h doesn’t give a Chinese fart what happens to American soldiers, there is no reason for the Army to act that way.
Does America really need Republican pimps in the Green bag?
A Fake News station invited him on their show, planning to sandbag him with the “announcement” arranged one hour before airtime that HQ, Department of the Army has magnanimously decided that in this case, Jordan Fox doesn’t have to give back the $2,800 that they tried to bill him for. You shouldn’t be surprised by this because Roger Ailes and Rupert “Green Card” Murdoch have built an empire for themselves fellating the Republican Party. As I understand, Mr Fox stated he was happy about the news, but immediately riposted with a comment wondering how this decision will affect all the other GIS who have been dunned.
Interestingly enough, Fox may have lost an eye in Iraq, but not his mind and as CBS (a real news network) explains,
This is apparently not an isolated bureaucratic foul-up. The military is allegedly demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses - up to $30,000 in some cases. Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.
Military regulations do allow for discharged soldiers to be forced to pay back part of their enlistment bonuses if they do not serve their entire commitment, if they were found to have "pre-existing" conditions, such as psychological disorders.
Keith Olberman had a few words to say about the whole matter.
Was the Army taking the shot that maybe Jordan Fox would just meekly hand back the rest of his enlistment bonus because “We’re bigger than you are, kid. You can’t win.” ?
Naw! I don’t believe that, do you? Uniformed Republican pimps trying to outwit a soldier?
In late October, Fox got a letter from the Army seeking repayment of part of his enlistment bonus because he had only completed about a year of his three-year service.
Another letter arrived a week later warning he could be charged interest if he didn’t make a payment within 30 days.
“I was just completely shocked,” Fox said. “I couldn’t believe I’d gotten a bill in the mail from the Army.” [emph added]
“Pay it back, fast, or you’ll be charged interest, too” Nothing like a little piling on, eh, gents?
I’m reminded of stories about Mr Cheney’s Halliburton being caught overcharging the Army for meals and the Army magnanimously deciding not to sue to recoup the funds that were defrauded, arguing that it was to much work to chase after the millions of dollars stolen from the taxpayers.
Obviously, PFC Fox’s mistake was not being born a Cheney. But then, if he had been born a Cheney he wouldn’t have had to enlist, go to Iraq, and surely wouldn’t have been wounded. Members of the Cheney family always seem to have other priorities when there’s killing going on.
Faced with some nationwide adverse publicity about the matter, HQ, DA decided this is one of those times when you pull in your horns.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26, 2007 – If you are wounded in combat and discharged as a result, you will not have to pay back your enlistment bonus, Defense Department officials said here today.
“Bonuses are not recouped simply for one's inability to complete an enlistment or re-enlistment agreement through no fault of the military member,” a policy statement said.
Pentagon officials re-stated their policy after a wounded soldier in Pennsylvania received a bill from the Army. Jordan Fox was a private first class in Baqouba, Iraq, when he was wounded in the explosion of an improvised explosive device. Fox suffered vision troubles in his right eye and suffered a back injury when the bomb went off in May.
Fox was medically discharged and went home to his town near Pittsburgh. The Army sent him a letter asking him to repay $2,800 of his $7,500 enlistment bonus. He received a second letter telling him the Army would charge interest if he didn't make a payment within 30 days.
“Department policy prohibits recoupment when it would be contrary to equity and good conscience, or would be contrary to the nation's interests,” according to the Defense Department policy statement. “Those circumstances include, for example, an inability to complete a service agreement because of illness, injury, disability, or other impairment that did not clearly result from misconduct.”
Department policy on recoupment also establishes that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the secretaries of the military departments “shall remit or cancel any and all theater debt incurred by military members who were medically evacuated from a combat zone due to injury or illness, except in the event of clear misconduct.”
Army officials said Fox will not be required to pay back any enlistment money he received. “By all accounts, his case seems to be an isolated one,” Army officials said. Anyone who does have an issue can call the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline at 1-800-984-8523.
Am I out of place asking what will happen to the Gus who got these dunning letters a year or two ago and actually scrimped, saved, and borrowed from family in order to repay the enlistment bonuses that should never have been clawed back?
Will the Army pay those citizens and veterans interest when they reimburse them?
Frequent commenter WK threw a note over the transom to advise me of some slight improvements in the plight of America’s homeless veterans.
BERNARDS -- Frederick Ohweiler said Monday that it took the better part of the past three years to prepare for life "on the outside."
"The outside" for Ohweiler means being drug and alcohol free, a roof over his head and a trade that led to a job with a future. It also means outside the system, clean and sober and on his own.
Ohweiler was for years, he said, one of the state's 8,000 homeless veterans. Nationally, homeless prevention organizations said, on any night, nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless.
In 2004, Ohweiler was enrolled in a new program at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Lyons that offered a place to live, a break from the cycle of addictions and an opportunity to enter a culinary school.
It is a national disgrace that there are 200,000 homeless veterans. Of course, that’s just one disgrace among many in the Age of Bu$h. Not all the homeless vets occurred under Mr Bu$h’s occupation of our White House, but it can be reliably stated that their plight has grown worse because of his neglect.
An administration that allowed uniformed troops to wallow in soiled and stained linen in a rotting hospital wing could be expected to have even more contempt for veterans no longer in the green bag.
On Monday he was on hand at VA Lyons to celebrate the expansion of the Hope For Veterans Transitional Housing Program, operated by Parsippany-based Community Hope.
Officials and guests marked the expansion of the program by 25 beds, increasing to 100 the number of veterans who can be served.
The new beds are in a wing of the previously abandoned building on the Lyons campus that was renovated in 2004 for the transitional housing program.
Community Hope, founded in 1985, is one of the state's largest providers of supportive housing. It operates cottages at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, offering patients there a chance to make the transition from an institution to life on the outside.
At Lyons, Hope for Veterans is a two-year residency program that offers veterans the chance to develop greater independent living skills through addiction recovery programs, job training, community service work, self-help groups, mentoring opportunities, developing savings and eventually moving to permanent housing.
I know you join me in congratulating Fred Ohweiler, and wishing the best for him and all his brothers who are trying to fight their way back to a healthy, successful and productive life after serving their country. Sadly, it’s unlikely the current pack of criminals despoiling our democracy will do anything for the veterans. It will have to wait for patriotic Americans, a Democratic President and strongly Democratic Congress, to start repairing the damage that the Republicans have brought to our nation.
WK advises that he is in one of the photos in the story linked to above, One of the balding heads is his.
When I printed out the words to Pete Seeger’s wonderful anti-war anthem Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? yesterday, Jim at Ranger Against War suggested that I should remember Buffy St Marie’s remarkable Universal Soldier. He’s right of course.
There were many fine songs written from the late 20s right through the 70s that espoused sensible progressive ideas promoted through the musical style generally classified as “folk”. I just happen to like Buffy’s artwork, which principally advances Native American themes and can be seen at several museums in western Canada and at the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe. You can find some of her artwork, as well as several music clips here. You can find one of her children's projects here.
Universal Soldier
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
On Veterans’ Day we remember the war dead of our country. We try in honest and frank humility to remember those who gave their lives for ideals like decency, and freedom, and liberty for all, not just for the citizens of this country. A lot of Americans have died in a lot of wars, stretching back more than 250 years, and quite a few of those wars have not been on our soil, thank heavens.
But Veterans’ Day started out as Armistice Day, a holiday to remember the end of the “War to end all wars,” or “The Great War,” as it was commonly called until World War II came along, and then there was a series of colonial wars in Asia, and Africa.
Last year I wrote two pieces for this day that I’m going to republish because they treat the subject with a traditional solemnity. They follow this essay. But I had a special memorial for this year.
There are many in this world who say that America has become an evil nation, an aggressor and oppressor. They look at the ring of military bases all around the world and ask, “What are you protecting us from, now that Communism is gone?”
I don’t have an answer for that, because ”Islamofasciasm” is a bullshit idea thought up by a few small, wizened old men with shriveled souls in offices in Washington and the capital of another country I’m not permitted to name when I’m talking about American wars of empire.
Rather than talk about the evil we are perpetrating today in the name of Big Oil and Big Corporations I want to talk about Americans from farms, and villages and cities who answered the call to the colors, donned uniforms, and went off to fight in order to eject oppressors from other nations. We have left trails of dead around the world in our crusades of conquest and liberation, and I think we forget that since we haven’t had much killing on our soil since 1865.
There are a lot of American cemeteries and memorials on small Pacific islands to mark the road to Tokyo. There are quite a few on the European continent, too, heading towards Paris and Rome and Berlin. Some of them are official cemeteries, and others are just small markers, erected by people who remember that men and women of another land traveled 3,000 miles to free them, and they honor that memory.
There are official lists of World War I cemeteries. This particular site mostly honors Commonwealth dead, since the British and German Empires and France suffered the most grievous losses in that war. Here’s another.
Americans have their own cemeteries in Europe. More than 100,000 Americans are interred in Europe. A lot of our kinsmen died to liberate Europe.
Not all memorials are composed of huge expanses of carefully trimmed green grass and perfectly aligned stones. These are national memorials, and are paid for by taxpayers in various countries. Some memorials are quite modest and heart-stirring.
A friend of mine was in France recently and I got an email which I want to relate. I’ve cleaned it up ever so slightly, because I keep pretending this is a family blog.
A slightly different pic from Chambord; I went for a walk in an area I haven't been before and stumbled on this memorial at the edge of the forest. There are probably hundreds like it all over France, and despite Homer Simpson, the French really do appreciate US help in the war.
All the military cemeteries are a constant reminder and they are all beautifully maintained, including the German ones. In the Somme area there are just so many monuments to men of many different nations; as I drive to and from the Channel it is just a constant succession, so you would have to be a very hard person not to think occasionally.
One little bit that has annoyed me recently is a pile of complaints from some British that the French are building a motorway over land which probably contains some as yet undiscovered dead soldiers. The French have mad[e] it clear that there is an archaeological dig first to discover any remains and give them proper burial. I don't see that you can ask for more. Without the motorway those bodies would have remained unrecognised and ignored as they have been for the last 80 years or so.
This little piece of mail touched me in a way I can’t describe. I’ve toured the Somme and Vedun areas, seen several military cemeteries and been stunned and saddened by the seemingly endless lines of stone markers, almost like whitecaps on a storm-tossed sea.
But I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
I blew up the English translation of the stone to display the brief narrative of this memorial. I’m glad to know that the pilot and copilot of the plane were rescued by the French and hidden until they could rejoin their countrymen. I wish there was word of the crew, but I haven’t been able to learn anything. I asked my British friend to make inquiries on the next trip. Maybe next year I will finally have some good news to discuss on this saddest of all days.
This morning’s WaPo has a frustratingly dry article about a topic that is on our daily horizon: burials at Arlington National Cemetery. The Cemetery, covering more than 600 acres, contains the remains of more than 300,000 service members, American and foreigner, who supported and defended our nation in uniform. The Cemetery abuts Fort Myer and the grounds of Arlington House, the home of General Robert E Lee, which is maintained by the National Park Service.
We’re running out of room. The last survivors of World War II are passing by in review, dying at a rate of about 1,000 a day, and some are being interred at Arlington. There are also veterans of Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan being buried here each day. It’s a terrible thing to see so many funerals each day. The grounds are actually quite small for the traffic that passes along its lanes.
At Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, there were four funerals scheduled at 9 a.m., three at 10 a.m., six at 11 a.m., and 15 between 1 and 3 p.m.
The nation's shrine to its military dead had 6,785 funerals in the just-concluded fiscal year, an all-time record. Now, as the dying of the World War II generation peaks, the cemetery is so busy that despite careful choreography, people attending one funeral can hear the bugle and rifle salutes echoing from another.
As a result, the cemetery is about to begin a $35 million expansion that would push the ordered ranks of tombstones beyond its borders for the first time since the 1960s.
People die; it’s the inevitable result of being born. And, people die violently: in falls from buildings, torn asunder in horrendous traffic accidents, burned in house fires. All this, and more, has claimed our service members, including those fighting today in the Middle East.
We’re seeing less business at Arlington from Iraq and Afghanistan than from our past wars because the nature of this war is different and the casualty lists are smaller, though no less poignant. Each death, whether in Mosul, or the back bedroom, or in a nursing home, is a tragedy to a family. And there are just too many tragedies.
The Millennium [Project] expansion has involved, among other things, the sensitive transfer of 12 acres within the cemetery from the National Park Service's historic Arlington House, the onetime home of Robert E. Lee. The Park Service has lamented the likely loss of woodland and the cemetery's encroachment on the majestic hilltop home, which dates to 1802.
The project, which focuses on the northwest edge of the cemetery, includes expansion into about 10 acres taken from the Army's adjacent Fort Myer and four acres of cemetery maintenance property inside the boundaries, officials said.
The extra space would provide room for 14,000 ground burials and 22,000 inurnments in a large columbarium complex, officials said. The project comes on the heels of extensive work underway to utilize 40 acres of unused space in the cemetery, creating room for 26,000 more graves and 5,000 inurnments. And there are plans for further outside expansion in the years ahead.
Arlington also has an expanded Columbarium for those choosing cremation of their remains. This too will be expanded.
Arlington exists to hold their last remains and to honor their memory. I wish it was empty parkland.
Today’s NY Times has an article that is sure to draw a lot of acrimony. Quite a few states in our country lower the flags at their capitol buildings after the death of a service member in Iraq or Afghanistan. It seems like a simple courtesy, a moment of remembrance for the ultimate sacrifice of a man or woman in uniform, obedient to his or her nation’s command. There is a uniform code of courtesy in handling the flag, but no such list of rules for lowering it to half staff in times of remembrance.
IRON MOUNTAIN, Mich., June 19 — The Stars and Stripes in front of the Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge here flies at half-staff because Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm issued a statewide order to lower the flag for 24 hours to honor a Michigan soldier killed in Iraq.
Just blocks away, however, at the veterans’ hospital run by federal officials who say they do not answer to the governor the flag flutters at full staff.
Some states have codified the lowering of the US flag and state flag on such times. Others lower only the state standard.
But in Michigan, the differing response to Ms. Granholm’s order is part of a broader and, perhaps, more universal wrangle over how to commemorate tragedy when there is so much of it and whether lowering the flag each time a soldier is killed cheapens the tribute by doing it too often.
Since the start of the Iraq war, more than half the states have decided to lower their flags for 24 hours or more when a local soldier dies in combat.
Opponents of lowering the flag see it as a subtle antiwar gesture that may run counter to federal guidelines, which reserve the action for “officials,” not soldiers.
It will surprise no one to learn that those who oppose lowering the flag for dead soldiers generally belong to the same political party that ramps up public outrage every four years, in the runup to a national election, demanding that there must be a Constitutional Amendment protecting it from being burnt by citizens, although general usage recommends given torn and damaged flags to the VFW for disposal by – burning. It seems to me that party considers the Stars and Stripes to be its own personal property, just as it does most other things in our country.
Handling our flag has a checkered history. Strict regulations determine its handling, display, storage and disposal. An emblem of the nation, it has been burned in outrage and protest, actions that have sparked ire at times. Tradition tells us that soldiers have wrapped its folds about their bodies in past wars, in their firm decision to die protecting its sanctity.
While the flag is not the country, it is inextricably associated with our presence at home and abroad. It marks our embassies and consulates, and other buildings that serve our interests and perform as outreach to other peoples. Our military carries it wherever they go. And it flies on flagstaffs where they are. It announces to the world that Americans are here, a nation that used to be dedicated to human dignity, freedom, and the defense of the helpless. One day it will again carry that message. When our soldiers die under its waving symbol they leave a small piece of our hearts on that foreign soil.
It’s unfortunate that there is not one single unifying code requiring all flags, national and state to be lowered in sad commemoration of the death of a solder. It’s important to remember sacrifice, and to teach our children the meaning of the word.
In Michigan the flag has been lowered 127 times since Governor Granholm began the practice in 2003. I’m sure many other states have a similar record.
Last week, federal lawmakers passed a measure that would give governors the authority to order all officials in their states, including federal authorities, to lower the flag. President Bush has until next week to sign or veto the measure.
Although Congressional staff members involved with the measure say Mr. Bush may want to sign it for patriotic reasons, he may also be reluctant to appear to be ceding power over federal officials to the states
A cynical man might wonder if there is some other reason Mr Bu$h might not want this practice to be a national practice.
Behind the counter at the post office in Crystal Falls, [Mich] Gary Burk said the flag in front was not lowered despite the governor’s order because the decision lay with the postal director of each district.
“When we lower it now, people notice it and ask why,” Mr. Burk said. “If you lower every time a soldier dies, it will be down so often that people will only notice and ask when it’s up.”
Yes, I’m sure people in Washington might not want Americans to notice how often flags would be flown at half staff.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. John McCrae, 1915
Today we remember and honor absent relatives, friends, and comrades all. Their sacrifice around the world helped this nation be what it is, and their blood has drenched the soil of six continents. Where one has fallen we have lost more than a life; we have lost a bit of ourselves.
Death is not a kind specter, but it is egalitarian. It collects patriot, coward, prince, pauper and thief. The Great Leveler observes neither fame nor notoriety in its grim embrace. Some meet Death nobly, and others are carried shrieking and fighting across the river. But as we remember each of our brothers and sisters in uniform today, we mourn their passing and vow that none of them shall have died in vain, and each new flag-draped coffin shall be the last.
Man is an imperfect animal and we can be assured that there will be more wars, more caskets, more graveside ceremonies, more evil men trying to twist and pervert the foundations of our country’s greatness. There will be more stunned Americans asking “Why?”
We owe it to each of our fallen countrymen, all the way back to those first to die in our war for independence, to renew our solemn vow to keep alive the flame of freedom so that not one shall have died uselessly.
Strange day today; woke up late, couldn’t find my eyeglasses; couldn’t find my prosthetic brain. The omens were bad: I couldn’t find a sheep to augur its entrails, my Tarot deck disappeared, and the I Ching delivered the 5th gua: Hsu (Waiting). This is basically a good prospect, as there is an implication of nourishment.
The image is:
Clouds rise up to heaven:
The image of Waiting.
Thus the superior man eats and drinks,
Is joyous and of good cheer.
The “superior man” refers to a man who is wise and waits for a propitious moment and since nourishment implies more than food and drink I decided to write about a new stage venture started by some Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who are trying to work through some issues while educating Americans to what sometimes happens in war.
LOS ANGELES - The house lights go down and the stage lights come up on The Wolf, the first production of VetStage, a non-profit theater company run by veterans of the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It opens with a funeral: a Roman Catholic priest preparing to deliver a eulogy for a US soldier killed by a roadside bomb.
Quickly, the scene changes and we're transported to a group therapy session under way at military mental institution. It's here
that we meet our two main characters. Both are members of the US Marine Corps facing court martial. The first, a female soldier accused of killing a fellow marine after he raped her. The second, for massacring an entire Iraqi family in their home.
The therapy session does not go well.
"A lot of f---ed-up shit happened in combat, that's what I think, Supershrink," a third solider in the therapy session tells the military psychiatrist. "You know what, I'm tired, so why don't we move on?"
Returning vets always bring a lot of issues with them. During this round of war America has been made a lot more aware of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder than was the case in past wars. After WWII, a lot of people were concerned about millions of troops with hair-trigger combat reflexes all suddenly being turned loose on a country, and GIs were given a series of lectures before release that tried to explain the phenomenon, and how they had changed during war. There was an effort to ease these veterans back into society.
I don’t think there was as much effort taken during Korea and Viet Nam. Basically it was final pay, “Thanks a lot. Bye.” Our society is still paying the price for Nam-era troops who didn’t adjust.
It’s a problem again today, since most vets returning don’t even get the “Thanks a lot.” Mr Bu$h, who’s been seen with more uniformed troops than GEN Pace, Chief of the General Staff, seems to feel that they’ll settle back into civilian life fine, just the way he did after his stint in the Texas Air National Guard. He’s so confident of this, in fact, that he’s spent the last few years cutting back on the VA’s budget. After all, he transitioned back in just fine, where’s the worry?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is the one of the most common health issues to affect troops who have deployed to Iraq to fight. Yet, not enough funding to take care of and treat these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines has been allocated. As of 2004 and according to an article in Psychiatric News, by the American Psychiatric Association,
…less than 9 percent of the VA health research budget is dedicated to mental illness and substance use, even though 35 percent to 40 percent of VA patients need mental health care.
And in the face of mounting numbers of injured solders and a malAdministration that thinks of soldiers as disposable razors VetStage’s play notes:
Near the end of the first act, the two soldiers break out of the mental institution, but they can't lie low - violence seems to follow them wherever they go.
This is how the play's main character describes the massacre he perpetrated to his local priest: "They were sheep," he says, "and I am a wolf and I did what wolves do, and that's what I told 'em, and that's why they keep me locked up."
"And what about now - you're still a wolf?" the priest asks.
"You can't turn someone from a sheep into a wolf and then back again, so where does that leave me now?"
One of the most heat-breaking results of Mr Bu$h’s ego-war is TBI. In many ways this is worse than amputations because there are prostheses available to assist vets in getting back to a semblance of normal life. There are no prosthetic devices to help a wounded vet deal with the minutiae of life such as recognizing what time it is, or how to tie shoelaces, or fill out a form on paper.
Four years into experiencing the medical phenomenon, the VA has issued a new directive on Traumatic Brain Injury. The eight-page .pdf document is available from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and McClatchy has provided a direct link to the document here. Click on “TBI” for the document. Click on the IAVA link to learn more about the work this dedicated group is doing to alleviate the suffering of our veterans.
Now, if only we could get Mr Bu$h to actually spend some money to help with this problem……
WASHINGTON — A group designed to assist and recognize wounded troops wants May 1 set aside as a holiday to remember those injured servicemembers’ sacrifices.
The Silver Star Families of America has already successfully lobbied 31 states to observe “Silver Star Day” in honor of the wounded fighters, and hopes to get that number into the mid-40s by the end of April.
Work has already begun to get federal recognition by May 1, 2008. “This is a day we want people to stop for a minute, say a prayer, and remember them,” said Steve Newton, a retired Marine and naval reservist who served in the first Gulf War.
Good heavens yes, let’s do this. It’s a great idea. It’s about time we recognize the sacrifice nationally. May 1st may not be the best choice of dates, given that it’s a day historically and symbolically dedicated to the efforts of the oppressed trying to overthrow their oligarchs. (Workers of the world, etc) But I’d be on board with anything that would highlight the efforts of troops wounded, maimed, dismembered and disabled in Mr Bu$h’s ego-war.
Note to Mr Bu$h: while this is a sensible idea, and well received, the political advantages of yet another cheap publicity stunt for you may rebound to your disadvantage as people slowly realize just how many thousands of their fellow citizens have been disfigured in your little thing in Iraq.
The group, founded two years ago, gets its name not from the Silver Star medal for heroism but the World War I tradition of sewing over the Blue Star banner with silver thread when a soldier was injured. Similarly, relatives of troops killed while serving are known as Gold Star families.
While the Purple Heart recognizes troops who are injured in combat, Newton said his group works to recognize any servicemember injured while serving in the military.
“I spoke to one mother in a VA hospital whose son was injured in Iraq when a Humvee slipped while he was changing a tire,” he said. “She told me how everyone came by when he first got there, but as time went on the numbers went down and people forgot him.
“We want to make sure what they have done is never forgotten.”
Absolutely, Mr Newton. I want to remember each and every one of them.
Liberal Jarhead from TEAMbio points us to a little thingie from the Disabled American Vets that examines how our employees in Washington handle veterans affairs.
Go here and see how your Corporate slave dealt with those who donned a uniform and served us with their blood.
Act surprised as you go through the list and observe Democrats consistently score higher than Republicans.
Patrick Chorpenning, the director of the Arizona Veterans Services, resigned in the wake of a scandal about conditions at a nursing home for veterans. Complaints about veterans left in soiled undergarments, and covered in bodily fluids from leaking medical devices prompted an examination of the Arizona State Veteran Home in Phoenix.
The home, which has 200 beds serving primarily veterans of World War II and the Korean War, was fined $10,000 by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a result of the report.
Gov. Janet Napolitano relieved the director of the department, Patrick Chorpenning, of his duties associated with the home on Monday, and he resigned on Tuesday, saying that “in light of what has taken place in the press, I feel it is in your best interest that I resign.”
“I am certain that after the investigation into the Arizona State Veteran Home is complete,” he added in a two-paragraph letter to the governor, “there will be a complete exoneration of the charges.”
Mr. Chorpenning, a former marine who was seriously wounded in Vietnam, had also been criticized in the report for hiring his wife and cousin at the home, findings that Ms. Napolitano referred to the state attorney general for further inquiry.
…
A lawyer for the veterans home responded to the Arizona Department of Health Services on Monday with a detailed plan for correcting each accusation regarding care for the residents, who are mostly age 70 to 94. Two other employees at the nursing home have been fired, two have resigned and four were reprimanded, said Ms. Lecuyer, the governor’s spokeswoman.
Our good friend, SoS, who lives out in Phoenix with one of the finest ladies I’ve ever met, posted a commentary about how PTSD has affected him. If you don’t know, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome is the hidden ailment affecting at least one-third of our vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. It stems from seeing and doing things that just shouldn’t happen, and can only be really understood by those that have seen the elephant. This is not to say that all vets have this problem. – just about one-third, and a cynical man would suggest that less than one-third of those get any sort of useful treatment from the VA. That’s not to imply that the VA is a useless organization because the employees, as opposed to the political appointee administrators, do a heroic job of caring for their clients. But in these days of Bu$hCo wanting to spend only on guns for oil conquest, the VA currently has its hands full tending those with wounded bodies, and has very little extra to spare for wounded souls.
SoS had a tough time of it during his service time and apparently received just barely enough treatment to keep him off the newspaper’s catastrophe page. I think all vets who’ve been affected by combat have had some sort of manifestation, but many of us have been much luckier than SoS.
His story is here and it would be worth your while to read it.
Unlike the Bu$h maladministration, Any Soldier supports the troops.
Any Soldier Inc. started in August 2003 as a simple family effort to help the soldiers in one Army unit. Due to overwhelming requests, the Any Soldier effort was expanded on January 1, 2004 to include any member of any of the Armed Forces that is in harm's way. Receiving letters is the most requested thing by the Soldiers, and the Any Soldier, Inc. website gives directions on how to send letters to the Soldiers. The website also provides a message board so recipients can make special requests, post photos and messages or express appreciation to those who send items. For more information, visit the Any Soldier, Inc. website.
There are troops overseas who don’t get a lot of care package love from home. We may despise the phoney boloney “Commander-in-Chief” but remember that once upon a time we were troops overseas. We owe it to our brothers and sisters in uniform to lend a hand in any way we can.
I had intended to write something about the revelations of scandalous conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. I should have done that yesterday.
John and Joe, located in DC, writing for AMERICAblog hav done yeoman work in the last two days on this matter. There’s little to add to their outstanding coverage.
For the last few months, anyone who consulted the Veterans Affairs Department’s Web site to learn how many American troops had been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan would have found this number: 50,508.
But on Jan. 10, without explanation, the figure plummeted to 21,649.
Which number is correct? The answer depends on a larger question, the definition of wounded. If the term includes combat or “hostile” injuries inflicted by the enemy, the definition the Pentagon uses, the smaller number would be right.
But if it also applies to injuries from accidents like vehicle crashes and to mental and physical illnesses that developed in the war zone, the meaning that veterans’ groups favor, 50,508 would be accurate.
How odd that there are two different figures; apparently “injured” has to be kept separate from “wounded” for some arcane bureaucratic or political reason. Perhaps Bu$hCo feels that "injured" are not entitled to the same disgraceful level of non-care that "wounded" are insulted with?
The 50,508 figure caught the attention of the Pentagon when Prof. Linda Bilmes of Harvard mentioned it in an opinion article on Jan. 5 in The Los Angeles Times. A few days later, said Professor Bilmes, who teaches public finance, she had a call from Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, challenging the number.
Professor Bilmes explained that she had used the government tally, the one on the “America’s Wars” page of the veterans’ department Web site. She faxed him a copy.
A few days later, the number on the Web site was changed.
A spokeswoman for Dr. Winkenwerder confirmed that he had called the veterans’ department to have the figure corrected and that the worker had misunderstood the Defense Department figures.
For her purposes, Professor Bilmes said, the higher figure was the relevant one because she was writing about the future demands that wounded veterans would place on the veterans’ health care system. Many of the veterans would be treated in the system regardless of whether they had been injured in combat or in vehicle crashes.
It may be a moot question, since the Bu$h malAdministration seems determined to starve the VA of funds to care for the nation’s veterans, even as it avidly seeks to create even more vets. It should also be noted that the “America’s Wars page Professor Bilmes used as a reference has been scribbed. There is no longer any mention of casualties related to Mr Bu$h’s ego-war in Iraq.
We missed this at the time, and it deserves a mention:
More than 10,000 Marines, family members and friends of the Corps were on hand for the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps near Quantico, Va., Nov. 10, the Corps’ 231st Birthday. Due to limited parking and heightened security with the anticipated arrival of the President, more than 100 buses made round trips to the museum over four hours from points north and south, dropping off those who desired to be part of the historic and momentous occasion.
Early arrivals who were waiting for the ceremony to begin passed the time looking for the engraved bricks they had purchased to line the walkway of Semper Fidelis Memorial Park and listening to the Marine Corps Band Quantico and country artist Josh Gracin, a former lance corporal and “American Idol” finalist. Others spent the time catching up with old friends as well as inspecting the Corps’ latest operational equipment displayed by Marine Corps Systems Command.
When I printed out the words to Pete Seeger’s wonderful anti-war anthem Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? yesterday, Jim at Ranger Against War suggested that I should remember Buffy St Marie’s remarkable Universal Soldier. He’s right of course.
There were many fine songs written from the late 20s right through the 70s that espoused sensible progressive ideas promoted through the musical style generally classified as “folk”. I just happen to like Buffy’s artwork, which principally advances Native American themes and can be seen at several museums in western Canada and at the American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe. You can find some of her artwork, as well as several music clips here. You can find one of her children's projects here.
Universal Soldier
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
Today is the day established for the nation to honor our veterans. Originally called Armistice Day, it was set aside in remembrance of the end of the first World War. For almost 40 years America celebrated the end of “the war to end all wars” with parades, speeches and the somber trip to the cemetery to plant flags at lonely stones. (In 1953 the day was renamed “Veterans Day”.) We stepped away from our daily concerns and for a few – too few – brief moments remembered those who gave what little they had so that others might live in peace. We spoke of their ultimate sacrifice and poets such as Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen wrote words that lived long after their bodies had crumbled to dust.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Rupert Brooke - 1914
Brooke died of a medical infection en route to the Gallipoli landings. He never got to learn that war is not the glorious, magnificent and romantic spectacle he imagined it to be.
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.**—Wilfred Owen, 1918.
Wilfred Owen died one week before the end of the war.
But the poem most often cited and most closely linked with this day belongs to Lt Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army’s medical service.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Beneath the crosses row on row
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard beneath the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe,
To you from falling hands we throw
The Torch – be yours to hold it high;
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae died in France in 1918. McCrae’s observations of the debt we owe to those who died are now celebrated on Memorial Day, originally May 31st. Take up his torch and remember - always - the evil of war. Buy a poppy for May 31st, because now they support veterans care organizations.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
Many people might not know the name of the author of the phenomenal comic strip Doonesbury. Even more don’t know what Gary Trudeau looks like because he hates being in the public spotlight. But some vets know him as a man:
IN THE BANQUET ROOM WERE MEN WHO WERE BLIND, men with burns, men with gouges, men missing an arm, men missing a leg, men missing an arm and a leg, men missing an arm and both legs, men missing parts of their faces, and a cartoonist from the funny pages.
We were just a few blocks from the White House, at Fran O'Brien's Steak House. Fran's was hosting a night out for casualties of the current war, visiting from their hospital wards.
It's hard to know what to say to a grievously injured person, and it's easy to be wrong . You could do what I did, for example. Scrounging for the positive, I cheerfully informed a young man who had lost both legs and his left forearm that at least he's lucky he's a righty. Then he wordlessly showed me his right hand, which is missing fingertips and has limited motion -- an articulated claw. That shut things right up, for both of us, and it would have stayed that way, except the cartoonist showed up.
Garry Trudeau, the creator of "Doonesbury," hunkered right down in front of the soldier, eye to eye, introduced himself and proceeded to ignore every single diplomatic nicety.
"So, when were you hit?" he asked.
"October 23."
Trudeau pivoted his body. "So you took the blast on, what . . . this side?"
"Yeah."
Brian Anderson, 25, was in shorts, a look favored by most of the amputees, who tend to wear their new prostheses like combat medals. His legs are metal and plastic, blue and knobby at the knee, shin poles culminating abruptly in sneakers.
"Yeah." Dots are soldier-speak for little beads of shrapnel buried under the skin. Sometimes they take a lifetime to work their way back to the surface. At this, Brian became fully engaged and animated, smiling and talking about the improvised explosive device that took his vehicle out; about his rescue; his recovery; his plans for the future. Trudeau, it turned out, had given him what he needed.
("In these soldiers' minds," Trudeau will explain afterward, "their whole identity, who they are right now, is what happened to them. They want to tell the story, they want to be asked about it, and you're honoring them by listening. The more they revisit it, the less power it has over them.")
Trudeau has been talking to injured vets for a couple of years now. It's partly compassionate support for people he has a genuine regard for, and it's part journalism -- the damnedest sort of reporting, for a professional cartoonist.
This story might be surprising at first glance, but to the seasoned Doonesbury fan it seems like a natural. Has any cartoonist in recent times explored the human condition and America with as much empathy as Trudeau?
"Doonesbury"… survived and metamorphosed over the years into what is essentially an episodic comic novel, with so many active characters that Trudeau himself has been known to confuse them. "Doonesbury" has always remained topical, often controversial. Unapologetically liberal and almost religiously anti-establishment, Trudeau has been denounced by presidents and potentates and condemned on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He's also been described as America's greatest living satirist, mentioned in the same breath as Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce.
But for simple dramatic impact and deft complexity of humor, nothing else in "Doonesbury" has ever approached the storyline of B.D's injury and convalescence. It hasn't been political at all, really, unless you contend that acknowledging the suffering of a war is a political statement. What it has been is remarkably poignant and surprisingly funny at the same time. In what Trudeau calls a "rolling experiment in naturalism," he has managed every few weeks to spoon out a story of war, loss and psychological turmoil in four-panel episodes, each with a crisp punch line.
One of the daily strips that had the most emotional impact for me occurred after the fall of Saigon. Phred, B.D’s Vietnamese friend was celebrating the regime change, and wondering how B.D was handling it all. The last panel in the strip showed a football-helmeted B.D. head bent low as if suffering under an intolerable weight, watching the unforgettable scene of desperate crowds scrambling to board the “last helicopter” on the roof of the US Embassy. As much as I hated that war and despised the fools who got us into it, I felt that crushing sadness and sense of loss that Trudeau drew in B.D.’s defeated body.
NOTE: This article appears in the Sunday Washington Post. Because of disgust and outrage over how Fred Hiatt has debased and degraded a once-magnificent newspaper by groveling for the Bu$h malAdministration, we have a policy of not linking to WaPo articles. This story is an exception because it has a noble purpose: relating how a decent American handles the excruciating issue of dealing with wounded vets, and how his matter-of-fact humanity seems to help them. Readers have never commented on this policy of exclusion and their silence might signify approval. This WaPo article was linked to with pride.
After years of continuous and rising neglect by Bu$hCo, the crisis facing military veterans disabled by service-related injuries and illnesses us reaching serious proportions. An article in today’s NY Times reports:
Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.
“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.
Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.
The drastically increased levels of combat experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the moderate success of body armor, have created a situation where major debilitating wounds are increasingly the norm. In an environment that seems to be dominated by IEDs and RPG attacks, traumatic amputations and severe head injuries are wreaking havoc among our infantry.
A form of service-related disability frequently overlooked by Congressional budgeters is the high levels of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder experienced by returning service members. In fact, many members of Congress seem to dispute the very existence of PTSD, apparently believing it to be some form of urban myth. This mindset might be further enhanced by the fact that so few Congress members, especially among the majority party, have ever served in the military, let alone in combat.
According to 2005 VA testimony given to Congress, about 2.5 million veterans are receiving some form of disability, the most common level being a 10% payment. The VA indicates that of the 1.1 million American troops who served in Gulf War I, 291,740 are receiving compensation.
The documents on the current conflicts provide no details on the type of disabilities claimed by veterans. Most were found to be 30 percent disabled or less, and one in 10 recipients was found to be 100 percent disabled. Payments run from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 a month depending on the severity of the disability.
A separate V.A. health care report shows that the most common treatments sought by recently discharged troops are for musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, followed by mental disorders, notably post traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought treatment for post traumatic stress, which afflicts soldiers who have been under fire or in prolonged danger of attack.
A 2005 newsletter circulated to Cogress by the Vietnam Veterans of America indicates:
WASHINGTON, May 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Budget Resolution passed by both houses of Congress will result in staff reductions in every VA Medical Center at a most inauspicious time—as veterans return from the war in Iraq and as increasing numbers of veterans need care from the system, said Thomas H. Corey, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
The impact will be significant among those returning troops who suffer from mental health issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), those who have sustained loss of limbs, and other serious injuries.
A Congress desperate to fund Mr Bu$h’s personal war of choice has ruthlessly cut back on funding for the Veterans’ Administration, apparently under the misguided concept that a wounded and disabled soldier is of no further use to the nation. Politically appointed administrators within the VA have of course obediently obeyed the commands of their party’s leadership.
From the 2005 VVA report:
In addition to devastating decreases in the availability of care for veterans that will result from such budget cuts, the VA seems determined to contest even long-standing disability compensation for PTSD from veterans currently receiving VA benefits and health care. A recent VA Inspector General's (IG) report concluded that following a brief review of certain grants of service-connected benefits for PTSD, the "subjectivity" involved in such determinations has resulted in over-granting of benefits.
As a result, the VA will be reviewing PTSD grants between 1999 and 2004, with an eye toward revoking benefits if the claim was adjusted incorrectly. "VVA believes that the "subjectivity" offered to the IG report is a euphemism for poor training and quality control of VA adjudication staff.
"We must make it crystal clear to Congress that the budget appropriation for fiscal year 2006 year is at least $3.5 billion less than what is needed to fund the
