Armistice Day 2013

I recently posted what was to me a heartwarming video of a homeless military veteran being given a makeover.  The story was told in stop action video format and it showed the transformation of the man.  The end of the video showed him being shown his new look.  There he was resplendent in his new suit, haircut, shave, and made up face.  The man broke down and cried and hugged the film's producer.  The message at the end of video told us that he was so moved by what he saw and it's significance to his self worth that he committed himself for the first time to an AA treatment program and is working on getting sober and working again.

To me, this was a lesson showing just how much of our self confidence and self worth is raveled in our external appearances and the power that vision has over us.  The fact that the person depicted was a military veteran had no impact on the story line.

My friend Al, a military veteran, took me to task for posting the video.  For him it was an indictment of just how little we think about the deal we as a culture has made with our soldiers.  Broken down into simple bullet points, here is what I think is the deal.  In exchange for their life and well being: physical mental, intellectual, and spiritual; we promise to:

• Make wise and humane decisions when we commit them to do our killing and to fight our wars.
• Treat them with dignity and respect while they are being trained to do our killing and fighting our wars.
• Take care of them while they are in harm's way.
• Take care of them when they come back, broken or whole, physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.
• Take care of their families if they don't come back, or if they come back maimed and unable to make a living.

If one considers just how heinous modern warfare can be, I don't think it is asking for too much.

Al thought though that the video representative of just how shallow our commitment to the veterans are because the message that he got was that everything will be fine if we gave our veterans a makeover and they will be fine.

Al has a point.  Even though I think he overthought the video.

We are inundated with verbal diarrhea and other tripe on Memorial Day, Armistice Day, the Fourth of July and even Christmas from politicians, political parties, and our fellow citizens. We are reminded to honor the veterans where ever we are, we are shown videos of the wonderful people of this country clapping whenever a person in military uniform walks by or how major corporations, the major beneficiaries of these wars that we fight, are being so generous with their special employment opportunities. We are treated to politicians who never did one second of military service wrapping themselves in flags and speaking movingly of the bravery of the men and women of our country.

The truth of the matter is that we treat the military abhorrently, it doesn't matter if they are active duty or whether they are retired.  We do give them some nominal assistance, but the worth of those programs are a mere drop in the bucket when compared with the profits gained by the corporations who lead us inexorably towards war in order to profit their own profit margins and their ever important shareholders.

Civilizations have always taken advantage of the hopeless and helpless to profit the powerful and wealthy.  Our society is no different.  I also think that those being taken advantage of also knows this but they are much more hopeful and optimistic about their own role as the paid mercenary class, they have a steadfast belief that the society will be true to our words and fulfill the aforementioned bargain completely.  Sadly, that is not the case.

Here are some of the many ways that we have not fulfilled our bargain:

• Women are being sexually harassed, assaulted, and out and out raped while on active duty, and nothing has been done by the military senior leadership until congress, actually just the female members of congress threatened to cut off their....funding.  Many of the military brass threw out the old excuse: threat to military discipline.  I think raping a fellow soldier is example eenough that discipline is already broken.
• The number of suicide amongst the active duty military has skyrocketed.  It is obvious that there is something that is happening over in Iraq and Afghanistan that is creating a major mental health problem with our fellow citizens who are in uniform, and despite the best efforts of the existing military medical resources it is not enough.  And yet, our congress imposes sequestration on our economy and true to form, the weapons programs don't get cut, the mental healthy and military well being programs do get cut.
• The horrors of the VA system was well documented during the previous administration.  We progressives responded loudly to the incompetence of the Bush administration, and yet we are five years into the Obama administration and while there improvements, it is anything but improving at a satisfactory rate.  Appointing Eric Shinseki as the head of Veterans affairs is one small step, we need many more steps.
• We will have a massive influx of returning vets coming home.  The present veteran affairs system is in no way, shape, or form ready for this onslaught.  What this means is that the social welfare system will be stressed by sheer numbers, and with the after effects of the sequestration and the tax cutting mantra of the ultra conservatives, the situation will only get worse.

To make matters worse, here are some ironies to ponder.

• When Bush was elected and announced his cabinet, one of my volleyball friends, who is active military declared that she was very happy to see Rumsfeld as the DOD secretary because she thought that: " he knew the military and was sympathetic to the soldier."  After the Afgahanistan and Iraq wars, the miscalculations, the wantonly bad decisions, I wonder if she regrets her optimism.  Of course, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith et.al were never active military.  How did they get the aura of being sympathetic to the foot soldier.  Yet John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were suspect in defense matters.
• I understand that ex-military are traditionally pro-conservative, that is their mindset.  Unfortunately the new conservatives are anything but faithful to the military folks, just look at how many times they have sold them down the river.  Look at the number of conservative lawmakers who voted to enter Iraq and then look at how many of them voted to cut veteran benefits. It is sad that you don't realize that you have been sold down the river and yet still act as lapdogs to your abusers.
• On the other hand, I have also heard veterans talk about civilians not understanding what it takes to be military and that they should get special treatment because they are veterans and have sacrificed for the society.  The tragic aspect of this attitude is that we have caused them to feel like the things they have earned should be termed as special.  The veterans should be given what they have earned, that was a part of the deal, not something special.  When we meet our end of the bargain, maybe they can stop thinking about what they have earned as being extraordinary and just ordinary.

So, ending my rant.  I would like to ask people to do something different for Armistice Day this year, instead of writing or mouthing the usual  long laudatory pablum on God, country, bravery, and patriotism and boring all of us.  Help a vet, write a politician to make sure they get what they have earned, buy a vet a coffee, a doughnut, a meal. Do something nice for them on November 11.  And then, taking the big leap here, do something special for them everyday. 

Happy Armistice Day.