Veterans Day

Three years I wrote a post which began:

It's called "Veterans Day" here in the States - we renamed it, I guess, when it became clear that the War to End War hadn't and wouldn't. So it's Veterans Day, now - not Memorial Day, for the dead, that's in May,... now we remember the living.

At least, we say we do. Well, I'm a veteran. I don't want just another day off work with no commitment behind it to actually give a damn about the veterans, especially those who come home from these modern wars all torn up, because medicine can save their bodies, only to find that no one in the government intends to take care of them. Veterans Day is nothing more than automobile sales, and servicemen get a 5% discount!, and wear your uniform, get in free! It's not go to a hospital and see what the price really is; it's not lobby the congress to restore the benefits cut in 1995; it's not give them their meds and counseling on time and affordably; it's not tell the VA to actively take care of vets instead of waiting for them to find out on their own what they're eligible for. And it's most certainly not the government actually giving a damn....

Since then, of course we had ever accumulating proof of that, in the Walter Reed scandal (you do remember that?); we've had "Warriors in Transition" (the catchy new name for wounded soldiers on their way to discharge via the VA and therapy); acres of missing paperwork - much of it shredded "in error"; "personality disorders" being diagnosed by the dozens so soldiers can be kicked out of the army without benefits; six months and more for initial claims to be processed; National Guardsmen brought back from Iraq after 729 days of active duty - so they don't qualify for the educational benefits that kick in at 730; and just this week a grim reminder of the rampant psychiatric problems in the military. "According to the Army, the suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq is five times that seen in the Persian Gulf War and 11% higher than during Vietnam. The Army reported 133 suicides in 2008, the most ever. In January of this year, the 24 suicides reported by the Army outnumbered U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Marine Corps also reported an increase in suicides in 2008, to 41." (Roan, 11/9). ... Need I go on? I could.

Today is Veterans Day. It's not Memorial Day. It's not a day to refuse to fight wars - some wars are necessary.

But it is a day to honestly assess the price of the war - any war - to those who fight it and come home, and to promise ourselves to do the right thing by them. Because it is the right thing. Because we owe it to them. Because we sent them into harm's way, and they were harmed, and our contract with them is to take care of them. As I said before,

We don't need people paying lip service to vets while ignoring them in the VA hospitals or on the street corners. We don't need to mythologize veterans, turn them into some great symbol of our nation's righteous aggression while we forget their humanity. We don't need a holiday that glorifies war by glorifying soldiers.

Let's contemplate the cost of the non-stop, endless wars this country feels somehow called upon to fight. And let's stop all our ultimately empty fetishization of the military, like calling them "Wounded Warriors" in ordinary prose. Let's stop capitalizing Solider and Wounded Warrior and Troop - and stop capitalizing on them, too. Let's stop the relentless glorification of the figure of the soldier, and start actually caring about them. Let's stop Supporting the Troops with magnets and signs, and start some actual damned support - with money, first of all, money and beds and hospitals and benefits that actually are.

We've made a start, with last month's legislation that provides timely funding for the VA. Now they know in advance how much money they'll have, and late funding and the rationing it causes will now be in the past. But we need to do more. Funding in advance is great, but it must be adequate funding. The days of a hospital having one psychiatrist taking appointments two days a week, for instance, must end.

Also good news is the appointment of Eric Shinseki to oversee veterans' affairs. He's prepared to tackle tough problems like "the grinding problems veterans face at home. They lead the nation in depression, suicide, substance abuse and homelessness". But his willingness will need lots of money and power to make it work.

And something needs to be done about the soaring rate of PTSD, which is causally linked to multiple combat tours. If we must fight "the long, long war",

So let's save the worship for Memorial Day. Today's for the ones who are still alive, and most of all for the ones who still need us.

Last year my poem was The Next War by Robert Graves (read it here). Two years ago it was Aftermath by Siegfried Sassoon (read it here), and the year before it was 1916 seen from 1921 by Edmund Blunden (read it here). This year I offer you Li Po's Nefarious War, translated from the Chinese by Shigeyoshi Obata. A key line is this: The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home. That's the kind of war we can pretend is going well, because we can't see it or its fighters. We see the joyous reunions, but we don't see the bodies or those that live but are broken...

Last year we fought by the head-stream of the So-Kan,
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.
We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan’s snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home.
Our three armies are worn and grown old.

The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;
On his yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but blanched skulls and bones.
Where the Chin emperor built the walls against the Tartars,
There the defenders of Han are burning beacon fires.
The beacon fires burn and never go out.
There is no end to war!—

In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.

Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns.