" Don't Just Parade For These Vets

Veterans Day is to honor veterans who served in the armed forces of this nation. The purpose of this article is to tell why many men and women are motivated to serve in the military, how the nation really treats them after they return and what most veterans want by way of being properly honored by their fellow citizens.

Men and women are motivated to serve in the military because they love their country and want to make it safe from foreign enemies so their children and future generations may live in peace, prosperity and freedom. War veterans feel that their sacrifice entitles them to have a say in determining their future and that if they suffered injury through their military service that they receive fair treatment by way of medical care and benefits from a thankful nation. Historically, however, this is not what veterans receive.

In the event known as Shay's rebellion, veterans of the American Revolution expressed discontent at not having been adequately compensated for their military service, as they had been promised. In the two centuries since then, veterans of virtually every war this country has fought have been unfairly treated.

In this century, during the depression years, our own military, under General MacArthur, Colonel Eisenhower and Major Patton actually routed U.S. veterans as if they were enemy soldiers. These vets were encamped, many with their wives and children, on the capital's Mall peacefully petitioning their government for their promised but denied bonus pay. They and their families were without jobs and were hungry. They desperately needed their promised pay for their loyal service. One of their signs said: Heroes in 1917 - Bums in 1932.

There is currently an effort to recognize the Atomic Veterans, those who were used as guinea pigs in experiments with exposure to atomic bomb fallout, with medals for their "extraordinary contribution to our national defense." This effort begs the question of whether the nation should also give medals to the African Americans used as guinea pigs during the Tuskegee syphilis experiment for their "extraordinary contribution to medical research"? While we are giving out medals, maybe we should give some to the troops who unwittingly were administered LSD by our government, at least one of whom committed suicide while under the effects of the hallucinogenic chemical.

Sometimes hypothetical analogies reveal startling truths, truths hidden because we wish to be blind to the wrongs of our own country. For example, let's say Saddam Hussein conducted some atomic tests and used his own soldiers as 'guinea pigs' to study the effects of radiation poisoning. Wouldn't our government then report that Saddam, Hitler incarnate, had committed a heinous crime? That therefore we had to destroy all his cache of weapons of mass destruction? What would we say if the Iraqi's spearheaded an effort to give the victims of their experiments medals? If we are determined to remain blind to our wrongs we can't fix them, we can't do better in the future.

Agent Orange, a defoliant used in Vietnam to deny jungle cover to the enemy, was known by our government and its manufacturer to be highly toxic. Our troops who used or who were otherwise exposed to this poison were not given any protection from it. The soldiers who were seriously sickened by this chemical were belittled and falsely told that their illnesses were mental, caused by shell shock, as if such a cause were not legitimate, as if their illnesses were their own fault.

Gulf War Veterans, as many as 100,000, suffer many different debilitating diseases collectively labeled the Gulf War Syndrome. These veterans were likewise belittled by our government. One of the probable causes of at least one of these diseases is exposure to a new shell used for the first time in the Gulf War. The new shell is made from depleted uranium. It is very dense and is very effective in piercing armor. However, it ignites upon impact and the particles released in the fire are radioactive and are breathed or ingested in by the troops in the area. Again, our government knew of the danger and failed to warn or train the troops, letting them become needlessly exposed. Some suspect the reason is that the protocols for protection require the wearing of what is nearly a space suit, which would have drastically interfered with the ability of the troops to fight. Were they sacrificed for effectiveness? Congressman Shay from Connecticut said to Gulf War Veterans: "We need to make sure that no one ever again has to go through what you are going through right now." Will things change or will things remain as they have been throughout our history: Heroes when needed and bums when no longer needed?

Veterans have organized into groups after these wars to obtain recognition and remediation for the ills they suffer from as a consequence of their military service. In other words, they have been required to organize and fight to obtain what their nation owed and should have provided graciously without being asked. Instead we get a parade. A parade which glorifies war and helps lead the next bunch of kids into blindly joining the military to enjoy like treatment.

What does the nation owe veterans? It does not owe us any medals for the wrongs done to us nor even parades. Instead it owes us easily accessible and decent medical care and benefits for our injuries and disabilities. Also, since we served to protect our children and future generations from foreign harm the very least our government can do for our children and future generations who may serve in the armed forces is to treat them with justice. Do not knowingly expose them to know dangers, radioactive, bacteriological or chemical or whatever, without proper training and protection. And, if, in spite of all proper protection, they nevertheless become injured, treat them with dignity and respect and provide easily accessible and proper medical care and benefits.

Also, to truly honor veterans, abolish war. War is not an effective way to solve problems; in fact the problems are still there to be solved after the war has ended, plus, always, new problems result, such as the ill health of veterans. Seymour Hersh, author of a recent book titled: Against All Enemies, asks if the military can protect our soldiers and sailors in future wars if it was unable to do so in the Gulf War. We must ask whether modern conditions of warfare require Kamikaze soldiers. If a bullet doesn't get you a chemical, a germ or radiation will. The effectiveness of war to resolve disputes is obsolete. We need the political will and moral commitment to sign treaties stating that war is not an acceptable method to resolve disputes and to establish international mechanisms in place of violence to settle disputes peacefully.

Another good reason to abolish war is that our defense budget is a drain of resources, 1.7 billion dollars a day, which could be used to better the condition of our children and future generations, those for whom we served. Economic conditions are such that the American Dream, each generation living better than the last, is no longer expected. Americans served in the military believing they were protecting the American Dream. To honor veterans, bring back the American Dream. International megacorporations, without any loyalty to America, loyal only to profits, are running this country and as the top executives get richer and richer the middle class is being wiped out. In 1970, the CEO of a typical Fortune 500 corporation earned approximately 35 times as much as the average manufacturing employee. Now the CEO earns over 150 times as much and workers are laboring longer, harder, and for less and less. Much of the family breakdown we decry is due to job-related stress. Many veterans who served to bring about a better life for themselves, their families and for all of us, feel the country they sacrificed so much for used and betrayed them, and left them and way too many of America's average citizens silenced and sidelined.

Why is it that our elected representatives have dismissed working for the type of America which veterans served to preserve and the type of America working people labored to bring about? I suggest that the reason has to do with corporate buying of our politicians. One mere example will suffice: The whiskey industry is lobbying to end the voluntary ban on broadcasting hard-liquor advertising. In 1996, one major whiskey corporation gave $950,000 to the Democrats and $640,000 to the Republicans. Who has more influence with our elected officials: The whiskey people who want their ads on TV and who bought both parties or those parents trying to help their children avoid the scourge of alcohol? Megacorporations now own America. They bought and paid for America. As Gerry Spence, in his book, Give Me Liberty! says: Congress is not a temple of democracy but instead a brothel of Mammon. "We the People...," the people of the Bill of Rights, no longer are sovereign. Veterans did not serve so that megacorporations could own the country. We served to protect our democracy and our prosperity for the people. We Americans in the Age of International Megcorporations have lost sight of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called self-evident economic truths. He called on Congress on January 11, 1944, during the heat of war, for a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity should be established for all:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries, or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing and recreation;
"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
"The right of every family to a decent home;
"The right to adequate health care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
"The right to adequate protection from economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
"The right to a good education."

Germany and Japan lost WWII and every citizen of those countries has free national healthcare while millions of Americans have no health insurance. If the sacrifices of those who have died and suffered in battle for our way of life, for our democracy, and for our freedom, are not to have been in vain, we must take back America. We can bring back the American Dream. There are many ways to begin. First, we must care and we must become engaged. There are thousands of non-profits working for a better America. Join! There are new political parties dedicated to democracy and not to the continuation of the oligarchy. Join! There are demonstrations being held regularly in our capitol and elsewhere. Join! If we show through active engagement that we want America back, what corporation could stop us? Just as the Soviet Union collapsed when the people stopped being its slaves, so can corporate rule collapse. If we went only one week without buying products made by corporations the CEOs would shudder. But the point is, no matter what the strategy, join, become engaged.

Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg, honoring those who died in battle during another great threat to American democracy, that it was up to the living to take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their last full measure of devotion, "...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Likewise, don't merely parade for veterans. Take our effort seriously. Resolve that our sacrifices shall not be in vain.

SK
U.S. Army 1963-66