“Wars begin where you will but they do not end where you please.” A quote by Machiavelli–it’s at the end of the movie “Home of the Brave” about Iraq veterans who try to cope with life after a tour of duty.
The war our country has found itself embroiled in a world away has had devastating effects—not only felt on the far confines of that world far away. The ripples of war have also hit home here, in the hearts, minds and souls of our soldiers that come home and try to make sense of a “normal” and “routine” life.
Things like getting up to go to work, getting dressed, talking about your family, friends, work experiences…going to the grocery store, watching a movie, taking a nap—all of these things tie to a semblance of routine, everyday life. This is the life that most of us civilians know.
One can only imagine what a soldier who has grown up in our society sees once they set foot on that dusty desert floor in Iraq. One can only imagine what a soldier sees when their convoy gets hit by a roadside bomb that’s set off by a kid they just saw passing by. One can only imagine the feeling of seeing a lifelong friend lose a life, from bullets fired by insurgents, hell-bent on their individual maxim of freedom. There are so many more scenarios that a civilian mind could not even begin to fathom—and our soldiers have to live through the brutal reality of these unfathomable experiences.
It becomes harder to understand why we send these soldiers to a faraway world, especially when our leaders appear to be the ones nestled safely in their offices, behind bunkers and a plethora of security. They espouse “accurate” reports on intelligence, on strategy, on an end goal. Our politicians speak of missions, a plan, a vision for the betterment of the world we live in. How, then, is it feasible for a reasonable person to submit another individual to such experiences, such horrors in the name of ideals?
These soldiers, more often than not, come back changed people. The upstanding young man next door, the kid that wants to get away from a life of crime enlists, the daughter of a hard-working family feels it is her patriotic duty to serve her country…they come back to their families with a sense of wanting to belong. Does war better prepare them for life outsize the hot zone?
Or, does war unleash the primal animal that nestles deep within our psyches? Does war bring out the real souls within our bodies?
It is a sad day when a civilian tries to make sense of a war that, with an increasing amount of daily news shows that our country was misguided and led into a war that it had no place joining to begin with.
Who takes care of the soldiers, then? Who truly recognizes what they have gone through to protect our daily way of life? Who stops and says “thank you” not to act as if they understand what the soldier went through, but to simply appreciate their monumental sacrifice?
The soldiers of our armed forces volunteered. They enlisted—they left the safe confines of the world they knew, to go to another world and try to pass on ideals of a free country.
Who thanks them? A government that seems to uncover more errors as it tries to make sense of itself? It hardly seems the right way to thank our soldiers.
Take a moment—forget about politics, forget about our government…to think of those soldiers who are fighting to preserve the ideals that this country was founded upon.
They’re paying the ultimate price.
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Nicely written, heartfelt blog about the soldiers returning from combat missions, Oscar. Well done. Ken Burns’ The War pretty much described the homecoming conditions of the American soldiers from the European and Pacific theaters in World War II: not all were positive, unlike the Hollywood version of happy soldiers returning from the war and having great lives at home. The WW2 vets did not really speak much about what happened in Europe or in the Pacific, at least it would be few decades until they speak up honestly about their experiences, harrowing conditions and sad losses of people they’d known and served with. Same with the Korean and Vietnam veterans. The same is true with the Persian Gulf and Iraqi war veterans nowadays. Whether they were drafted or volunteered in the beginning, these veterans knew the risks and the prices of any combat mission or war anywhere in the world, for as long as they were (and some still do to this day) wearing the uniforms of the United States Armed Services, ready to be called upon to serve the country at a moment’s notice. While politicians and bureaucrats may not care a whit for life after the war for these soldier-veterans, we the American people must oblige ourselves to thank and acknowledge them for their services and sacrifices to the country. When you see a veteran, thank a veteran with a handshake and brief, kind words. That means the world to them.
Addendum: My father served in the U.S. Army for 35 years and was a Vietnam vet. He served a tour in the Korean peninsula after the Korean war and later served a tour in Vietnam (the year of the Tet Offensive). He did not completely agreed with the United States’ military role in the Vietnam War after he completed the tour but nonetheless continued serving the US Army and the country for as long after that war ended.
The Bush II adminstration surely treat our overworked and exhausted soldiers in much shabbily way and leave many physically deformed soldiers at no mercy without reasonable government assistance or generosity from the society at large. The waivers of returning soliders and their families’ finanical debts would do pretty fine to show our true appreciations, not saddle them with mounting debts.
The current Iraq-Afghanistan wars are results of corporatism and corporatacy within our American society. The natural energy producers like personal wind turbines and cars with 300 mpg for gas effeciency would not drag us into the control of natural resources in the Middle East in the first place.
We salute our American soldiers and generals, not the Commander in the Chief, contractors and puppet masters!
Robert L. Mason (RLM)
RLMDEAF blog
RLM,
We should blame more on the penny-pinching Pentagon bureaucrats, defeatist policymakers from Congress, and a handful of incompetent Republican goons and neocons from the Bush administration for screwing up the US military left and right. It has less to do with oil politics and more to do with sheer incompetence within the federal government.
The only person we should blame it all is F@&cking Dick Cheney. He started transforming the military ever since he was appointed as Secretary of Defense during the presidency of 1st Bush and ultimately end up acquiring and merging several military related businesses/subsidiaries under his freaking Halliburton Company in time so that Halliburton can ge exclusive noncompetitive contracts during the 2nd Bush presidnecy.
Cheney is the Father and the Founder of NeoCon think tank group: PNAC http://www.newamericancentury......ciples.htm with one goal which is to spread American Empire and Business thru out the world under propaganda message “spreading democracy” or fear of “Islam Threat”
Dang, what a mess!
It may be true that Cheney used his Halliburton corporate connections to gain lucrative contract deals with the U.S. government and the Pentagon for the Iraqi war but it is not the first time he did that. Before World War II, some large American companies procured lucrative contract deals with the U.S. government and the military in advance well before the Japanese were planning to strike Pearl Harbor. There were people who served in the FDR administration in the mid-1930s managed to secure contract deals, secretly, between the government and the industries, pertaining to the munitions, supplies, medicinal and vehicle materials, to support the coming war efforts between England, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany just prior to 1939, before the onset of WW 2. The full American support for Britain’s fight against the Nazis did not come about until the Lend-Lease Act was signed in March 1941 by President FDR, enabling the supplying and distributing war-support materials to Britain and the Soviet Union. Hitler wrote a letter and sent his envoy to FDR warning that such a move was a tantamount to an act of war between the US and Nazi Germany.
The point of this was it is not the first time Cheney and his people did such things prior to the Iraqi war while being as VP. It’s old game of politics and businesses interwoven to support future war efforts going back to the end of the 18th century.
And Cheney is not the founder of the PNAC group, he’s one of many signatories to the American geo-strategic cause. The real founders are Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan. Cheney’s role in transforming the military in the first Bush administration bore out of needs to improvise the United States Armed Services in the face of changing times and circumstances after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. You cannot maintain the same kind of command structure and defense readiness for decades on end, it’s a guaranteed failure for any country, less alone the United States, to step up and ready for war at a moment’s notice. You can ask the Poles why they were using the 19th century style military-defensive capabilities when they were facing the highly modernized German forces in 1939. Officers on horses versus tanks? Those ballsy Poles! lol.
it makes me think about companies that profit from the war other than the haliburtion. i’ve read somewhere (people’s history of the US by zinn, i think) that the Union soliders had defective guns supplied by Rockfeller (or JP Morgan?).
Zinn’s book was heavily criticized for its distorted, mixed-up and wrong facts made to suit his revisionist perspective of the American history through the plights of “oppressed” peoples. Some of his propositions and theories from his book were bit far-fetched or unsubstantiated and yet many of his admirers took his book at face value, unfortunately so. To them, a distorted or erroneous fact is preferable to an actual, correct fact.
John D. Rockefeller (the founder of Standard Oil Trust) did not goes into munition or weapon-making business, he started out working for an Ohio accounting firm during the Civil War before he got into the oil boom business.
J.P. Morgan, on the other hand, was approached by a company to finance the purchase of old Army rifles and guns, re-machinate them and to sell them back to the government for higher profits during the Civil War. It was pure government incompetence (for not checking the records and examining the items), not deceit by Morgan acting as an lender for that company who deceived him.
rob, thanks for your post. it’s been a while since i read the book (and I’ve packed it into boxes so I can’t delve more into this at the moment). my dad refers the book as leftist’s history :)
you
What IS it with DeafDC.com bloggers feeling all patriotic all of a sudden? First it was Vikki’s blog- “Rubbing Salt” about soliders losing body parts and now you, Oscar, with you espousing care and concern about their post-war lives.
Boo hoo ******* hoo. War…what is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Unlike you, there are people who do care about the troops in post-war lives. It doesn’t matter whether they’re fighting in a war, right or wrong, we must show compassion and acknowledgment to them for their services and sacrifices to the country.
Your heartless comment only demonstrate your lack of respect for anyone affected by those who served the country honorably.
“… unlike you…” How the hell do you know if “Anonymous” doesnt care about the vets? His or her entry says nothing in disdain of the vets. This is obfuscation on your part.
Brent, it’s pretty obvious, because this person disdained Vikki’s blog. What was wrong with Vikki’s blog?
And I see nothing wrong with Oscar’s blog either. Neither those blogs talked about Bush, or what he’s doing. Those blogs talked about the vets themselves.
So when anonymous slammed those blogs, s/he also indirectly slammed the vets.
That’s how the hell *I* know.
Brent, there’s nothing in my post that’s obfuscation. “Anonymous” was slamming bloggers like Vikki or Oscar for caring about the vets and their plights. You slam those who care about and acknowledge the vets, you slam the very people who gave you the freedoms to speak freely and live in peace: the American veterans and the active personnel in the US Armed Services overseas. Next time, buy a clue, Brent.
Why is it that virtually every recent blog entry here has enticed curmudgeons to spread their brand of “joy”?
I see the DeafDC.com authors here composing some really great entries, both well reasoned and well written.
Despite the care lavished on the entries, and seemingly regardless of the author, it isn’t long before some ill-intentioned commenters barge in with all the grace of grinches. For some reason, the authors are deemed enemies, guilty of this infringement or that, and therefore deserving of a shrill rebuke.
Yes, criticism can be valuable in prompting us to sharpen our arguments and to review our own ideas.
But there is such a thing as constructive criticism. If the DeafDC.com authors are really in such need of enlightenment or improvement, why not phrase your observations in a clear and constructive manner so all can benefit?
Negativism requires no effort. Dare to be constructive in your comments. And consider the possibility that DeafDC.com authors are not your enemy just because they happen to write on certain topics!
I’m heartless? That’s a good chuckle to be had there. I was rolling in mirth at you lot who seemed to be clueless, after all.
For, after all, the blood of the troops is in YOUR hands, those who voted Bush and his hell-bent agenda back into office in 2004. I am tired of all talk and no action from people who are *supposed* to represent us, and that goes for BOTH the hapless Donkeys and the clod-footed Elephants.
And we are no better…we flap our gums, or in this case, fingers clamoring about our poor troops. When they are themselves pawns in an horrible game of chess played by the orge hand that is owned by POTUS.
Oscar, I understand you did not want to invoke politics into this, but the fact is…the onus is on people who continue to stand by while our troops are being assaulted…not by machine guns, but the sleath and shady doings of those on high.
“represent us”? has anyone sent letters or emailed to their congressional representatives asking for improved benefits for troops such as health care? remember, congress representatives terms lasts two years and we have the power to vote them out or keep ‘em in. that’d be doing something…
Anonymous, it is YOU who is clueless.
So often we focus on the political cost of war and tend to ignore the human cost. Even if we successfully mend the schism in Iraq and provide a Democratic structure conducive to civility, the conflict will still end with thousands of American citizens dead and many more injured mentally and physically. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back and think about that.
Nice post
Dan Lawton
Neo-conservative is a codeword for being anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. Iraq was a biiger threat in the past. Both of the late’s Saddam Hussein’s late sons “kidnapped” and “raped” Iraqis every night, to the silence of U.S. feminists whoa re doing nothing to help stop the honor killings int he name of PC.
And to Anonyomous, well if you work for the Department of Defense and see the budget cuts to 60% during clinton while he deployed troops overseas with no love, no UN approval (Kosovo), etc, wait till it is your turn.
Thor,
Please do your research before you spit out half-founded assumptions gathered from Bill O’Reilly’s talking points.
Thank you.
Katie, go to http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/, http://www.aipac.org, http://www.dod.mil (Iraq site), http://www.iwf.org, etc.
Why are you opressed those who views are different from your left-wing “I’m always right” opinion?
Read Time, Newsweek, U.S News & World Report, etc. those left-wing slant also reported on it since 2001.