A recent story about a military veteran who committed suicide brought to mind a personal story of my own. I had an uncle who served and fought for the Navy during World War II. When my uncle finally left the military, he left with a great deal of psychological challenges that plagued him for decades thereafter and eventually caused him to kill himself at the age of 73.
World War II was an incredible and horrible experience for so many people throughout the world, but unlike too many of our most recent wars, beginning with the war in Korea, America had no choice but to fight with the Allies against the Nazis, and against the Japanese, who attacked us in December 1941. It became basically a do-or-die effort not of our choice, but of our need to defend ourselves.
I wish I could feel the same for our present circumstances.
Recent reports on issues of mental and psychological illnesses overcoming so many of our military personnel who have served faithfully for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and in other places over the past six decades are nothing less than disturbing.
The annual rate of suicides by our veterans is disturbing. So too is the number of veterans who have fallen into disrepair and into homelessness because of their service. And so too is the suffering that takes place among the families of these courageous soldiers.
The above issues tear at my heart. But what makes all of this information really hard to bear, for me, is my belief that we, as a nation, should never have adopted the policy of “preventive war” as a method of dealing with problems confronting us.
We in America have a military service worthy of our love and highest respect. Whenever our service members are sent out to fight, they do so with great effort.
But an argument can be made that too often in the last several decades, our political leaders, who for the most part never fought a day on behalf of our military and our nation, found it too easy to send the sons and daughters of others to fight battles for questionable reasons.
In Vietnam, America ignored the history of other great nations like the French, who tried and failed to conquer the Vietnamese, and like the French, we too failed at the cost of 58,000 military lives lost and so many more military lives hurt.
In Iraq, we claimed we were fighting a dangerous enemy of America, but the result of our war was to leave Iraq weak and America’s other enemy from that area of the world, Iran, far more powerful.
In Afghanistan, we have fought for over 13 years, ignoring an incredible Afghan history that included a 10-year failed attempt by the then-Soviet Union to conquer its next-door neighbor using the second most powerful military on this Earth.
What should the word “patriotism” actually mean for us Americans? For me, the meaning was simple as I was growing up in the 1940s.
We had been attacked by a military determined to control the world, so we Americans acted as a community with better than one in 10 of us putting their lives on the line to fight for us, and a very large majority of the rest of us doing their fair share here in America to see that we remained safe and secure. Those were the days of community volunteers, community victory gardens for vegetable crops all over our country, and progressive tax rates that saw the wealthy paying so much more to ensure that the cost of war would be covered.
Almost everyone paid a price and everyone reaped the reward when our victory with the Allies was complete.
We live in a democracy. I could be wrong with my views about the history of World War II versus the history of our most recent wars. But I do believe that we have made serious mistakes in our decisions to fight in Iraq and, after we lost sight of Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan, to continue to fight a war there for so many years.
As a result of my belief, it is my hope that we in America, all of us, will begin to examine all of the facts surrounding our current wars in an effort to make objective decisions as to what would actually be in the best interest for us in America going forward.
World War II was an incredible and horrible experience for so many people throughout the world, but unlike too many of our most recent wars, beginning with the war in Korea, America had no choice but to fight with the Allies against the Nazis, and against the Japanese, who attacked us in December 1941. It became basically a do-or-die effort not of our choice, but of our need to defend ourselves.
I wish I could feel the same for our present circumstances.
Recent reports on issues of mental and psychological illnesses overcoming so many of our military personnel who have served faithfully for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and in other places over the past six decades are nothing less than disturbing.
The annual rate of suicides by our veterans is disturbing. So too is the number of veterans who have fallen into disrepair and into homelessness because of their service. And so too is the suffering that takes place among the families of these courageous soldiers.
The above issues tear at my heart. But what makes all of this information really hard to bear, for me, is my belief that we, as a nation, should never have adopted the policy of “preventive war” as a method of dealing with problems confronting us.
We in America have a military service worthy of our love and highest respect. Whenever our service members are sent out to fight, they do so with great effort.
But an argument can be made that too often in the last several decades, our political leaders, who for the most part never fought a day on behalf of our military and our nation, found it too easy to send the sons and daughters of others to fight battles for questionable reasons.
In Vietnam, America ignored the history of other great nations like the French, who tried and failed to conquer the Vietnamese, and like the French, we too failed at the cost of 58,000 military lives lost and so many more military lives hurt.
In Iraq, we claimed we were fighting a dangerous enemy of America, but the result of our war was to leave Iraq weak and America’s other enemy from that area of the world, Iran, far more powerful.
In Afghanistan, we have fought for over 13 years, ignoring an incredible Afghan history that included a 10-year failed attempt by the then-Soviet Union to conquer its next-door neighbor using the second most powerful military on this Earth.
What should the word “patriotism” actually mean for us Americans? For me, the meaning was simple as I was growing up in the 1940s.
We had been attacked by a military determined to control the world, so we Americans acted as a community with better than one in 10 of us putting their lives on the line to fight for us, and a very large majority of the rest of us doing their fair share here in America to see that we remained safe and secure. Those were the days of community volunteers, community victory gardens for vegetable crops all over our country, and progressive tax rates that saw the wealthy paying so much more to ensure that the cost of war would be covered.
Almost everyone paid a price and everyone reaped the reward when our victory with the Allies was complete.
We live in a democracy. I could be wrong with my views about the history of World War II versus the history of our most recent wars. But I do believe that we have made serious mistakes in our decisions to fight in Iraq and, after we lost sight of Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan, to continue to fight a war there for so many years.
As a result of my belief, it is my hope that we in America, all of us, will begin to examine all of the facts surrounding our current wars in an effort to make objective decisions as to what would actually be in the best interest for us in America going forward.
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