NEW POLITICS AND ECONOMY BRING CHALLENGES
MAYBE EVEN AN END OF “PERMANENT WAR”
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
The “new vets” coming back from an Iraq conflict which we hope is largely over and an Afghanistan strategy that is designed to move from “surge” to negotiations is providing challenges from a variety of directions.
New vets enter a “vet world” that had been dominated by Vietnam era vets. The government bureaucracy that victimized them stands naked now, proven corrupt, judged by a government that, even under renewed leadership may not prove adequate to the task of reforming it.
New vets return to an economy in collapse. Most Vietnam vets returned to an economy with some life, due to collapse in a couple of years with the Arab oil embargo, but nothing on the scale we are seeing. The “anti-war movement” included an open admission that the war had been part of a Cold War policy not thought out by the “best and brightest.” We had been suckers, much as we have been in Afghanistan, but on a scale 30 times bigger.
The Vietnam “draftee” army was urban, better educated, had been thru much tougher fighting and saw opposition to the war as loyalty to their buddies. When I left Vietnam, my Marine unit had these last words for me: “Get us the hell out of here!” Times and people change, or do they?
Today’s military, is all volunteer, or this is how it is presented. Many join out of financial need, too many are rural and less educated, too many officers are products of colleges with vastly lowered standards. Now, with military pay 10 times what it was during Vietnam, the military is a legitimate job option, not “death and slavery” for $90 a month.
Still, it isn’t a life chosen by National Guard and Reserve troops subjected to endless deployments or regular troops abused by a war destined to do more damage to their own family than any enemy.
After 9/11 many joined to redress attacks on America which, to anyone who cared to look honestly, only ended up serving a few corporations while the war on the terrorist took a back seat for years, ending in the usual defeat. You can never beat an army that doesn’t exist and will never enter the field of battle.
During this period, this 8 year disaster, corruption at every level led to, not only a strengthened enemy but a collapse of our own economic ability to wage war. This the nature of defeat in its truest form. The troops aren’t responsible and blaming them is unacceptable. Thus, taking away the few remaining jobs they could hold or destroying their medical records or disability applications is not acceptable and must stop immediately.
Returning troops are not going to get recognition, but more likely blame, seen as the cause of economic collapse. Stories now filling the news talk of overweight troops eating 3 meals a day served by 40,000 over paid kitchen workers putting out meals few civilians can any longer afford. Why are we seeing these stories? Who is telling us that we should resent decent treatment our troops may or may have not had? Give it a thought.
Press tells of a war fought from air conditioned comfort with days separated by Playstation sessions, gourmet meals and handshaking sessions with seas of politicians sharing the joys of their palatial accommodations.
As to whether any of this is true, some is, but I suspect more than a few folks in Afghanistan are freezing their asses off, eating garbage and having more than an occasional ill wish regarding the “steak and Play Station” army. It may be a “Playstation and Guitar Hero army, but none of my 6 kids are in it.
Casualties are down. Does this mean we turn on our military or be thankful that fewer lives are lost? When our own kids become little but political pawns and family tragedies are little more than the news filler they had become in Vietnam, we know America is back to its old tricks.
I expect our returning troops to be bitter and angry. The government they had been pushed into supporting has been discredited. The war they fought is now considered “a waste of time.” Been there, done that. The only thing that kept most, not all, of the country club types from calling me “baby killer” was the dent my driver would leave in their foreheads.
If they, the vets, are angry, then they should speak up, and keep speaking up. The new America will make that right legal again. I wish I could promise every one of them a job. With millions of empty homes and few jobs, a real program of transition, other than unemployment compensation or partially funded education is not being addressed.
With nearly 30 years of phony “conservative values” ending in a resurgence of progressive and democratic values, the “sticker shock” of a new country with a small minority of violent extremists stressing socialist totalitarianism as a replacement for the traditional Republican Party, political life is now clearly operating in a “no rules’ environment. Do not trust the fatass blowhards any more than you trust liberals promising you the moon. If they are on TV or Radio, they are lying. If you don’t know this already, you should “re-up.”
I can talk about what I have learned. Its time to stop being troops and time to start being people. Military values are not American values. If you had a skill, you still have a skill. If you knew how to work, you still know how to work. However, mealtime is not going to be free and you can still get shot at, especially if you live in Detroit.
What you are is our children, our neighbors and Americans. TV can say what it will. Newspapers betray everything. Those of us who work with veterans are here for you. We are told that the hundreds of billions we are borrowing will create jobs. I want the first ones to go to you. We don’t trust the government to keep that promise. Trust us on that one.
For those of you who have had a tough time in Iraq and Afghanistan, I can’t make any of it go away. I can tell you that things will be better, maybe not at first, but it will happen. Never give up, never.
The politicians, the TV freaks, the newspapers, are all nothing. You are not owed everything, but you are owed. You things you earned, and the things we promised you, will, too often end up as lies. If you were in the military, lies will be no stranger to you.
I want all of you home. I want you in school, in good jobs, healthy as possible and to feel that people believe you made a difference. In 1945, there were millions of Americans who thought WW2 was a waste of time. There are idiots everywhere. Screw the bunch of them.
Finding the good in an America that has been at its own throat for 8 years may not be easy. Even the VA can help, though it takes a bit more than a little “massage” to get through the system at times.
If the America of the SUV and huge suburban home is dead, maybe it never should have existed in the first place.
Everything that was ever good here is still good. Everything that has been taken away is gone as though the gods have judged us for our arrogance.
If you are angry or feeling betrayed, we want to hear it. Maybe you are right. You earned the right to scream. Nobody listened before, they may not now, but at least, for awhile, you can still say what you want without being taken away (unless you do it in a VA psychiatrist’s office….careful about that.)
I only hope with all the political rhetoric about money spent on jobs and an end to war that those who deserve the most will have the chance they deserve.
I also ask the rest of us to watch and watch carefully. We have made promises. We have talked the talk. If the folks in Washington fail our veterans and fail our country as they have for 8 years, no more “free speech zones” and armed thugs at every political rally.
No more phony emails about gun seizure or Nazi Republicans sending all of us to concentration camps…..unless we agree to send $500 bucks to: (Move On, the ACLU, the NRA, Rush Limbaugh, the “Keep Bush Out of Jail Fund…etc)
Tell Washington that we have had 8 years of bull. Everything they touched they destroyed. Its time they fixed what they can and learn to keep their hands off.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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