VT shares the concerns of those Veterans advocacy groups that the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and the Veterans who served in them are off the Radar this election, and how the apathy of Congress and the American voter has failed America’s Veterans, Troops, and Military Families.

This is due solely to APATHY.

We at VT find it ironic that some Veterans groups who remained silent or worse yet defended an escalation in Afghanistan as part of Obama’s political campaign strategy during the last Presidential election are just now speaking out about how the Wars and the Vets who served in them are off the radar this election. Now they shake their heads at the apathy of the American electorate and politicians.

What we find most interesting are the reasons why the American electorate and political candidates views on the Wars and Vets are rooted in APATHY. To investigate the reasons why there is electoral and political apathy toward the Wars and Vets, VT took a look at the sources quoted by Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) as he expressed his opinion. I commented on Paul’s views on Huffington Post.

Wake Up, America! War Off the Radar, Congress Fails

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, GS-14, U.S. Civil Service-Retired, Veterans Issues Editor, VT News Network

Why are Wars and Vets Off the 2010 Election Radar?

Paul notes that “After nearly a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 2 million Americans have served, a trillion dollars…spent and yet only 3 percent of Americans have war on their radar this election.  And where’s Congress? Spinning on the campaign trail, scrambling for last-minute endorsements and as Tom Brokaw rightly noted in the New York Times this week, “still doing nothing to wake up the country about the surge of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Rieckhoff goes on to paint a somewhat balanced picture of his opinion by expressing what the Democratic controlled Congress and President Obama have accomplished during 2008/9.  However, Paul also notes that “Then everything went downhill in 2010. This year, veterans’ calls for VA disability reform, new GI Bill upgrades, and veteran employment initiatives all fell on deaf ears. After months of making promises, Congress suddenly stopped paying attention, skipped out on votes and dropped out.”

We at VT note that it is the Democrat controlled Congress Paul is talking about here. Part of the Congressional stagnation can be written off as Republican obstructionism, however what about Blue Dog Democrats who not only are almost Republicans but have done nothing to end the wars or cut down on the growing number of Disabled Veterans. In fact, Lieberman like Democrats have done just as much to promote and gain from the wars as most any Republican.

What we really find interesting are the reasons why War and Vets are off the radar this election.

Paul refers to two sources from the New York Times to reinforce his views. One is the article “On Polling: For Midterm Voters, War Is Off the Radar,” and the other is “The Wars That America Forgot About” By TOM BROKAW Published: October 17, 2010.

Without posting the entire two article. I’ve summed up what both articles give as reason for political and national APATHY toward both Wars and Vets. Read the articles yourselves to see from which these points come from:

1. John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University, said the “rubber band theory” explains the lack of interest in the war. “People mainly think about domestic issues, particularly economic ones, and from time to time their attention is pulled away by international events, but their natural tendency is for it to snap back to what they’re really interested in.”

2. Lack of focus should not be confused with support for the war. On the contrary: Americans’ assessments of the war are grim. A majority in the September Times/CBS News poll said the United States should not be involved in Afghanistan now, up 15 percentage points since December. And most said the war was going badly, down from its peak but well above the reading in the early years of the war, when broad majorities said it was going well.

3. Speaking about the candidates, Dr. Mueller explained: “They would talk about it if they thought it would win them votes. It just doesn’t have much political traction. The big thing is the overwhelming impact of the economy, which is certainly straightforward and obvious.”

4. The Democratic party is split over the war, with many elected Democrats uneasy with or opposed to President Obama’s decision to send more troops. That makes it all the more likely that Democratic candidates will avoid bringing up the issue with voters. This tends to be the view of VT. By pursuing a course in Afghanistan using left over bureaucrats, generals, and political appointees from the Bush administration was destined to alienate most of the Democratic base that is most essential to winning elections – the UNDECIDED VOTER who has already decided not to vote Republican or any party too right of center.

5. Republicans have no particular political need to bring up the war — which, in any case, most Republican political leaders support. Republican voters are the most apt to support the war, and to say the United States is doing the right thing by fighting. VT’s view is that this is a GIVEN! In fact, in Ohio we’ve noted only one candidate running on his military record, and he happens to be a Republican. However, running on one’s war record and willingness to talk about the wars are two very different things.

6. Until the unemployment rate begins to fall dramatically, most Americans seem to feel that they cannot afford to focus on the war. “Jobs are the prevailing issue for everyone right now — we need to focus on jobs,” said one poll respondent, Michael Santalucia, a 47-year-old Democrat from Beavercreek, Ohio. “I don’t know how much we can do about Afghanistan right now, but we can do something about jobs here.” VT feels that if Mr. Santalucia had skin in the game (a close relative in the wars) the reaction of him and other poll respondents would be quite different with more concern about the wars and Veterans of those wars. Therein lies the source of apathy by the American people to Wars and Veterans in every aspect of Supporting Our Troops and Veterans from education benefits to health care to unemployment. In fact, given the focus is on jobs, the fact that a disproportunate number of Veterans are returning to NO JOB when they choose to no longer volunteer for the Armed Forces or can no longer cope with endless multiple deployments.

Tom Brokaw’s opinion piece goes right to the heart of government, political, and social APATHY toward our Vets and the Wars that most Americans cannot relate to nor seriously care about.

1. How about war [s]? The United States is now in its ninth year of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the longest wars in American history. Almost 5,000 men and women have been killed. More than 30,000 have been wounded, some so gravely they’re returning home to become, effectively, wards of their families and communities. In those nine years, the United States has spent more than $1 trillion on combat operations and other parts of the war effort, including foreign aid, reconstruction projects, embassy costs and veterans’ health care. And the end is not in sight.

So why aren’t the wars and their human and economic consequences front and center in this campaign, right up there with jobs and taxes?

2. APATHY! The answer is very likely that the vast majority of Americans wake up every day worrying, with good reason, about their economic security, but they can opt out of the call to arms. Unless they are enlisted in the armed services — or have a family member who has stepped forward — nothing much is asked of them in the war effort. VT believe this is a big mistake for it only leads to yet more APATHY toward our Veterans and the Wars they volunteer to fight and die in our so-called behalf.

I cannot speak for the rest of the VT staff in this, but I personally am a strong believer that not asking the American people to share in the sacrifice of our Vets and Military Families was a calculated mistake that is at root of the APATHY young Veterans are experiencing now when the only places they can get appreciation for what they did during the wars is to join a Veterans Service Organization along with the fathers and grand-fathers and mothers or STAY on active duty for a career in an institution that welcomes them.

3. Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA mentions that only around 3% of WE THE PEOPLE reflect any interests in the Wars or our Veterans. So much for Support Our Troops and Veterans rhetoric. However, a more significant figure is what Tom Brokaw notes. “The all-volunteer uniformed services now represent less than 1 percent of the American population, but they’re carrying 100 percent of the battle. It’s not unusual to meet an Army infantryman or Marine who has served multiple tours in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.”  Political incorrectness of THE DRAFT combined with not asking the American people to make a shared commitment to wars is another reason for APATHY towards the precious 1% who carry the burden with patriotic rhetoric as the primary motivator to keep them going back for more WAR. Then our Vets are shocked that those hurling the patriotic rhetoric and support at them do not want them to talk about their war in negative or even positive terms.

4. Not only is 1% of our population carrying the burdens of wars for all of us, but Brokaw views them as an evolving Warrior Class (my words). He notes that the composition of our Armed Forces accurately describes a Warrior Class based on social class: “the majority of those in uniform come from working-class or middle-class backgrounds. The National Guard units and reserve forces that have been called up, some for more than one tour, draw heavily on first responders [fire, police, and medical personnel], as well as farm, factory and service workers.”

5. The most damning part of this evolving social structure are the military families that must fight their own wars at home on the home front. Our military families, regardless their political views on the wars, (views that those on active duty, Guard, or Reserve on call up are not at liberty to express even under the First Amendment which they forfeit once they become military families).

Mr. Brokaw expresses this aspect of what military families must endure this way: “[Military] families live in their own war zone. At a recent Minnesota event for military families, I heard Annette Kuyper, the mother of a National Guardsman who had an extended deployment in Iraq, describe how she and other Guard mothers changed their lives while their children were in harm’s way. “We close the blinds on the windows overlooking the driveway,” she said, “so we don’t see the Army vehicle arriving with a chaplain bearing the unbearable news.” This woman’s son returned safely, but too many do not. As the campaign season careens to an end, military funerals will be held in country burial grounds, big city graveyards and at Arlington National Cemetery. Military families will keep the blinds closed on the windows facing the driveway.”

Tom Brokaw closes with condemnation of our political process – a process that we at VT feels exploits, abuses, and USES that patriotic few 1% of AMERICAS who volunteer to endure for US plus the other 2% that supports them in both words and deeds. That is unless the Support Our Troop effort or cause is a FRAUD. Even therein lies exploitation and abuse of our Vets, troops, and military families.

Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA notes that Americans going to the polls shortly SHOULD be considering how a candidate rates in Support of Our Vets, troops, and military families, but the electorate will not be thinking about our Vets, Wars, or our troops and military families at least not until Veterans Day a few days after the election. This is the reality show the next election will be.

We as Veterans, Troops, and Military Families SHOULD and WILL remember this about the upcoming election”

“While [political] campaigns trade shouts of witchcraft, socialism, greed, radicalism (on both sides), warriors and their families have a right to ask, “What about us?” If this is an election about a new direction for the country, why doesn’t some candidate speak up for equal sacrifice on the home front as well as the front lines?

This is not just about military families, as important as [WE] are. [Americans] all would benefit from a campaign that engaged the vexing question of what happens next in the long and so far unresolved effort to deal with Islamic rage.

No decision is more important than committing a nation to war.

But when are WE going to remind politicians in Congress and the American people who have not been committed to wars. In fact, our reminder should be in the form of protest, and refusal to continue being the lone 1% exploited and abuse to carry the burden of the rest of the nation committed to war only via patriotic rhetoric as long as someone else’s family does the fighting and dying.

“It is, as politicians like to say, about our blood and treasure. Surely blood and treasure are worthy of more attention than they’ve been getting in this campaign. While campaigns trade shouts of witchcraft, socialism, greed, radicalism (on both sides), warriors and their families have a right to ask, “What about us?” If this is an election about a new direction for the country, why doesn’t some candidate speak up for equal sacrifice on the home front as well as the front lines? The reason of course is public and political APATHY until at least Veterans Day shortly after the election.

Veterans Day is yet another day for those who do not wish to share in the sacrifices of war to once again exploit and use America’s Veterans using a smoke screen to hide their APATHY!

Robert L. Hanafin, Major, U.S. Air Force-Retired, GS-14, U.S. Civil Service-Retired, Veterans Issues Editor, VT News Network

Emphasis and commentary about apathy of the American electorate and politicians are the views of Mr. Hanafin

Robert L. Hanafin

Readers are more than welcome to use the articles I’ve posted on Veterans Today, I’ve had to take a break from VT as Veterans Issues and Peace Activism Editor and staff writer due to personal medical reasons in our military family that take away too much time needed to properly express future stories or respond to readers in a timely manner.

My association with VT since its founding in 2004 has been a very rewarding experience for me.

Retired from both the Air Force and Civil Service. Went in the regular Army at 17 during Vietnam (1968), stayed in the Army Reserve to complete my eight year commitment in 1976. Served in Air Defense Artillery, and a Mechanized Infantry Division (4MID) at Fort Carson, Co. Used the GI Bill to go to college, worked full time at the VA, and non-scholarship Air Force 2-Year ROTC program for prior service military. Commissioned in the Air Force in 1977. Served as a Military Intelligence Officer from 1977 to 1994. Upon retirement I entered retail drugstore management training with Safeway Drugs Stores in California. Retail Sales Management was not my cup of tea, so I applied my former U.S. Civil Service status with the VA to get my foot in the door at the Justice Department, and later Department of the Navy retiring with disability from the Civil Service in 2000.

I’ve been with Veterans Today since the site originated. I’m now on the Editorial Board. I was also on the Editorial Board of Our Troops News Ladder another progressive leaning Veterans and Military Family news clearing house.

I remain married for over 45 years. I am both a Vietnam Era and Gulf War Veteran. I served on Okinawa and Fort Carson, Colorado during Vietnam and in the Office of the Air Force Inspector General at Norton AFB, CA during Desert Storm. I retired from the Air Force in 1994 having worked on the Air Staff and Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon.