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When my nephew Chase called his grandparents
from Iraq, he would ask my mother, "Gigi, what kind of car
do you think I should buy when I come home?" She believes
that he was trying to assuage her fears-the worst of which arrived
August 7, 2005, when my sister Laura delivered the news from
our brother Mark who simply couldn't tell our parents. The Marines
had come to him in the middle of the night with the message that
no family should have to bear.
George Bush has said during
a recent press conference that our troops will remain in Iraq
as long as he is president, a statement denying the mounting
sentiment against the war. Soon after, an announcement was made
that thousands of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve have
been ordered back to active duty.
If Chase had returned home
in October, uninjured from his first tour, he could be there
now. Some in his battalion are.
"Maybe we didn't try hard
enough to talk him out of enlisting," my mother says over
and over.
"What if" is something
else we ponder.
And, of course, there's the
abyss of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Would the experience
of war have changed Chase? How could it not?
I am half way through the powerful
book Home
Front: Viet Nam and Families at War sent by its author, Willard
Gray, who began corresponding after reading some of my articles.
Gray's work is a tour of duty and dedication to the truth of
military combat. He tells the stories of 12 families forever
changed by the experience of Viet Nam, families who either lost
a loved one to death or to a war that has never left their lives.
If a son, husband, father, daughter, wife, mother (It is estimated
that about 7,500 women served in Viet Nam) returned alive, he
or she brought the horrors of warfare home, suffering and portioning
out pain to those desperate to recover what was there before
war. Some committed suicide after years of self-medicating;
others were diagnosed with illnesses that resulted from Agent
Orange exposure. Regardless of the symptoms, physical, psychological,
or a combination of the two, war was the genesis.
Take Frank Hayes. His family
watched and participated in the battles he fought after returning
from Viet Nam. Gray, writing about Frank's son Joe, says, 'He
talks about alcohol and rage, abuse and defiance. He talks about
no ground beneath him. About spiritual free-fall. He talks about
chaos.'
In the book, Frank is quoted,
'every day is a struggle to suppress memories and keep anger
down.'
Gray writes about Frank:
Viet Nam has left him with
a healthy skepticism of the U.S. government, especially its actions
abroad. He's not adverse to the occasional conspiracy theory.
He makes no bones when it comes to his own country's hypocrisy.
'In America,' he pontificates,
'everything is backward. The Christians are screaming for war.
The priests are molesting the flock. Dissent is an act of cowardice.
Conformists call themselves patriots.'
Willard Gray, himself, is a
casualty of the Viet Nam War. His oldest son served more than
two years as a Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) trained medic
and came home a completely changed man. Plus, Gray is a casualty
of another conflict-World War II, having joined the Army in 1944
with the promise of life-time health care.
That promise was a lie:
More precisely, they, along
with the other branches of the service, under the direction of
the original War Department (later designated the Department
of Defense), made promises they would not be able to keep except
as Congress legislated.
Congress sees fit to change
the law by legislation. It is the only authority with the power
to insure such promises, and it has done so in a very profound
way in the instance of military retirees.
In the mid-1990s, after enduring
years of marginal and partial health care, Korean War vets and
old-timers from World War II like myself were simply cut off,
victims of budget cuts by the same legislators who regularly
invoked, and still invoke, the mantra of "support our troops."
On attaining age 65 and no longer subject to recall to active
duty, we were told to make do with Medicare. Medicare did not
even exist when I retired.
Continuing, Gray writes:
From the late Richard Nixon
to George W. Bush, presidential hopefuls have been promising
to make good on America's debt to its retirees only to balk later,
citing, as always, budget constraints.
I've paid upwards of $155,000.00
over the years in health insurance and supplements alone. This
was my money which my family could have used. This is money I
thought I had earned in combat and in peacetime. Medicare Part
B (which didn't even exist when I retired), Civilian Health and
Medical Program for the Uniformed Services (CHAMPUS), TRICARE-I've
outlived enough programs and acronyms to know a lemon when I
taste one.
Patriotism, the trump card
of the cynical and self-serving or refuge for the scoundrel,
is a hollow word to those of us who gave our best only to be
forgotten by an ungrateful nation.
The tragicomedy plays out the
same with each new generation. A threat is perceived. A call
to arms is issued. And mortal sacrifice is demanded from the
healthy young, to whom we promise veneration and dignified care
in the years to come. When the threat is gone and the healthy
young have served their country, we turn to other things. When
the young grow old and need a return on their investment more
desperately than ever, the same country that gratefully accepted
their collective sacrifice denies them.
While reading Gray's words,
I cannot help but substitute Iraq for Viet Nam. It is what I
did when I read Howard Zinn's chapter about Viet Nam in his book,
A People's History of the United States. And as I do this,
I see our troops, returning from the long war that was packaged
as a 'cakewalk.' Their families will be so happy to have them
safe at home. But they will bring the anguish of war back with
them and dispense this excruciating pain to those they love.
Some will receive treatment if it's available. Others will
remain psychologically locked in Iraq for the rest of their lives.
Any loud noise will be a trigger. A gentle touch may elicit
violence.
Rep. John Murtha has told us
that "war sears the soul." Willard Gray says the same.
Each family in Gray's book is testimony to this truth. Read
it and cry for what we lost in Viet Nam. For the almost 60,000
dead troops, those who returned scarred by what they did and
saw, and the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who perished
or were injured. Read it and cry that our leaders have forgotten
this war that was supposed to teach us a lesson.
And imagine Iraq-the recapitulation
of a horror we have just begun to see, an epic tragedy perpetrated
in our names.
Missy Beattie lives in New York City. She's written
for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine.
An outspoken critic of the Bush Administration and the war in
Iraq, she's a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. She completed
a novel last year, but since the death of her nephew, Marine
Lance Cpl. Chase J. Comley, in Iraq on August 6,'05, she has
been writing political articles. She can be reached at: Missybeat@aol.com
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