Op-Ed
"I asked Sgt. Gaskins about his hopes for the future. He replied that he has no future." — psychotherapist Rosemary Masters
This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the devalued currency of the truth. For now, Soldier, we’re still in denial and you’re under arrest.
Welcome to PTSD Nation.
We don’t have a draft because in Vietnam our draftee army mutinied and refused, finally, to continue pursuing a hellish, unwinnable war. Today, as we pursue an equally hellish, equally unwinnable war, we are in the process of destroying our all-volunteer, gung-ho army, one GI at a time.
Brad Gaskins, of Newark, N.J., was at one time as gung-ho as a soldier can get, the ideal recruit, the boy with a hero’s heart. He’d been the starting quarterback on his high school football team and had enlisted in the Army at age 17, while still a senior. That was 1999. He wanted to serve his country, fight hard, win a medal. He swelled with pride when he wore his olive-green dress uniform to church. When we think “support our troops,” we’re thinking of Brad Gaskins.
This is the cost of our wars, and sooner or later we need to begin paying down the debt. But it is only payable in the devalued currency of the truth. For now, Soldier, we’re still in denial and you’re under arrest.
Welcome to PTSD Nation.
We don’t have a draft because in Vietnam our draftee army mutinied and refused, finally, to continue pursuing a hellish, unwinnable war. Today, as we pursue an equally hellish, equally unwinnable war, we are in the process of destroying our all-volunteer, gung-ho army, one GI at a time.
Brad Gaskins, of Newark, N.J., was at one time as gung-ho as a soldier can get, the ideal recruit, the boy with a hero’s heart. He’d been the starting quarterback on his high school football team and had enlisted in the Army at age 17, while still a senior. That was 1999. He wanted to serve his country, fight hard, win a medal. He swelled with pride when he wore his olive-green dress uniform to church. When we think “support our troops,” we’re thinking of Brad Gaskins.
Remarks at Denver, Col., impeachment forum November 17, 2007, organized by "Be the Change."
For the past year or so, every month the moon gets full, and I suddenly get a couple of hundred emails telling me that Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will allow impeachment hearings if she gets enough emails or phone calls or handwritten letters.
And a lot of the emails I get are along the lines of: “Is it true? Because if it’s true my group can send 5,000 letters.”
And I usually reply along the lines of: “Of course it’s not true, but since when do you need an invitation to act like a citizen of a democracy? Send her 10,000 letters immediately, and do so precisely because it’s not true!”
For the past year or so, every month the moon gets full, and I suddenly get a couple of hundred emails telling me that Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will allow impeachment hearings if she gets enough emails or phone calls or handwritten letters.
And a lot of the emails I get are along the lines of: “Is it true? Because if it’s true my group can send 5,000 letters.”
And I usually reply along the lines of: “Of course it’s not true, but since when do you need an invitation to act like a citizen of a democracy? Send her 10,000 letters immediately, and do so precisely because it’s not true!”
That does it. It's time for the Democratic Party to stage its own debate, ask its own questions, and offer the video to networks as a completed package. Allowing CNN to not just air a debate but to ask the questions proved on Thursday night (even more dramatically than in the past) to be a soul sickening disaster.
A serious debate would begin by asking each candidate (including Mike Gravel, who was locked out of the room) what he or she would do if elected president. Thursday's debate in the opening 30 minutes had me longing for even the level of honesty and substance of the MSNBC debate hosted by Keith Olbermann in Soldier Field some months back, at which Olbermann managed the superhuman feat of asking things like "Would you cancel NAFTA?"
A serious debate would begin by asking each candidate (including Mike Gravel, who was locked out of the room) what he or she would do if elected president. Thursday's debate in the opening 30 minutes had me longing for even the level of honesty and substance of the MSNBC debate hosted by Keith Olbermann in Soldier Field some months back, at which Olbermann managed the superhuman feat of asking things like "Would you cancel NAFTA?"
Honoring vets means nothing at all unless it means honoring the deeply gouged personal truths each experienced during deployment. But the dismissal of such truths is as much a part of war, and its aftermath, as the propaganda and geopolitical whoppers necessary to launch it.
The problem with these individual truths is that they seldom smack of glory. More often, they’re simply mundane and hellish, and slowly eat the vet’s soul. The clinical name for this is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and it’s the phrase I heard most frequently and most distinctly this past weekend, during the grim, pained acknowledgement — I can hardly call it celebration — of Veterans Day.
Ray Parrish, a vets’ counselor and Vietnam vet, was adamantly pessimistic as he spoke to 100 or so people gathered on a bitter, gray Sunday morning at the river in downtown Chicago, about the psychic toll our current wars are exacting on the ones who are fighting them.
The problem with these individual truths is that they seldom smack of glory. More often, they’re simply mundane and hellish, and slowly eat the vet’s soul. The clinical name for this is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and it’s the phrase I heard most frequently and most distinctly this past weekend, during the grim, pained acknowledgement — I can hardly call it celebration — of Veterans Day.
Ray Parrish, a vets’ counselor and Vietnam vet, was adamantly pessimistic as he spoke to 100 or so people gathered on a bitter, gray Sunday morning at the river in downtown Chicago, about the psychic toll our current wars are exacting on the ones who are fighting them.
It sounds silly, but for a long time it just didn't occur to me what the
implications would be. Thus spake a college student who agreed to ask
Senator Clinton a planted question. And thus, alas, must I speak as well.
Senator Clinton asked me to impersonate a citizen of the United States, and I was tempted to play along. The assignment she had marked "(citizen)" on the script on her clipboard, read:
Senator Clinton asked me to impersonate a citizen of the United States, and I was tempted to play along. The assignment she had marked "(citizen)" on the script on her clipboard, read:
Could you ever imagine that Veterans Day was originally enacted as a day for world peace? Not by the way veterans who stand for peace are treated in Veterans Day ceremonies!
Yet, according to Veterans Affairs website, Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, was originally a U.S. legal holiday to honor the end of World War I and to honor the need for world peace. When it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926 to honor the end of World War I, the US Congress stated:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations;
In 1938 the US Congress codified its earlier resolution by legislation naming November 11 as Armistice Day and dedicating the day “to the cause of world peace.””
Yet, according to Veterans Affairs website, Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, was originally a U.S. legal holiday to honor the end of World War I and to honor the need for world peace. When it passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926 to honor the end of World War I, the US Congress stated:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations;
In 1938 the US Congress codified its earlier resolution by legislation naming November 11 as Armistice Day and dedicating the day “to the cause of world peace.””
I wonder what would happen if the people and their representatives were
to shock the powerful and their funders for a change? What if on
November 16th, the Iraq Moratorium day, everybody together took major
actions? What if everyone with a job took the day off work? What if
everyone wore orange? What if everyone with a tax bill wrote to the IRS
to say not to expect another dollar of that portion of taxes that goes
to war? What if everyone who gives money to Democrats wrote to them to
say not one more dime before impeachment? What if everyone left their
homes in the morning and went straight to the nearest district office of
their congress member, sat down, and picnicked on the floor, refusing to
leave without two written commitments: 1. to vote no on any more money
to occupy Iraq, and 2. to cosponsor articles of impeachment against
Cheney and Bush? What if everyone brought cell phones and media lists
and spent all day phoning the media from their congress member's office?
If I were a member of Congress, I would make this pledge:
I pledge to vote No on any bill, and to vote No on bringing to the floor for a vote any bill, that includes any funding to extend the occupation of Iraq. This pledge does not prevent me from voting for funding for a withdrawal, although such funding is clearly not needed by the Pentagon. It does not prevent me from voting for funding for veterans' services or for the reconstruction of Iraq by Iraqis, or for relief for hurricane victims or for cash for avocado growers, or for anything else. But I will only vote for items I approve of if they are in bills that do not contain a single dollar for the continuation of the occupation of Iraq.
I am only confident a single Congress Member (Dennis Kucinich) takes this position. It's possible that a few or even dozens will act on that position, but they have not said so publicly.
I pledge to vote No on any bill, and to vote No on bringing to the floor for a vote any bill, that includes any funding to extend the occupation of Iraq. This pledge does not prevent me from voting for funding for a withdrawal, although such funding is clearly not needed by the Pentagon. It does not prevent me from voting for funding for veterans' services or for the reconstruction of Iraq by Iraqis, or for relief for hurricane victims or for cash for avocado growers, or for anything else. But I will only vote for items I approve of if they are in bills that do not contain a single dollar for the continuation of the occupation of Iraq.
I am only confident a single Congress Member (Dennis Kucinich) takes this position. It's possible that a few or even dozens will act on that position, but they have not said so publicly.
Hidden agendas unfold and a sinister veep whips fear into a froth one more time: “Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
The words he never adds, though many Americans, I imagine, silently do it for him, are: “It takes one to know one.”
This is the thing. We’re gaga over nukes ourselves. It takes one recklessly driven government with a God-complex to spot another one. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
The words he never adds, though many Americans, I imagine, silently do it for him, are: “It takes one to know one.”
This is the thing. We’re gaga over nukes ourselves. It takes one recklessly driven government with a God-complex to spot another one. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
This past Friday night and Saturday, Ann Wright and I spoke at four
events in the Los Angeles area on the topics of peace and impeachment. I
flew home, but Ann intended to keep going at the same pace for another
week or more without ever leaving L.A. The people of Santa Barbara and
Oxnard and Venice and Santa Monica turned out in large numbers on Friday
and Saturday nights and even Saturday morning to talk about what they
could do to end the occupation of Iraq and the illegitimate
administration of Bush and Cheney. Young people turned out too and are
creating their own events with Ann. Los Angeles even has a busy office
known as the Los Angeles National Impeachment Center. If only this same
energy really were national! At three events I asked rooms full of
Californians whether they would risk jail by sitting in their congress
members' offices to impeach Bush and Cheney. Every time, 90 percent of
the people present raised their hands. And when I asked whether they
would submit to waterboarding if it rid our government of these
criminals, 80 percent raised their hands. Now, THAT's asking what you
can do for your country.