February 14, 2007
by Zen Garcia

America loves her heroes, cherishes her soldiers' honor and sacrifices they've made for country and nation. We salute the colors of our flag in unison song, to uphold the memory of all those veterans who have put their all on line risking life, limb, and family to insure our freedoms' and collective liberty. We mark passing holidays to celebrate their commitment to duty and our traditional way of life.

Those that have died in battle fighting to protect our people have been memorialized in tribute. Monuments stand tall in our nation's capitol as a reminder of the sacrifices they've made for us all. A whole generation of wounded soldiers are returning home from war; some mangled beyond recognition, some burnt, some limbless some like myself with life-long spinal cord injury, others with traumatic brain injuries, many with post traumatic stress disorders which may forever haunt them with nightmarish dreams. Recovery will be picking up pieces of themselves, trying to make sense of the jigsaw puzzle that is now their shattered life, surrendered to the cause of the Decider's immoral war, a war the Cheney Energy Task Force said was necessary to preserve our national security.

When first injured I spent my fair share of wide eyed nights trying to make sense of circumstance, conjuring up ghosts of my former life, lovers of my former self. Like me they'll think about what was, before insane circumstance when they lived 'normally' like all other people, desiring nothing more than the peace and prosperity that had been the American dream. The people want peace and desire it for all others, but certain aspects of government want war and will lie to begin it and cheat to sustain it.

Before Dwight D. Eisenhower left the limelight of public service, he made it a point to warn our country about the dangers of the military industrial complex. He said, "We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment..."

Fearing a permanent war driven economy he continued, "We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Obviously, we as a nation did not heed his warning and so war rules the day. Soldiers and civilians are dying in droves everyday leaving behind families irredeemably altered. Young men and women lie in beds even now, recovering in distant lands trying to gather together what's left of the unbroken as they ponder tomorrow's recourse and what the future will bring. Many soldiers joined the military as a result of how they felt when our nation came under attack that fateful day when the Twin Towers were exploded right in front of each one of us, forcing world to witness what is the greatest crime every perpetrated upon the American people. Too many questions remain unanswered of that day for a whole 'war on terror' to be based on and yet the men and women of this nation rose up to protect and pursue who they thought were our enemies. They had determined to take a patriotic stance in defense of our nation, to do something that might protect their families and the lives of their children.

Some had joined the military as a way to escape mediocre jobs, a desperate economy, and lives of restless frustration with friends, who like them had no sense of optimism for what the future may hold. Many lean on the military to discipline themselves, access adventure while at the same time invest in later education as follow-up to a military career. Some joined as military reserves thinking limited service a great way of supplementing income without necessarily having to devote all of oneself to full time military service. And so many thousands of our nation's brightest and best joined at a time when they knew our nation was to go to war. This would be their way of honoring those who had in other times before stood up in defense of our nation. Since 2001, the U.S. has deployed more than 1 million troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, many have returned with lives affected in such a way that they are unable to go on to other things. And as the Decider seeks hundreds of billions more for war in 2007 consider these facts:

One in three homeless American men are military vets, and that figure is compounding. One in four vets with PTSD who sought medical care from the VA, regularly experienced a two to three month wait just to see a doctor as the ratio of doctors to patients is one doctor for every 500 patients. Over 53,000 soldiers are permanently wounded to the point that they cannot resume active duty. Veteran males aged 20 to 24 have twice the unemployment rate as the national average. There's a 70% divorce rate for returning soldiers.

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40% of troops currently being rotated are National Guard or reservists. More than 210,000 of 330,000 the National Guards' reservists have served in Iraq and Afghanistan with mobilizations averaging around 460 days. Nearly a third of active-duty troops, 341,000 men and women, have served two or more overseas tours with 95% of them experiencing problems just getting their pay. Many that may be unfit to serve are being sent back to the front lines on potent anti-depressants, anti-anxiety drugs with little or no counseling, supervision or screening. Over 200 have committed suicide. And at a time when there are more veterans than ever before, the Republican GOP dropped $65 billion in benefits over the next five years beginning 2007. Our soldiers joined the military to protect and defend our nation it is unconscionable that these cuts be administered now while we are still at war. We must support them especially now that so many find themselves critically injured, facing futures of life long disabilities.

You would think that the President and our congress would find it a priority to take care of those who give totally of themselves to defend our freedoms. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois' 9th Congressional District said, "I find it incomprehensible that a plan to reduce benefits for veterans in Illinois and across the country would even be contemplated at a time when hundreds of thousands of active-duty soldiers are risking their lives in Iraq. I join the Disabled American Veterans in asking, Is there is no honor left in the hallowed halls of our government that you choose to dishonor the sacrifices of our nation's heroes and rob our programs--health care and disability compensation--to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.''

21 year old, Jay Briseno from Manassas Park, Va., was in Baghdad on a sweltering afternoon in June 2003 when out of nowhere a bullet pierced the back of his neck. The army rushed Briseno to one hospital after another, saving him from multiple heart attacks and strokes until finally he stabilized enough to be shipped back stateside. Briseno is a high level quadriplegic tethered to a respirator forgotten by the war that rages on without him, chewing up other young men and women, leaving them equally destroyed.

His care was left to his parents and sisters initially as all struggled to adjust. His father, Joe quit his job to be with his son. "From the beginning all we got from the VA was lip service. They questioned every piece of equipment we asked for. They told us Jay should be in an institution. They told us to give up on him. We were desperate when these people from the Army called and said, Do you have what you need? Is there any way we can help?" Thousand's like the Briseno family will be forced to navigate the difficult and often frustrating course of learning about the benefits and services of disabled veterans. With ongoing cuts to the VA and benefits for veterans, the fight to maintain services for those returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan war is has and will be an uphill battle for our nation's veterans.

A few weeks after the Iraq invasion and just 3 days before President Bush spent the Memorial Day weekend thanking the nation's veterans for their service, he proposed slashing Veteran's health care by $1 billion in 2004. An administration memo proposed a 3.4 percent cut in the Veterans Administration budget for 2005, from $29.7 billion to $28.7 billion, this follows other cutbacks since the Decider became president. It is not that there is a lack of funding for the military, in fact this year we will spend $16.9 billion more on military increasing funding to $399.1 billion dollars. America spends more on military spending than the combined annual spending of the next 18 nation's combined. In Bush's 2007 budget funding for Veterans increased from current year $24.5 billion, to $27.7 billion, however, the medical services budget faces a 3 percent cut in 2008 and would hover below $27 billion for the next four years, even as increasing numbers of veterans from the Iraq war claim their benefits and the costs of providing care to elderly World War II and Korean War veterans continue to rise. "Those cuts would prove traumatic to the already troubled VA medical system, and would force staff cuts, delay investment in new medical equipment and deny care to hundreds of thousands of veterans."

For decades, the Veterans Administration has struggled to keep up with providing health care to the 7.5 million veterans enrolled. At any one time, more than 3,000 vets await their first visit to the doctor. Those whose injuries from battle qualify them for disability compensation wait six months to two years to receive it. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have waited 54 days on average to get their first veteran disability compensation checks. With VA's costs increasing by 10% to 15% a year, and newly disabled veterans draining resources the system is under a serious strain. According to David Uchic, spokesman for Paralyzed Veterans of America, says the military can not keep up with the number of soldiers returning wounded and needing benefits."It doesn't just end with them going to Walter Reed [Army Medical Center in Washington] and being treated. This is a lifelong situation for them for the next 60 to 80 years. So is the system going to be ready to serve them for all those years? That is the question." A recently released Harvard University study, "shows the hidden financial costs of the Iraq war will be felt for decades." Researchers estimate that medical costs for U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be at least three hundred fifty billion dollars over the next forty years and that the total medical costs could reach $660 billion dollars. The only way we as a nation can honor, support, and protect our wounded soldiers from unnecessary struggle is by demanding Congress to stop funding the war and support Veterans' health and benefits. We must stop the insane escalation especially now that the Bullseye is on Iran. If we attack Iran, I fear there will be no stopping the next global war.

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Zen Garcia [send him email] is an activist and writer in Athens, GA.  Find more of his writings at www.endeavorfreedom.org/ and http://independentfreepress.org