Dammit, THIS Is Why We Fight... Why We Fight Dubya

[filkertom]

I give you fair warning. This story, by way of Atrios, is a real downer. So much so that I encourage my more sensitive friends, especially the ones who are grieving, not to check it out for awhile.

Unfortunately, it will be here later.

Comments

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

Damnit.

[ruisseau.livejournal.com]

I was a little afraid to read that, with the warning you gave, but I did anyway. Thank you for the link. I never knew that that could happen.

[kshandra]

I made it as far as the first >hr<. That was bad enough. I didn't want to know how much worse it got.

War is hell, as the man said - and I submit that he said it because "War is goddamn well fucked up" wouldn't have gone over well with the general public. And some of the biggest atrocities happen on our very own shores....

[holzman.livejournal.com]

War is barbarous at best. War is cruel and you cannot refine it. I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell.

-- William Tecumseh Sherman, 17 March 1879

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

post-traumatic stress syndrome just sounds so nice and clinical and detached, doesn't it? but most people only think it applies to vietnam veterans, that today's soldiers don't go through that sort of thing. especially when their fearless leader tells them it is a just and righteous war.
riiight. let's send the politicians through hell and order them to do things that might conflict with their own morals and tell them it's the just and righteous thing to do, then plop them back into suburbia with their normal world that they practically forgot existed while they fought to defend it and watch what they do.
*snarl* the navy dicharged my dad after they essentially worked him into a nervous breakdown, and that was in peacetime, right after vietnam. i understand the need for military, and i wish my diabetes didn't exempt me from ever serving my country in a time of true need, but the way they're runnin' this railroad is a crock that's only gonna hurt the men and women risking their mortal lives.

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

There's a permanent psychological wound created by the tensions, the beating and the pounding of war. In World War I it was called shell shock, in World War II it was called battle fatigue, and in wars since then, many other things. A fictional example from World War II would be the character (Capt. Miller) played by Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan (1998).

The point is: The continuous time in a danger zone (with the apprehension of being killed) to the onset of the neuro-psychological problem for 50% of the soldiers runs about four weeks. Beyond that, more and more soldiers lose their bearings. The behavioral damage appears sometimes in the long term, sometimes in the short term. I must emphasize this: There is no recuperation from this in an individual. The time on the clock is set differently for each soldier, but when the sands run out, that individual becomes ineffective in combat, to say the least.

I interpret the article you brought up as anecdotal evidence that the Pentagon is not taking very good care of our soldiers! I think it arises from a fundamental (and probably willful) misinterpretation of the situation in Iraq that has been going on for nearly a year: Iraq has been a shooting war-zone since at least September 2003.

Not wanting to admit this, the Bush administration has raised too few forces to have a chance of doing an adequate job of security — and then underfunded them. (The truth is, any piecemeal increase in forces now would be too little, too late, anyway; but that's for another debate.)

The constraints have led Rumsfeld and his political cohorts to play a very dangerous game of recalling mustered-out soldiers, extending tours of duty, repeating tours of duty for units in the danger zones, and calling up units with older men who have been exposed to these capriciously hazardous conditions for unknown periods in the past. More and more, this triggers mental health problems for servicemen and women in or returning from Iraq.

The death of the New Hampshire guardsman was forseeable in the general sense, for the problem is common knowledge of modern warfare. Because nothing was properly done about it, I classify it as negligent homicide.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Might as well call it murder actually.

Bush et al, knew it was going to be a problem after all, and did nothing about it. And the effects are well documented and studied so they knew there would be a requirment for counselling afterwards, and did nothing.

So while they didn't specifically set out to kill the guy, they might as well have pulled the trigger.

[poltr1]

Thanks for passing this on, Tom. The statistics of these men won't make it onto any newscast, and that's a real pisser.

Some of my New Warrior Brothers in Indianapolis have staffed a weekend training called Bamboo Bridge, which helps in bringing home and welcoming all of the servicemen who have served in wars. (While originally oriented for survivors of the Vietnam War, the scope of the training has extended to other wars American troops have fought in, and the training is in the process of being renamed The Vets' Journey Home.)

I'm not sure if such a weekend would have benefited TSGT Guindon in his transition to civilian life, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the training here.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. two seperate comments.

1] A crying shame. War doesn't just take its toll on body, but on mind and soul. I'd like to know the whole story, if it can be known. What did he go through in combat? What did he come home to?

2] While I back them and will most likely vote for them, I can't help but say that this was a cheap shot by the Kerry/Edwards camp. They are illiciting an emotional response with the article, but it isn't relative to the campaign. We have no way to know that just being sent to Iraq pushed him over, its quite possible its unrelated.

Using this as a shot at the Bush camp is just a cheap shot.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ummm. I didn't notice K/E being involved with it at all. I got it from one blog (which admittedly has ads for K/E all over the place), by way of another blog (dito), and the original story was in the New Hampshire Union Leader.

I'm not being sarcastic -- did you see anything, here or elsewhere, referring to Kerry/Edwards pushing this story? Or was it just the banner ad on the blog?

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

OMG, I apologize. I didn't look at the site closely, just saw the big Kerry/Edwards banner at the top and assumed it was a campagn site. My Bad.

Still, it bugs me that this guy is trying to put a poli-spin on it without knowing the whole story

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Understand that last point, although nowadays finding anything without a political spin is like looking for a needle in a swamp. I'm just saddened because the guy had, by our lights, made it. He got out alive, came home, and then things went fatal.

No apology needed. In fact (and please don't take this wrong, because it applies equally to me and to I think everyone), your reaction to the Kerry/Edwards banner is verification of what I think has happened with the country over the last several years -- how easily the message delivery method, not even the message itself, affects the way we think.

I know you. I know exactly how smart and open-minded you are; yet you "just saw the big Kerry/Edwards banner at the top and assumed it was a campaign site". God knows I do that all the time myself, not just on political sites, and I have to go back and find what it was I was looking at when it wasn't where I thought it was. (And searching through five different tech or gaming sites, or ten different tech and gaming sites, trying to find which specific take on ATI graphics cards or Javascript is just begging for a migraine.)

That's been the S.O.P. for the Right Wing Noise Machine for years now -- deliver an outrageous message, which is sometimes even refuted, sometimes even immediately, and then apologize or not; none of that matters, because it's the original delivery of the message that got through and which sticks with people. You and I go back and check the message, the source, the facts; lots more people don't.