Happy Memorial Day.
I come from a military family. Both my grandfathers were fighter pilots in Vietnam. Neither ever wanted to talk about their combat experiences. My dad is career Army and I grew up in Huntsville, a military town.
I was pretty rah rah jingoistic until I discovered libertarianism and learned more about things like the CIA helping turn Iran from a fairly liberal democracy into a theocratic repressive nightmare.
When I was thinking about what I wanted to say about Memorial Day I thought about the Taking Cover podcast. It tells the story about a deadly friendly fire incident in Iraq that military leadership covered up and lied about in part because it involved a prominent Senator’s son. To my knowledge, no one has faced one second of consequence for lying about and covering this up to the families of the men who were killed, permanently disabled, and psychologically scarred and to reporters and the other branches of government.
We can’t know whether or to what extent this is an isolated incident because it required years and probably tens of thousands of dollars of reporting to find out what we know about this one.
I believe we should honor our fallen soldiers. And I think the best way to honor them is to require military leadership to tell the truth about what happens and to hold them accountable when they lie and omit the truth.
We should also probably commit to taking decent care of our veterans.
One survey of more than 2500 soldiers from one infantry brigade three months after return from Afghanistan found that 15% had used opioids in the past month, compared with 4% of the general population. Veterans are nearly twice as likely to suffer an overdose versus the rest of the population. It’s disgusting that we legally prohibit veterans from accessing psychedelics that studies suggest may more effectively treat chronic pain and have far fewer and far less severe side effects than opioids. Land of the free my ass.
We should also offer far more in terms of mental healthcare. Veterans are significantly more likely to commit suicide than the general population. In Huntsville, AL the closest mental health facility available through the VA has a wait time of 45 days. In San Franciso it’s 54 days.
And lastly, we should stop sending soldiers to get injured or die in wars that only really benefit Raytheon and Boeing. We should stop sending men and women who are trained to kill to build schools and hospitals while dodging roadside bombs.
Criticizing the military industrial complex isn’t anti-veteran. Quite the opposite. The real anti-veterans are those who seek to uphold the status quo.
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Criticizing the military industrial complex isn’t anti-veteran