To the editor:
William Shaw states in his Nov. 13 Opinion piece, “It’s never too late for thanks” that “now is the time to thank a Vietnam veteran.”
I agree wholeheartedly with him, but he doesn’t go far enough. What American veterans of all wars deserve is not simply a “thank you for your service” – an often empty and superficial gesture – but full funding for the physical, psychological and economic wounds that many of them continue to suffer through. There are far too many homeless vets, too many delays to earned medical treatment, and too many suicides – estimated by CNN to be at least 22 a day. We are shortchanging these men and women every day by underfunding and under-serving them after the sacrifices they made at the request of our country. Saying “thank you” may be the start, but it’s far from the end of our debt to them.
It’s easy to go to war. It’s more difficult to live up to the financial costs that war entails, particularly the human costs borne by our veterans. Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, our society grossly underestimated the human costs, and in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq even cut taxes during those wars. As a result, many veterans not only sacrifice physical and mental health while at war, but then return to a society unprepared to respond to their medical and economic needs.
In his effort to make his case about society’s neglect to Vietnam-era vets, though, Shaw paints an inaccurate picture of those times. He states that “all of America” felt that we must “take a stand against communism” and that the “Domino Theory was fact.”
Of course, most of us know that neither of these assertions is true. As early as 1967 the anti-war movement was growing, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War was founded. This group was made up of serviceman who had seen first-hand what was going on in Southeast Asia, and organized to protest it. Anti-war demonstrations in Washington drew half a million Americans at a time, and cities and towns across the nation hosted teach-ins, demonstrations, and protest marches.
Also in 1967, Martin Luther King gave a speech questioning what we were doing in Vietnam, and linked war funding to lack of funding on domestic priorities. Future leaders such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had “other priorities” during the Viet Nam and used family connections or college deferments to avoid service while 55,000 US servicemen and women died and over 300,000 were injured. The full consensus that Shaw describes simply did not exist.
Within the halls of Congress, dissent was growing, and in 1968, President Johnson refused to run for re-election. During the war (as we learned later) the Pentagon Papers and other sources documented that our civilian and military leadership had lied to the American people about the nature and purpose of the war, and our chances for success. In later years, no less a figure than Defense Secretary Robert McNamara had questioned why we were there, and had discredited the domino theory. According to McNamara, administration figures knew in 1967 that our chance for success were slim.
Yet we plowed on for another eight years, through the remainder of the Johnson Administration and into Nixon’s. Both administrations lied to the nation, and to the servicemen and women serving in Viet Nam.
It is no disservice to Viet Nam-era veterans to look clearly at the policy choices and mistakes that were made in that war. In fact, it is our duty. We need to know that war’s costs – human and financial – always exceed estimates. Veterans often bear the brunt of this underfunding. We need to vigorously question our government before, during, and after war about the objectives, alternatives, and costs of going to war.
Such vigorous questioning was missing in our march to Iraq. Lies about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein were matched by grossly low estimates of the financial and human costs. Some economists estimate that our Iraq adventure will cost the nation between $2 trillion and $3 trillion when all costs are factored in.
Veterans and their families bear these costs in their bodies, their minds, and their sometimes shattered lives. For some, it is all too much, and suicide seems like a better option.
So let us do more than simply thank a veteran. Let’s accept our responsibility to pay for their service by fully funding the medical and economic costs they have incurred. And as a legacy to the fallen and the injured, and to all who have served, let’s pledge that before we embark on another foreign adventure we discuss alternatives, objectives, and costs.
If war in the only option, let’s be real about the sacrifices all of us – not just those in uniform – will need to make.
JEFF BROWN
Bainbridge Island
