Tag: Veterans Day

An Honorable Marine

Posted on by kathiemm
Ross Caputi in Iraq.

by Kathie MM

He doesn’t know it (yet), but on this Veteran’s Day, I am honoring a particular veteran, a former Marine, Ross Caputi, for his enduring courage.

It takes courage for anyone, in or out of military uniform, to face death, injury, terror, loss. It takes an extra dose of courage to speak out when you recognize that you have been duped by your government, tricked into participating in an unjustifiable bloodbath.

In November 2014, Ross provided a veteran’s perspective on Veteran’s Day: Inconvenient memories: Veteran’s Day 2014.” The message of that essay, excerpted here, is as crucial as ever.

“Most Americans believe Veterans Day is a day of remembrance; in reality, it’s generally a day of forgetting.

On Veterans Day, people applaud as veterans march in parades, wearing their medals and fancy uniforms. People who have never seen or smelt war’s rotting corpses bask in an atmosphere of pride and patriotism, suppressing inconvenient memories of hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Iraq, millions in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands in Korea, and so on throughout our nation’s short and bloody history….

On Veterans Day, we are called upon to remember America’s wars, sanitized of the harm they brought to countless victims around the world, and abstracted from their historical and political context. We are asked to support our veterans while forgetting the reality of what they participated in…. But my experience as a Marine in Iraq [see series on engaging peace starting in May 2012] has forever changed the way I look at war and the way I feel about being a veteran.

Let’s change the way we celebrate Veterans Day. Let’s make it a day of learning, not forgetting. Let’s be sympathetic to the ways veterans have suffered without ignoring the suffering of civilian victims. Let’s teach and learn about the wars in which our veterans have participated…. Let’s end the reflexive support for popular mythology, the jingoism, the cheer leading, and the forgetting. Let’s refuse to encourage the next generation to follow in the footsteps of today’s veterans.”

Note from Kathie MM:  Amen.

Ross is the founding director of the Justice for Fallujah Project. He is also the director of the documentary film Fear Not the Path of Truth: a veteran’s journey after Fallujah

 

Is the military-industrial complex striking again?

Posted on by kathiemm

Wikimedia and countless other sources will tell you that Armistice Day was established on November 11 to commemorate the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, France, to cease hostilities on the Western Front in World War I. The end of that blood bath was a worthy cause for celebration, as would be any genuine armistice or peace agreement.

Many of the Allies declared the date a national holiday to honor servicemen who died in the war. Following World War II, the United States changed the name of the holiday to honor veterans of all its wars. And here we are in 2015 about to “honor” our veterans again.

So, I ask you, What the heck does that mean? What does it mean to “honor” our veterans? Clearly it means to hold parades and try to get some uniformed veterans to march in them. Perhaps those particular veterans marching in those parades feel honored. Or at least vindicated for their role in any violence perpetrated in the name of their country.

And I ask you, who gains what from the parades and the hype about honoring veterans? Do the celebrations serve in any meaningful way to make the lives of  veterans better? Do commemorations get the homeless veterans off the streets and into housing? Do they provide job training programs, adequate medical care, psychological treatment? Do they relieve PTSD? If our country truly wanted to honor veterans, wouldn’t it treat them better? 

Or are the Veteran’s Day parades and ceremonies largely just another media event, a form of propaganda in service of that false god, patriotism?  Are they also, moreover, a recruitment device, an enticement offered to young men and women, particularly in cities jammed full of unemployed and underemployed people, to convince them that it is honorable to join in whatever armed conflicts the government decides will serve its agenda in the next generations? And can’t we do better than that for both the veterans and the civilians in this country?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Inconvenient memories: Veteran’s Day 2014

Posted on by kathiemm

by Guest Author Ross Caputi

cost ofwar
Iraq war protest poster showing Lancet estimate of Iraqis killed, May 28, 2008. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Author: Random McRandomhead.

Most Americans believe Veterans Day is a day of remembrance; in reality, it’s generally a day of forgetting.

On Veterans Day, people applaud as veterans march in parades, wearing their medals and fancy uniforms. People who have never seen or smelt war’s rotting corpses bask in an atmosphere of pride and patriotism, suppressing inconvenient memories of hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in Iraq, millions in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands in Korea, and so on throughout our nation’s short and bloody history.

On Veterans Day, we are spared all the unpleasantries that might give us pause about the value or benevolence of our wars. We listen to the bands playing, but ignore the troubles faced by returning veterans. Where is the glory in PTSD, addiction, suicide?

On Veterans Day, we make believe that support for the troops is apolitical. Just like the victims of our wars, the reasons why young Americans have been asked to go to war, and the consequences of those wars are conveniently forgotten and nobody seems to notice.

On Veterans Day, we are called upon to remember America’s wars, sanitized of the harm they brought to countless victims around the world, and abstracted from their historical and political context. We are asked to support our veterans while forgetting the reality of what they participated in. It is a pleasant fairy tale, and I wish I could partake in it. But my experience as a Marine in Iraq has forever changed the way I look at war and the way I feel about being a veteran.

Let’s change the way we celebrate Veterans Day. Let’s make it a day of learning, not forgetting. Let’s be sympathetic to the ways veterans have suffered without ignoring the suffering of civilian victims. Let’s teach and learn about the wars in which our veterans have participated without glossing over the historical and political context in which they occurred. Let’s end the reflexive support for popular mythology, the jingoism, the cheer-leading, and the forgetting. Let’s refuse to encourage the next generation to follow in the footsteps of today’s veterans.

Father Michael Lapsley addresses the healing of trauma, Part 1

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dot Walsh

“UBUNTU” in the Xhosa culture means: “I am because we are.”

On Veterans Day, November 11, it is good to recognize that many of the women and men who have served at war in Afghanistan and other foreign countries return to their homes without adequate support for the trauma they have experienced.

Trauma is an invisible wound. We have learned a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have identified it in individuals engaged in current wars. But soldiers who returned from Vietnam and Korea often remain victims of their pain and sometimes victimize others.

A recent visit, interview, and workshop with Father Michael Lapsley of South Africa gave me some insight into the effects of trauma and the possibility of healing. Father Lapsley is an Anglican priest from New Zealand who experienced his own trauma as a result of his active participation in speaking out against the apartheid regime in South Africa.

In 1973 during the height of apartheid, he was sent by his order to Durban, South Africa, to serve as chaplain for both black and white university students. As a witness to the atrocities and injustices of apartheid, he began to speak out on behalf of schoolchildren who were being shot, detained, and tortured.

Because of his public stand against the government, his life was threatened. It became necessary for him to leave the country and go into exile in Zimbabwe. In 1990, he received a letter bomb that was hidden inside two religious magazines. The bomb exploded with a force that blew off both of his hands and blinded him in one eye, along with covering his body with serious burns.

After a long recovery in Australia, he returned to South Africa to become chaplain of the Trauma Centre for Survivors of Violence and Torture, which became part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). This work led to the creation of the Institute for Healing of Memories (IHOM), an organization that focuses on individuals who tell their stories in workshops where they can begin to work through their trauma.

[to be continued]

Dot Walsh is a lifelong peace activist and member of the Engaging Peace board of directors.