Military Leaders and Our Government Support our Military, but Abandon Them When They Come Home

Our nation’s leadership at all levels is dominated by hypocrisy. One issue I have addressed multiple times involves our nation’s military who serve in war zones at the will of Congress and the Pentagon.

It’s been the same old story all of my life, from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon tells Congress that they need more troops to win the war, and they say how many. With each increase in the number of soldiers ready to give their lives for who knows what, the number of body bags is doubled. The fat asses who sit in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill will not be risking their lives or the lives of their children in battle. The irony is that our military leaders have lost every illegal and immoral war since WWII. The sad truth is that none of the young men I knew who were forced to fight in Vietnam knew what they were fighting for.

I make an admission here about my negative personal feelings for the military. However, it has no influence in this story.

In the mid 1960’s the war in South Vietnam, which began in 1955, began to escalate. The draft was still in force, it would not end until President Richard Nixon signed into law a bill to end this fascist policy in 1973.

More than 59,000 Americans lost their lives in Vietnam until 1975 when our military suddenly left with their tails between their legs. None of those who were forced to fight a war halfway around the world ever understood what the war was all about. As of this day, January 11, 2025, I have never learned of any situation which justified the Vietnam War.

Move ahead to September 11, 2001. While our nation’s president and vice-president were vacationing after receiving warnings that an attack on our nation was imminent, attacks which seemed unreal occurred in New York and on the Pentagon. A third target was believed to be the White House. However, in an act of unbelievable patriotism, a number of passengers subdued the terrorists on Flight 93 and the plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

When our government learned who the architect of the cowardly attacks had been, President George W. Bush ordered an attack in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Intelligence agencies were positive that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the caves in the surrounding mountains. Bin Laden was never captured or killed during that invasion, but the war in Afghanistan had begun, and would not end until 2021.

In 2003 the Bush administration created a lie which led to the invasion of Iraq, and lasted until 2011. The lie involved Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Bush claimed that he was hiding weapons of mass destruction for the terrorist group Al Qaeda who attacked America on 9/11. No weapons were ever found.

Between the two wars, an estimated 7,000-8,500 American lives were lost. The loss of civilian lives exceeded 100,000.

When our fighting men and women returned from as many as five tours in the war zones, the number of physical injuries was dwarfed by the number of mental defects caused by the stress of struggling to survive in two illegal and unwinnable wars.

What is now known as “PTSD,” Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, was the root cause for divorce, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, suicide, and domestic violence. The number of homeless veterans related to PTSD is unknown, but estimates reach as high as 10-20 thousand.

[A "homeless former military" after Iraq and Afghanistan refers to a veteran who served in either the Iraq War or the War in Afghanistan and is now experiencing homelessness, often due to factors like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental health challenges, substance abuse, difficulty finding employment, and a lack of affordable housing upon returning to civilian life; this population is considered at a significantly higher risk of homelessness compared to the general population.]

The Veterans Administration was not equipped to effectively treat the seriously damaged men and women who placed their lives on the line fighting in wars the Pentagon knew we could never win. They failed to learn lessons from the Russian army’s failures in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.

A personal note. My father served in the United States Navy during WWII. My first memories of home life involved his frequent drunken rages, and physical attacks on my mother. I kept dimes in my pocket if I felt it necessary to run to a payphone and call the police: who did nothing at all.

One of my Uncles, who fought in the Army during WWII, was always unhappy and one day took a handgun with him into the basement and killed himself.

No one in the medical profession knew about PTSD in the 1950’s. As I learned more about the trauma-induced psychosis I forgave some of the damage to me and my family for which my father was responsible. War is hell.

Our government loves wars: this is historical fact. Many of our leaders in Washington are heavily invested in the Military Industrial Complex, and have become wealthy during our nation’s many wars. Their slogan always has been, “war is good business.”

For the average American who learned anything from history, wars seldom make any sense: no one truly wins a war.

This story gives me one more reason to warn all of you: trust no one in power, especially the incompetent and corrupt men and women in Washington.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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