“Wounded Warriors” Should Not be Necessary

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

Born in July of 1946, it is obvious that I am an original baby boomer. My father was discharged from the United States Navy in Seattle Washington in 1945. He met my mother, who had been working for Boeing during the war. They married in July, and less than a year later I took my first breaths.

I was too young to know much about the Korean Conflict. Most of what I learned about it came from the popular television show, “MASH.”

The first war I remember was Vietnam. I graduated from high school in 1964 and enlisted in the USAF. I couldn’t afford college, and the recruiter promised me that the Air Force would train me well. He lied.

However, I feel a small amount of gratitude. After I was out of tech school in Mississippi, the war in Vietnam rapidly escalated. I might have died for nothing on a battlefield halfway around the world.

I was medically discharged in 1965. I watched the news as the body bags began to arrive from Southeast Asia. I learned that some of the young men who were coming home with serious injuries, both physical and mental, had been in high school with me, but most were not in the same class.

I remember the many protests. The participants all asked the same question; a question which remains unanswered today: “what are we fighting for.”

What happened after these young men came home was often worse than what they experienced in the jungles of Vietnam. Many had irreparable physical injuries, and all of them had some form of mental disability. We learned later that it had a name: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. This was when I learned the reason why my own father was an alcoholic. I will never know the horrors he experienced during WWII.

Years ago, I was working in a casino in Northern Nevada. There was a convention composed of Vietnam Vets. I talked to several of them. They all had the same story. When they came home, with the exception of the V.A. medical teams, our government virtually abandoned them.

Over the years, and two more unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I discovered that the same complaints came from the men and women returning from two more illegal wars.

Our government is eager to send our men and women to war, but forget about them when they return, if they are lucky.

When I was young, the draft was still in effect. Today, our military is composed entirely of volunteers who enlist for various reasons. However, it is highly unlikely that they considered fighting in nations who had not attacked us, and were of no threat. Lies from our leaders placed us in wars we could not win.

I praise organizations like “Wounded Warrior.” However, they should not be a necessity.

Our government is eager to give the Pentagon hundreds of billions of dollars each year to develop new “toys.” However, watchdog groups claim that the Pentagon wastes at least 50 cents out of every dollar. A large portion of than money should go to the men and women who fight our government’s wars.

A final note, and an undeniable fact: our military leaders have not won a single war since WWII.

Think about it.

Op-ed by James Turnage

Follow my blog and be an informed American citizen

My 10 novels are available on Amazon’s Kindle