Through Veterans' Eyes

by Larry Minear

  The reintegration challenge is not simply to coordinate and expand existing programs but also to sensitize people and institutions to the special situations of returning veterans and their families. Thus, teachers and administrators in public and private schools needed to be more sensitive to the special situations of children in military families. Classroom teachers needed to be alert to the potential damage to children of deployed parents from off-hand comments or casual discussions about the global war on terror or from insistence on homework when home situations conspired against its completion. State agency personnel also had some learning to do. A military chaplain in Vermont described an incident in which a newly returned veteran driving down an interstate highway was confronted by a state policeman who jumped out from behind an overpass, radar gun poised. The veteran’s instinct was to take evasive action à la Iraq, where overpasses and bridges were a favorite hiding place for insurgents and explosives. The incident was incorporated into a statewide police training program.

  Reemployment of returning veterans was also a major challenge. In New Hampshire, “35 percent or more of all the reserve military personnel are employed as civilians in local, state, and federal government agencies.”47 The group included public safety personnel such as state and local law enforcement officials, emergency medical technicians, firefighters, corrections personnel, educators from kindergarten through college, and a sitting judge. Some departments were more affected by the post-9/11 call-ups than others. The state corrections department had more than fifty-five of its employees deployed, forty-five of them at the same time.48

  The remaining 65 percent of New Hampshire Guard troops and reservists were employed in private sector jobs. The most difficult reentries were often the self-employed, a numerous category given the structure of the state’s rural economy. Private employers of a certain size as well as government agencies are legally obligated to release employees for military service and to reemploy them after their return. From the employer’s vantage point, particularly in smaller offices and enterprises, the challenge was both to maintain productivity while employees were absent and to re-engage them once they reappeared. Younger enlistees were easier to accommodate than people further along in their careers. Some state agencies found it difficult to “back-fill” jobs while regular employees were deployed, even though their absences were only temporary.49 Some veterans have taken employers to court in order win their jobs back.50

  Throughout the nation, the preparedness of the penal system at various levels to deal with returning veterans is also being tested. Eric Heath, an Army 2nd Class Petty Officer who accompanied American soldiers accused of crimes and facing dishonorable discharges and jail time back to the United States, had his doubts. “The prisons back in the United States have no concept of what’s going on in Iraq and Kuwait and Afghanistan,” he observed. When U.S. soldiers were detained in military facilities overseas, guards like himself realized that “they’ve been in combat stress” and thus avoided yelling and screaming at them. Many prison officials back in the United States, by contrast, will scream at them and make them stand at “parade rest.” Add to this treatment the veteran’s realization that “I’m no longer a soldier—I’m an embarrassment to the country,” and the stage is set for major problems.51

  With each contingent returning from Afghanistan or Iraq, the adequacy of the response of the system’s institutions is tested anew. In late 2008, 15,000 soldiers in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, many from their third or fourth deployment. Uneasy about the anticipated demand for reentry services, the vice chief of staff of the Army, Gen. Peter Chiarelli conceded, “I don’t know what to expect. I don’t think anybody knows.” Chiarelli issued an urgent call for additional counselors.52

  “The government does not want to face the lifelong legacy of combat in its individual, community, financial, and other dimensions,” said Jay Craven, whose documentary, After The Fog, provides compelling commentary by soldiers on their experiences from World War II through the global war on terror. “Military service confers on combat soldiers a lifelong sentence,” Craven observed. In the case of veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, the data suggest, that sentence is proving particularly harsh and resistant to commutation.53

  * * *

  I oftentimes say being commander in chief of the military is the thing I’ll miss most. Coming here to Walter Reed is a reminder of why I’ll miss it.

  —President George W. Bush, on his final trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center*

  * * *

  The accession to power of the Obama administration in January 2009 offered an occasion for stocktaking on the institutional response to date. Veterans groups took the opportunity to present recommendations for the future. As an example, the agenda recommended by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America for the first hundred days of the new administration identified four priority areas. Veterans should be given precedence in the economic stimulus package, including “shovel-ready projects like repairing veterans’ hospitals and cemeteries.” The DVA budget should be advance-funded to eliminate the hassle and indignity of fighting for hospital and clinic funding. Improvements in educational benefits slated to take effect in mid-2009 should be expedited by giving the bureaucracy a “kick in the pants.” Finally, mental health needs should be aggressively addressed, in part by attracting more psychiatrists and psychologists into the Defense and Veterans departments.54

  In sum, progress is being made in identifying veterans’ needs and in expanding their access to institutional resources. However, a “tsunami of need,” both current and future, is still far outrunning efforts of the system to respond, and by all projections will continue to do so.55

  From time to time, gaps in the reentry process are illuminated by reminders of the continuing need of veterans of the Global War on Terror. Reminders come in very particularistic forms: a hometown son or daughter killed in action, a spouse’s efforts to arrange for a veteran’s rehabilitation, a suicide or other crime of violence by a returnee, graduation of a veteran made possible by the improved GI Bill, the latest incident at a local VA hospital or vet center of a soldier’s rehabilitation or exclusion, action by a college president to open up undergraduate education to newly returned Afghan or Iraq veterans, the release of a new state or federal study, and so on.

  Individual breakthroughs notwithstanding, few would maintain that the nation has fully succeeded in mobilizing the institutional resources—financial or professional, short or long term—to meet the complex, costly, and ongoing needs of the generation of veterans that loom on the horizon. This is one of the major concerns articulated by the voices of the veterans themselves, to which we now turn.

  ELEVEN

  The Global War on Terror and earlier Wars

  The question in the Veterans History Project protocol, “How did your experiences contribute to your thinking about war and military service?” encourages interviewees to reflect on their soldiering in the broader context of American history. Indeed, a fair number of them share their views about how the global war on terror compares and contrasts with earlier conflicts. Their views are shaped by family traditions of military service, by the histories of the individual services and units with which they are affiliated, and by their own earlier military experience. In a broad sense, their soldiering is of a piece with the military service of their predecessors.

  Reflecting on their experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans identify differences that set the current conflicts apart from earlier wars. Yet commonalities also emerge. This chapter draws together comments from interviews about soldiering then and now. The narrative offers not a tightly woven presentation of U.S. military history, but rather a compilation of observations that strike veterans as significant.

  DISCONTINUITIES

  Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq highlight a variety of ways in which those wars were significantly different from earlier conflicts. These include the existence of an all-volunt
eer military, changes in communications, developments in military strategy and tactics, difficulties in identifying the enemy, and progress in battlefield medicine. Veterans also underscore specific contrasts such as the welcome home they received and the reception accorded their Vietnam War counterparts.

  One item of recurring comment concerns the differences between the all-volunteer force deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq and the armed forces conscripted for earlier wars. Although the U.S. volunteer military still uses involuntary call-ups and stop-loss extensions of deployments, the fact that all of the men and women who have served in these conflicts have voluntarily chosen the armed forces is seen as making a huge difference, both symbolic and practical. This is the case even though some did not envision an assignment in a global war on terror at the point of enlisting. Like it or not, “We all signed up for this,” Navy Cdr. Mark S. Kirk points out.1

  Lt. Col. Jude Ferran, who served with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, saw the building of an all-volunteer Army, begun in the aftermath of Vietnam and continuing through the Reagan years, as having produced a more highly skilled, motivated, and professional fighting force.2 As members of an all-volunteer force, soldiers had the satisfaction of knowing that they were making a difference, said Marine Col. Benjamin Braden. That was, after all, why many had enlisted—and, in some cases, reenlisted.3 Unlike Vietnam, where individuals were rotated in and out, Army Capt. Ralan Hill pointed out, the use of stop-loss arrangements made for greater unit cohesion (although few people were enthusiastic about having their tours extended).4

  Yet the absence of conscription, in the view of some, had a downside as well. “I don’t fuckin’ believe for one moment,” said Sgt. Jeremy Lima, “that the Marines or veterans of World War I or World War II ever said, ‘We are going to go to Japan to kick Japanese ass or Germany to kick German ass in the name of freedom.’ They did it because they were drafted. They wanted to come home to their families. They did what they had to do. Now that there is not a draft today, no one is willing to defend the things that they love. They just bad-mouth it. That’s why I’m willing,” he said, “to serve and then to extend my service.”5 Lima and others are personally committed to avoiding a situation in which “they gave a war and nobody came.”

  Indeed, some veterans fear that, in the absence of a draft, the armed forces would be hard-pressed to meet recruiting targets, whether for Afghanistan and Iraq or for the conflicts of the future. “After three decades, our national experiment with an all-volunteer force has foundered during its first encounter with combat operations that last for an extended period of time,” wrote Maj. Gen. Walter L. Stewart Jr. (retired). The U.S. force, he continued, “relies on fewer and fewer to bear the blood burdens of defense, absolves the many of any fiscal, physical, or mental hardships, and, in a dawning age of asymmetric, non-state and ascendant-state warfare, denies human power in favor of a near mystical belief in technology.” The prompt reinstatement of conscription, he believes, is indispensable in safeguarding the nation’s future in a hostile world.6

  A second difference between Afghanistan and Iraq and earlier American conflicts is the revolution in communications. As a result of greater availability of information, observed Army 1st Sgt. Paul Mayfield, “we are probably the most informed military that has ever fought in a war. The average soldier is probably a little more educated and little smarter. We live in the information age.”7 As for military communications specifically, said Col. Braden, the manual typewriters and typists of yesteryear have given way to laptop computers and communications specialists with more advanced and specialized skill sets.8

  “The difference between me and a person who served in Vietnam,” explained Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Samuel Main, “is that he didn’t have twenty-four-hour coverage. Twenty-four hours a day, I can watch it. I can know what’s going on there. For me to get there and not know what to expect would be pure ignorance on my part. This is the information age. I can look online and find out how many guys died today; how they died; where the battle’s at, what political scene is there. It’s all online! Everything is available if you want to know it, and you should know it if you’re going. That’s part of being an adult.”9

  “We are completely connected by e-mail” with family and friends back home, observed Commander Kirk of his time in Iraq. “The distance and separation of the planet was dramatically contracted from the isolation that veterans of previous wars went through.”10 Army Sgt. Metz Duites describes the back-and-forth by telephone and text-messaging as his wife approached childbirth. He could hear the “commotion” in the delivery room, he recalls, as her doctors discussed and then performed a Caesarian.11 The connectedness most veterans enjoyed with families and friends may have diverted their concentration and raised potential security issues. On balance, however, those liabilities were far outweighed by the advantages realized in terms of morale, staying in touch with family, and easier reentry.

  Some veterans witnessed the communications revolutions in the course of their own deployments. Larry Bond, a veteran who had served as an Army sergeant during the Cold War from 1976 to 1983, returned to the National Guard ranks in 1995, deploying to Iraq in 2003–2004. Years ago, he recalls, it was hard for soldiers to stay in contact with their families. In Iraq, by contrast, everyone had cell phones and there were no long queues waiting to use the landlines.12

  As recently as Desert Storm and Desert Shield, when he had been serving on board a ship, Marine Corps Lt. Col. Robert C. D’Amico felt he had been living in an “information vacuum.” News and information about developments in-theater arrived only once every twenty-four hours, while letters to and from the States—“everything was letters”—usually took six weeks. By contrast, in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom—he did two tours in Afghanistan and seven in Iraq in his various several roles as Marine and FBI agent—news was available 24/7 on both television and the Internet. “Everything now is more instantaneous,” he said, thanks to cell and satellite phones, video chats, and BlackBerries. “Technology has really helped the soldier stay in touch.”13

  A third item of recurring comment involved changes in military strategy and tactics. One of the most obvious differences between Afghanistan/Iraq and preceeding conflicts involves the blurring of traditional distinctions between front lines and rear lines. Army Lt. Col. Gregory V. Marinich draws contrasts with the days of the Cold War and its sharply etched enemy, the Soviet Union. “Today,” he said, “the enemy is not very well-defined, there are no front lines, and the enemy is all over the place. This saddens me. I don’t want this enemy to be around when my children are of age to go into the service.”14

  Capt. Michael Daake, who served with an engineering battalion in Operation Iraqi Freedom for nine months beginning in December 2004, signed up in 1988 during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was the adversary and U.S. units were trained for land battles in Eastern Europe. His exposure in Iraq “changed not only my view of war but also of what war would be like.”15 Col. William F. Andrews, an F-16 pilot who flew missions from the United Arab Emirates during Desert Storm, noted that during the Cold War, his squadron, based in Germany and focused on Central Europe, had been “staring down the Soviet military threat, with large armored formations on wooded, hilly terrain. “We weren’t trained for exactly the kind of mission we were going to face” in Iraq, he said, but they were able to adapt to it.16

  “When I first got in the army, it was the end of the Cold War,” muses Sgt. Todd Walton. “It was very simple: if they carried an AK, they were bad; if they carried an [M]16, they were good. You know, that’s a great old cheat sheet. Well, with the way the world has changed, our former enemies are now our allies.” His unit fraternized with the Ukrainians, Czechs, and Romanians with whom they shared their own base. “To see the Rising Sun driving around out there was just bizarre. I mean, we were just talking about World War II. That’s the last time the U.S. and the Japanese were in a combat zone at the same time.”17

&
nbsp; The novelty of the political as well as the geographic terrain also struck Army Lt. Col. Gregory Marinich. What was it that had impressed him most, an interviewer asked, from his service in Desert Shield and Desert Storm and from his stint with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan? “The drastic difference between cultures,” he replied, “and the importance of our really being able to talk and dialogue between countries and peoples and religions.” He was struck by “how differently they think about things in the Middle East and yet how important it is for us to be educated to these facts and to try to the best of our ability to understand the differences in order that we can have a peaceful future.”18

  Several soldiers expressed the view that the United States had been inadequately prepared for the changes in warfare encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq. A significant number lamented the absence of the necessary body armor and armored vehicles. One veteran confided that she had stolen fire extinguishers for Army vehicles from the Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR) warehouse, knowing that private sector stocks would be better provisioned than government stores. Unprepared American units were forced to improvise. “We were taking some equipment that was really built for the Soviet doctrine,” observed one veteran, “and using it in a non-standard way and we were actually being quite productive.”19 Another felt, more ominously, that the United States was not learning rapidly enough. “A lot of what we do is still based on the whole World War II concept that there is a front line and then there is a rear echelon that is further back … and that it’s safer. That’s not the case right now.”20