 |  |
 
October 2012
August 2012 July 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003
     |
 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! August 11, 2005 Wounds of War (Part III)By Greyhawk(Part one of this series is here, part II here) The Politics of Passion Professor Uwe E. Reinhardt, of Princeton, to his son upon learning he was joining the Marines: "Do what you must, but be advised that, flourishing rhetoric notwithstanding, this nation will never truly honor your service, and it will condemn you to the bottom of the economic scrap heap should you ever get seriously wounded."The good professor is certainly within his parental rights to be concerned, but if he's right in what he's saying then something must be done about it. But (given his platform for relating those words) if wrong, he's open to accusations of using the wounded for political gain. Unfortunately, there are those among us who look into the eyes of wounded heroes and see only opportunity. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq photographer Nina Berman set out to do something about it. Basically, I've been a photographer for many years and I did this book because I want people to see these pictures. As a journalist and as an American living here I feel like there's something that I must be able to contribute that isn't being done. I was too young to do anything during the Vietnam War but if I don't do something during this war then I'll just feel like I'm as bad as everybody else.The offspring of her passion is the book Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq  , a photo collection depicting some of the wounded from the war on terror (sorry, Iraq sector only, others need not apply). Most of her subjects are amputees. But the book takes no position on the war, she explains: "...I wanted soldiers to tell their own stories so that someone could not dismiss Purple Hearts as an anti-war book or a pro-war book. It's important to just let the soldiers speak for themselves." .
And they are inspiring indeed. Let's read some of their quotes then, as reported (somewhat surprisingly) at the inarguably left-wing web site Mother Jones. Sam Ross was with the 82nd Airborne in Baghdad when a bomb blew up during a munitions-disposal operation: I lost my left leg, just below the knee. Lost my eyesight, which it's still unsettled about whether it will come back or not. I have shrapnel in pretty much every part of my body. Got my finger blown off-it don't work right. I had a hole blown through my right leg-had three skin grafts to try and repair it. It's not too bad now. It hurts a lot, that's about it. You know, not really anything major. Erick Castro was with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment when he lost a leg during a firefight near Fallujah. I was born in Mexico - I came here when I was one. I just became a U.S. citizen in December. There was this two-star general at the hospital that asked me, "Hey, are you a citizen?" That same day, I saw Senator Kennedy, and I decided to apply. The director of the INS performed the ceremony in Senator Kennedy's office.Alex Presman, a heavy-vehicle operator in the Marines' 6th Communication Battalion, was injured outside Baghdad when he stepped on a land mine: I was born in Russia. We came in '94. I think a man has to go through the military. My father was in the military. I wanted to go to school, and I just thought it was the right thing for me to do.A tank operator in the 4th ID, Luis Calderon was injured May 5, 2003, while destroying a mural of Saddam Hussein in Tikrit. The wall just crashed on me. Crushed my head, broke my neck. I felt separated, like in relaxing mode, but really I was still driving the tank. I couldn't feel my hands on the wheel. I felt nothing. My sergeant was telling me to stop on the radio, but I couldn't speak loud because my voice just went away, I was whispering, a very slight whisper. Another tank got the wall from ahead and took it out, and we waited until the medics came.Alan Jermaine Lewis of the 3rd ID was wounded when the Humvee he was driving hit a land mine in Baghdad: I've always wanted to go into education and become a teacher but they just don't make enough to survive off of. So I figure with my disability now, and the money I'll get from the government, I can use that plus the money I'll get from being a teacher and live comfortably. So I want to go to college and study education.One thing seems obvious from these quotes - if the military wanted to publicize the stories of wounded veterans it could do so to its advantage - but respect for privacy seems to have thus far outweighed the potential public relations gains such publicity would offer. Of course, those who do want to gain political capital from wounded heroes will even spin that reluctance for their own purposes: They are the images the government doesn't want you to see -- of soldiers returning from "Operation Iraqi Freedom", wounded for life, physically and emotionally.That's the opening line from the Mother Jones interview with Purple Hearts author Nina Berman. She was surprised by the positive response of these wounded heroes - though she doesn't call them heroes, and with time she's been able to recover enough from her shock to reconcile their comments with her own thinking: MJ.com: Were you surprised by some of the soldier's positive reactions, given the considerable physical and emotional damage they suffered, to the war and their experiences in Iraq?Read the entire interview and one point shines through - she may have indeed let them speak their own words, but she sees them as potential converts to her cause - and potentially valuable ones at that. So don't bother looking for any indication that she actually listened to anything they said, she blames their attitudes on their ignorance, and refers to them as "robotic". MJ.com: What do the soldiers think when Americans say that "I'm against the war but I support the troops"?She's worried about others who might try to "use" the troops for their political gain too: MJ.com: What about the rhetoric around troops that politicians use in campaign rallies and commercials?Remember, though, the book doesn't take a position on the war. "...I wanted soldiers to tell their own stories so that someone could not dismiss Purple Hearts as an anti-war book or a pro-war book. It's important to just let the soldiers speak for themselves."Certainly if Berman and others like her can convince these GIs that they have been used to advance a foolish cause - for which they've been crippled and rendered useless and forgotten - then they will be able to convert them to their opposition to that cause. But it's been almost a year since the publication of her book, and the campaign to enlist the wounded veterans hasn't gained much traction. It's not known whether she now regrets letting the "robots" speak for themselves. There's an interesting look at veteran's groups in between the lines of the above interview. Most such organizations are worthwhile, but others have goals that seem to change as often as political parties in power in DC. One GI that was less-than-impressed by his experiences with such groups was North Dakota National Guardsman Brandon Erickson, whose tour of duty in Iraq cost him his right arm. He was recently interviewed by NPR's John Ydstie JY: How about you mood generally would you say?The interview begins with Brandon on his new job - spraying lawns for the Happy Grass Lawn Care company. But lest you think he's been condemned to the bottom of the economic scrap heap rest assured, it's just a summer job, one in which he protects his $100,000 electronic arm by using a low-tech replacement. His full time job is student, a Political Science major at the University of North Dakota. He's not overtly political though - in a previous NPR interview we learned his fellow students aren't aware of his story: I'm a Political Science major, and one of my classes is International Politics, and we've talked about Iraq quite a bit. In all my classes nobody knows what happened to me. I dont say a word about being in the Army, being in Iraq. When people say silly things, I just want to fully unleash on them, "do you have any idea what ..." but I don't, I'm usually pretty quiet, I just let them think silly thoughts - because I know what's the real story from being over there.It's not clear exactly what those "silly things" are, but there's a hint provided later as they approach his apartment: BE: Bet you can't Guess which one's mine..That's a picture that didn't appear in campaign advertising, by the way. Having failed to convert the living to their cause, today's "anti-war" crowd has shifted their focus entirely upon the dead. Demands for photos of flag-draped coffins to accompany any published anti-war diatribe are now easily filled - the result of lawsuits successfully waged in the nation's courts. (Professor Reinhardt's original piece included one such photograph.) None of this is new, of course, and one of the first practitioners of the art in it's modern form was Michael Moore. Moore sidestepped any question of whether his subjects agreed with him or not by simply using film of them in his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 without bothering to ask. His use of footage from U.S.A.F. Maj. Gregory Stone's funeral earned him the outrage of the man's surviving relatives. Stone's mother described Moore as a "maggot that eats off the dead." But he also hijacked wounded heroes for his cause, much to their surprise and revulsion. SSG Roy Mitchell was one of his victims. Mitchell learned of the abuse from a friend - while he was still recovering at Walter Reed. He "vehemently objects to filmmaker Moore's using them - without his knowledge - in a film he thinks undermines the military's mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he risked his life." Another case from the same story: The July 15 issue of The Enterprise, a Massachusetts newspaper, reported that Army reservist Peter Damon - also recuperating at Walter Reed after losing parts of both arms in an explosion in Iraq - was "surprised" to learn that an interview he gave to NBC this year is shown in the film.Make no mistake - this is why the dead are valuable to the "anti-war" crowd - they don't talk back. We offered a follow-up report on Damon's recovery here: There is a sketch in his living room of a soldier carrying another soldier on his back, evidence the righthanded Damon can still draw, though he must clasp his pencil between two pieces of metal.You can "visit" the home built for Sgt Damon and his family here - and meet some other heroes the organization is helping here. Take a look around the Homes for our Troops website while you're there - and meet some folks do more than talk about their support for the troops. It was truly an honor to discover this comment left on that previous post: I'd like to thank everyone for showing an interest and showing so much support for my story, and the story of Homes For Our Troops. Reading comments like these make all the sacrifices that I have made, and ALL THE OTHER SERVICE MEN AND WOMEN who have given life and limb for their Country and for Freedom, worth it. (Part IV is here) Posted by Greyhawk / August 11, 2005 7:27 PM | Permalink 2 TrackBacks8 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
Comments (0) |
|
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
They aren't? Yeah, I guess not, when they become victims and political pawns.
But even more important is the (apparently) unconscious assumption that the only way to leave the military is dead or wounded. Hellooooo reality calling.... that is a possibility, but the only ones guaranteeing that you'll be dead when you join their ranks are the suicide bombers they're fighting.
A note to that dingbat photographer: If you'd bother to ask around and research the subject a little better you'd find out there are a lot more Viet Nam vets upset at the Left for trying to turn Iraq into another Nam by cutting and running than there are Viet Nam vets upset with the government for taking down Sadam.
Bill: If they bothered to ask, their preconceived notions might be endangered. Such a cruel thing to do to such delicate minds. :)
"Robots" - what a remarkably sensitive description for people with mechanical arms and legs.
I'm not just referencing the wounded and dead here - an incredible number of heroes have come from this generation of American youth - and she dismisses that as "the youth culture" and something we must stop.
She should be thankful she's failed - if she ever suceeded in her efforts she'd find herself forced to wear a burkha within a few short years.
Given the exploitation of Ms. Sheehan's loss, plus the Jersey girls of WTC 9/11, plus the Minnesota Senator Welstone funeral/pep rally, we can make the case that the Democratic party is "where the gouls are."
I read the good professor's article and quite frankly I don't see what's wrong with it. He clearly states that America doesn't do enough to support veterans, especially wounded veterans. He highlights how the American public wasn't called on to sacrifice for this war as it has been called upon in previous wars. He's got some good points. I heard an interview with him where he recommended that vets be given grants to start new businesses when they return. He was also aghast at meeting a vet who lost both legs at the knees and was recieving $8,000 per year for disability. He thought it was a crime and so do I. He points out the fact that congress had to be largely forced to up the budget for the VA. I have often pointed out the serious disconnect the rhetoric of supporting the troops and actually making a sacrifice for them. The good professor's article is a wake up call to everyone. Supporting the troops is more than an bumper sticker.
Brian
No doubt then you just sent a healthy contribution to Homes for our Troops to demonstrate your support goes beyond words. That's why the link was included here.
If you read the prof's words carefully, you'll note the absense of any solution to his perceived problems - short of raising taxes. There's a difference between complaining about a situation and doing something about it. It's no surprise this concept is lost on an Academic.
A side note, changing the administration or raising taxes doesn't help the troops, wounded or otherwise. It just creates additional layers of beauracracy and excuses those who want to think their taxes are going to a good cause.
I guesss my point is this: instead of demading the governent takes your money and gives it to the troops, just do it yourself and eliminate the middle man, who's notorious for skimming and wasting anyway.