an army of one

Dec 04, 2006 18:06

People in my family don't talk about my Uncle Donnie. He was the youngest of all Grandpa's brothers. He served in Vietnam. Then he came back, possibly shot a bunch of people (the story is fuzzy here), and killed himself in his garage (the story is decidedly less fuzzy on this point). My dad was about six.

When I was younger, the only way my dad would talk about him was in terms of cowardice. Only a fucking coward would do that. It was many years before I realized he didn't really believe it, but couldn't bring himself to think of how hideously Donnie's loved ones, and his country, had failed him. My dad didn't want to have to claim Donnie as a victim of the war. But he was.

So on the way home, when I heard NPR's coverage on the problems GIs have had getting mental health help I had a hissy fit.

Welcome to the bullshit we sign these young men up for. Surprise, America, they come back damaged, and you refuse to give up the resources to help fix them.

What I don't understand is why people are surprised. "But, but, but, the military said they had services in place for people!" Fuck you. Fuck you, you ignorant, illiterate piece of shit. LEARN SOME FUCKING HISTORY before you send children across the ocean to suffer for something YOU HAVEN'T EVEN BOTHERED TO READ UP ON. The military doesn't give a shit about "mental health." "Mental health" problems are more or less regarded the same way my father once regarded Uncle Donnie, only without the broken heart. You are a coward if you can't handle it. This is not new. This is not a recent development. This is at very minimum one hundred years of social-military fucking history.

My cousin, when her schizophrenia symptoms started to bubble up, was told by the military health care system she'd have to "suck it up." They told. A schizophrenic. To suck it up. They didn't want to have to set her up with meds and therapy, so they solved the problem very rationally with good! Military! Discipline! Thank god this happened before wartime. Thank god she missed that boat. Now she just has to worry about raising a troubled son singlehanded while her husband dodges bombs in the desert (while also begging her military doctor for meds on a month-by-month basis). Well, that's a relief.

The people who didn't see this coming are the same people who (astonishingly) did not see social/political upheaval in Iraq as the logical result of us toppling their infrastructure. They're the same people who did not think, "Okay, so we take out Saddam, and then what?" back in 2002 when we were first discussing this miserable war. And now they're acting like they were misled by the stupid son of a bitch in the White House. Misled? No. Illiterate, ignorant, and unable to perform basic critical thinking skills? Sure. Don't tell me you felt like you were lied to. You should have spotted it. You should have thought about it.

iraq, mental health

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