Veterans need public to complete the connection
By Larry Minear
Special to Stars and Stripes
Published: May 31, 2010
Earlier this month the Coalition for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans gathered in Washington for its third annual conference. The coalition brings together scores of groups — large and small, national and local, old-line and neophyte, service organizations and advocates.
One of the recurring themes of the three-day gathering concerned the uneasy interaction between veterans and the wider public. A newly released poll commissioned by the coalition found “a very real and disturbing disconnect among the majority of Americans in understanding how deployment contributes to economic, social, and familial stress through a dearth of services and support, all factors which drive veterans and their families to poverty and homelessness.” Poll data confirm that “The majority of Americans do not understand the true cost of war. In fact, less than fifty percent are aware that our country has sent two million troops to Iraq, Afghanistan, and areas in support of the Global War on Terror.”
But there were encouraging findings as well. The prevailing assumption had been that with fewer than 1 percent of Americans (two million out of 300 million) serving or having served in the two theaters, the remaining 99 percent of the population is largely untouched by the wars. In actuality, “two out of three Americans know someone who has served, whether a family member, friend, colleague, or acquaintance.” This wider population is likely to be more knowledgeable and engaged. The conference itself provided a more detailed assessment of the interaction between veterans who perceive the public as distant and a public for whom veterans register only fitfully on their screens.
Panel presentations by veterans highlighted the difficulties in finding work upon returning to the States. Despite circulating resumes widely, several had been job-hunting for more than a year. One observed that since few employers acknowledged receiving applications, he considered a letter of rejection something of a personal triumph. Several lamented that skill sets honed in combat are not understood or valued in the private sector, where there is little appreciation for the accomplishments of, say, a machine gunner in displaying leadership and good judgment under duress.
One veteran whose first resumes led proudly with “I am a Marine” soon found alternative ways of describing what he would bring to his new employer. One young woman veteran, fearing that her application would be jinxed by her post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis, referred to her time in Iraq euphemistically as “employment by the federal government.” Returnees take strong issue with the view heard increasingly these days that the current preference for veterans in some public and private sector hiring, honored in the breach, should now be scrapped altogether.
Some veterans have succeeded in landing jobs, often with veterans groups themselves. Yet unlike World War II, when pent-up demand, particularly for housing, fueled a major postwar economic recovery, job offers today are slow to materialize. Many veterans are returning to rural areas that are themselves in the throes of long-term economic and social crises. Constituting only 17 percent of the country’s population, rural America supplies fully 45 percent of U.S. military personnel.
A panel of reporters (one from Stars and Stripes) whose beat includes veterans issues reflected further on the current state of public opinion. The public is tired of the two wars and is not digesting what the media offers, they said. I can’t write any more PTSD stories, lamented one reporter, unless it’s something on the order of the Fort Hood incident.
The lack of active awareness among many Americans about Afghanistan and Iraq may thus impede not only remedial action but even the availability of essential information. With the public having largely avoided engagement in the wars to date, public indifference threatens to slow the reintegration process further.
Despite the searing nature of what they have experienced, most veterans project a remarkably positive spirit. Avoiding self-pity and disputing the stereotype that returnees are problem-prone, their plea is that they simply be given an opportunity to get on with their lives.
With U.S. troops killed and wounded in action in the two conflicts now exceeding 43,000, this Memorial Day provides an occasion for coming to terms with such basic disconnects. It is time for a fresh look at the conflicts and those who have fought in them. The approach of a New Hampshire social services agency makes sense: “Instead of thinking of soldiers and veterans as ‘warriors,’ we must remind ourselves that they are fathers, mothers, co-workers, or the girl next door who may be desperately struggling with PTSD or living near poverty level and in need of groceries.”
Rather than wrapping ourselves in comfortable rhetoric about heroism and sacrifice, this Memorial Day needs to be an occasion for sober reflection. We owe it to veterans to become more knowledgeable about what they have experienced and more energetic in tackling the larger economic and social issues highlighted by their re-entry. After the fearsome ravages of the conflicts, veterans offer us an opportunity to reaffirm our own humanity even as they seek against formidable odds to reclaim theirs.
Larry Minear, a retired researcher from Brown University’s Watson Institute and Tufts University who lives in Massachusetts, wrote “Through Veterans’ Eyes: The Iraq and Afghanistan Experience.”
