W.J. Astore If you’re in the U.S. military or you’re a veteran, you probably know casualty figures, especially deaths, from America’s wars. To cite one example, America lost more than 58,000 men in the Vietnam War. Their names are inscribed on the “The Wall” in DC. I’ve been there. Seeing all those names is a…
W.J. Astore Since the end of the Vietnam War, when it eliminated the draft, the United States has relied on an “all-volunteer military,” or AVM. But that military, as one would expect, has not drawn equally from all segments of American society. Its recruits have been more rural than urban, more Southern and Midwestern than…
W.J. Astore For George W. Bush, American troops were the greatest force for human freedom in the world. For Barack Obama, the troops represented the world’s finest fighting force, not just in this moment, but in all of human history. What is the reason for such hyperbolic, I’d even say unhinged, praise for our troops? …
Greg Laxer Veterans For Peace, an organization of which I’ve been a member since 2013, has called for veterans (as well as civilians) affected by the Vietnam War to write a letter to the American war dead for this Memorial Day. This letter-writing effort is part of a campaign to counter the Pentagon’s effort to…
W.J. Astore Judging by my local newspaper and email stream, Memorial Day is about sales and selling, a reminder that the business of America is business. But of course Memorial Day is truly about honoring the dead in America’s wars, the veterans who died defending freedom. Sadly, far too often wars are not fought for…
Walter Stewart (Major General, U.S. Army, retired) Sniper Chris Kyle did not live long enough. I don’t say this in the context of his and Chad Littlefield’s senseless murder at the hands of a supposed brother-in-arms, but in the context of the American Sniper movie trailer that has Kyle saying, “I’m willing to meet my…
Michael Murry I wrote this poem in 2005, two years after U.S. President George (Deputy Dubya) Bush’s notorious “Mission Accomplished” proclamation. With the U.S. Military hopelessly mired in the twin quagmires of Iraq and Afghanistan and desperately searching for any face-saving way out, I understood the predictable predicament, since I served eighteen months as a…
Daniel N. White I always liked the original name for this holiday, Armistice Day, and the idea behind it—celebrating the last war this country would ever fight, a lot better than its current iteration as Veterans Day, honoring all the veterans who “served” this country in peace or war. The Great War (1914-18) certainly wasn’t…
Andy Piascik Summer approaches and the stench of war is all around. Or, as the great Bob Marley put it, Everywhere is War. Start with the commemorations over a five-week span of Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day, all presented varyingly as celebrations of our war dead, symbols of our greatness, the freedoms we…
b. traven Last Friday, Eric Shinseki took the fall at Veterans Affairs. His resignation was driven mainly by reports of substandard medical facilities. But substandard medical care for veterans is hardly new (or news): the VA has never been funded adequately by a penny-pinching government that prefers to ladle money to defense contractors for more…
The Contrary Perspective 