War Is Hell
[The costs of war are deadly for soldiers from a democracy particularly. We teach people in the military precisely the opposite of what we expect of civilians -- killing people is right.
During the Korean war there was considerable distress caused when it was discovered that many of our soldiers were not shooting at the enemy -- they did not want to kill. So we had to retrain people to do so. The upshot of that by the time of the Viet Nam war was deadly stress on soldiers -- recourse to drugs that were freely available there, hitting out at superior officers. When I was serving on an ACLU advisory committee, the issue arose of amnesty for some 300,000 ex-Viet Nam vets who had been given dishonorable discharges for such violations and, thus, cut off from any veteran benefits or supports. Amnesty was not granted. Many came home as addicts, ended up in prison, and are occasionally to be met on our streets as the homeless ones.
War is hell on those who fight in them. I am infinitely relieved that my nurse daughter decided to resign from the military before she would have been caught up in Iraq -- she saw herself as contributing her medical skills and training to peace-keeping missions -- not wars. And she was most fortunate to have decided just in time to quit so that she could concentrate on her children and training here as a private citizen. Ed Kent]
During the Korean war there was considerable distress caused when it was discovered that many of our soldiers were not shooting at the enemy -- they did not want to kill. So we had to retrain people to do so. The upshot of that by the time of the Viet Nam war was deadly stress on soldiers -- recourse to drugs that were freely available there, hitting out at superior officers. When I was serving on an ACLU advisory committee, the issue arose of amnesty for some 300,000 ex-Viet Nam vets who had been given dishonorable discharges for such violations and, thus, cut off from any veteran benefits or supports. Amnesty was not granted. Many came home as addicts, ended up in prison, and are occasionally to be met on our streets as the homeless ones.
War is hell on those who fight in them. I am infinitely relieved that my nurse daughter decided to resign from the military before she would have been caught up in Iraq -- she saw herself as contributing her medical skills and training to peace-keeping missions -- not wars. And she was most fortunate to have decided just in time to quit so that she could concentrate on her children and training here as a private citizen. Ed Kent]
OP-ED COLUMNIST
An Army Ready to Snap
By BOB HERBERT
The problems of the military go far beyond the casualty
figures coming out of the war zone.
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/opinion/10herbert.html?th&emc=th
(Available only to TimesSelect subscribers)
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp
posted by Ed Kent at 8:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home