society

There are six military installations in the county where I grew up. More than half the adult population is directly employed by the federal government, and the rest work in the auxiliary or service industries that spring up around bases.

People who grow up in impoverished communities see the military as one of the only legitmate routes to a career. Very few people in my graduating class went to college. Many scores of people joined the military.

My teenage sweetheart chose the army. He joined because I was pregnant. For five years, I was a military dependent spouse. My little family scraped by on enlisted wages; if memory serves, the salary for a PV1 in 1990 was about $800 per month. Combat pay brought that figure up a bit.

My great-uncles fought in WWI and when they got home to the farm they were much decorated; they lit a big fire in the pasture and burned all their clothes and medals and letters and pictures. They never married, nor did they talk about the war.

My grandfather was on the beach at Normandy and he participated in the liberation occupation. He told stories of starving people who offered to trade family jewels for any scrap of food.

I have uncles and cousins who fought in Korea and Vietnam. They don't talk too much about what they saw; a family friend once told me that after the Tet Offensive, the dead bodies were like waves on the ocean.

I went to college and studied public administration and history. I do not have reflexive, anti-historical reactions to current events. I see our current choices as part of a lustrous panorama, a struggle to achieve a balance between intervention and isolation. We were once a rebel society. We fought a war against king and kin for liberation and freedom:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled
Here once embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world

I believe in the principles of that war. I understand and appreciate the great struggle that preceded our declaration of independence, and the consitution that followed years later. I've read the federalist papers.

Furthermore, I fully support the legitimacy of our armed forces. I think the military offers the only true hope for many people to get training and advancement, to move into the world. I think that we should increase the wages of those who serve; it is abhorent to me that a large number of military families exist below the federal poverty level and rely on WIC and in some cases food stamps to make ends meet. I believe that we should raise all wages and expand all benefits.

I wish that we as a society offered our veterans the benefits they deserve instead of abandoning them to the harsh ministrations of VA hospitals. When I was fifteen years old I volunteered at a VA retirement home and it was the grimmest, saddest experience of my youth. Those soldiers who fought for our freedom deserve better than what we offer; they deserve the finest accomodation, the kindest care.

I wish that our government offered more opportunities for people to serve; I think that the public health corps should be expanded, that we should start and fund additional programs to hire teachers for poor communities, to take medicine into rural communities. I believe in public service, incrementalism, the slow grind of progress. I am if anything a New Deal Democrat, a populist, a constitutional patriot.

Twelve years ago I worried that my husband might be sent to war. Today I know that my dear cousin has been shipped out. The feeling is the same: dull acceptance, hedged by worry, tears blinked away throughout the day.

I am opposed to war on principle because I am opposed to all violent solutions to conflict. I truly believe that the ills of the world could be solved with adequate food and shelter, with expanded aid programs and a charitable approach to intervention. The United States of America has enjoyed peace between our own internal borders since the end of the Civil War, and the European Union offers hope for a continent recently choked by strife. Both are examples of deliberate administrative units implementing fiscal planning and rigorous social programs. I'm an optimist, but I'm pragmatic. I believe that freedom and peace are both necessary and possible.

Since we are at war again, my focus has shifted. I want this conflict to stop as soon as possible. I want accountability and lawful conduct. To paraphrase signs I saw all over Fort Lewis twelve years ago, I want my cousin, not a bodybag.

I want our soldiers to know they have the substantial and real support of the government that sent them overseas. I want recognition of Gulf War Syndrome, and adequate treatment for the families already suffering. I want the soldiers who will be impacted to get immediate treatment and counseling. I want those currently diagnosed and the children who will be born to be guaranteed full, high-quality, life-long health care.

The federal budget on offer right now will give rich people tax cuts and cut back on programs for veterans. I want this inherent duplicity reversed. I want to give the tax cuts and services to the people who have put their lives on the line, the people who served this nation, who gave up their youth and health, who carry the memories of war in their hearts and minds.

Progress has to start somewhere.

Posted by Bee at March 24, 2003 09:12 AM