Coming home from war is never easy. Kris Langland reflects on the now-infamous case of young Marine veteran's suicide in An unbelievable cost of war in the Mountain Lake Observer/Butterfield Advocate.
In Winona, high school students have launched a campaign to help a school in Vietnam, according to the Winona Daily News:
Blank and about a dozen students announced Wednesday they are trying to raise $10,000 to build a pre-school in Vietnam. Beginning this month, they will take a year to make the money through car washes, bake sales, volunteering and other fundraising events. The efforts are aided by local Vietnam War veterans like John Borman, and the program Development of Vietnam Endeavors, an Ohio-based nonprofit corporation.
This is the first such project in Winona, Borman said; students at John Marshall High School in Rochester raised money for a school last year.
The students, who were inspired by a talk Borman gave to teacher Dwayne Voegeli’s global studies class, said they hope to build bridges between American and Vietnamese students, and help young children in Vietnam.
“It’s a big world,” said high school sophomore Samantha Thrune. “We need to work together.”
Borman said nearly a third of Vietnam’s population is younger than 18, which means there a huge need for good education. He also said this project is a way to reconcile bitter feelings leftover from the war.
While they want to work together, another motivation for some students is that they have relatives who are Vietnam veterans.
Some lessons have been learned since that war about the needs of returning soldiers, Marines, and sailors. The New Ulm Journal reports on reintegration programs for National Guard members and their families in Program reconnects soldiers, families:
Programs created to increase family members’ knowledge and provide resources for reintegration of 2,600 Minnesota National Guard soldiers later this year begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Martin Luther College.
At the MLC Wittenberg Collegiate Center, military families will attend workshops on how to reconnect with soldiers who return from war.
Minnesota is on top of the effort to integrate its National Guard soldiers back into civilian life, according to Capt. Aaron Krenz, operations officer for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, part of the 34th Infantry Division’s reintegration team that was part of a Jan. 6 Family Reintegration Academy (FRA) at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
“It’s a pilot program other states will be looking at,” said Krenz. . . .
. . .Returning soldiers face adjustment to civilian life.
“Take a typical Humvee turret gunner whose job was to patrol the streets of Baghdad,” Krenz added. “Most of these guys are very young. Their responsibilities and risks were enormous.”
He said few civilian jobs match the responsibilities, the adrenaline rush or intense emotions of life in a combat zone—whether it’s teaching school, flipping burgers or running a company.
“Readjusting can be frustrating, but after facing the possibility of death daily, these soldiers want to live life to the fullest,” Krenz said. “They want to funnel their passion into education, jobs and family, not the darker routes that can range from drugs, depression, traumatic stress and homelessness.” . . .
This program is a good step. A friend who returned from Iraq last spring recently said that it's important for families to understand the changes that their returning soldiers have gone through in service to our country.
Netroots
One veteran (though not a combat vet) is working hard in Washington DC. The author this post jokes that it might be guilt over an increased salary that makes Tim Walz ask for extra assignments.
Nah. We think he's just a hard working guy.
OT: The UTU, a railroad union, rails against DM & E in a statement on its website. More coverage here.
Busy day--more later in the afternoon.
I live here in Minnesota at a Veteran's home with many Iraq returnees.
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
My Vietnam and Iraq veteran friends and I would like to point out a few facts about why we got dispatched to those countries in the first place:
The U.S. Department of Defense, headquartered in the Pentagon, is one of the most massive organizations on the planet, with net annual operating costs of $635 billion, assets worth $1.3 trillion, liabilities of $1.9 trillion and more that 2.9 million military and civilian personnel as of fiscal year 2005.
It is difficult to convey the complexity of the way DOD works to someone who has not experienced it. This is a massive machine with so many departments and so much beaurocracy that no president, including Bush totally understands it.
Presidents, Congressmen, Cabinet Members and Appointees project a knowledgeable demeanor but they are spouting what they are told by career people who never go away and who train their replacements carefully. These are military and civil servants with enormous collective power, armed with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, Defense Industrial Security Manuals, compartmentalized classification structures and "Rice Bowls" which are never mixed.
Our society has slowly given this power structure its momentum which is constant and extraordinarily tough to bend. The cost to the average American is exhorbitant in terms of real dollars and bad decisions. Every major power structure member in the Pentagon's many Washington Offices and Field locations in the US and Overseas has a counterpart in Defense Industry Corporate America. That collective body has undergone major consolidation in the last 10 years.
What used to be a broad base of competitive firms is now a few huge monoliths, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Boeing.
Government oversight committees are carefully stroked. Sam Nunn and others who were around for years in military and policy oversight roles have been cajoled, given into on occasion but kept in the dark about the real status of things until it is too late to do anything but what the establishment wants. This still continues - with increasing high technology and potential for abuse.
Please examine the following link to testimony given by Franklin C. Spinney before Congress in 2002. It provides very specific information from a whistle blower who is still blowing his whistle (Look him up in your browser and you get lots of feedback) Frank spent the same amount of time as I did in the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) but in government quarters. His job in government was a similar role to mine in defense companies. Frank's emphasis in this testimony is on the money the machine costs us. It is compelling and it is noteworthy that he was still a staff analyst at the Pentagon when he gave this speech. I still can't figure out how he got his superior's permission to say such blunt things. He was extremely highly respected and is now retired.
http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/spinney_testimony_060402.htm
The brick wall I often refer to is the Pentagon's own arrogance. It will implode by it's own volition, go broke, or so drastically let down the American people that it will fall in shambles. Rest assured the day of the implosion is coming. The machine is out of control.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting on this blog entitled, "Odyssey of Armaments"
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
On the same subject, you may also be interested in the following sites from the "Project On Government Oversight", observing it's 25th Anniversary and from "Defense In the National Interest", inspired by Franklin Spinney and contributed to by active/reserve, former, or retired military personnel. More facts on the Military Industrial Complex can be gleaned from "The Dissident" link, also posted below:
http://pogo.org/
http://www.d-n-i.net/top_level/about_us.htm
http://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/the-military-industrial-complex-and-the-business-of-war/
Posted by: Ken Larson | February 08, 2007 at 07:15 PM