WAR
THE TRUE SHAME OF THE IRAQ WAR
By Richard Reeves May 2008
WASHINGTON -- This is what I thought was the American social
contract when I was growing up in the land of the free and the home
of the brave: You could work your way through college, and if you
got a decent job, you could buy a house within a few years.
And, you deserved a bit more if you served in the military: money or
loans for college and something of a break on mortgage loans. The
point goes beyond the danger of military service; the important fact
is that you deserve something more than being underpaid if you give
up two or more years of your life while your peers are working on
careers, beginning families, or getting educations that will pay
dividends for life.
That's the way it was for me, and I think kids today deserve the
same. I could earn enough for college working summers and part-time;
the military (Air Force ROTC) paid some of the bills. I got a job as
an engineer for Ingersoll-Rand, and six years after graduation, with
a little help from my parents, I was able to buy a small house on a
lake in New Jersey.
Now, of course, college is more expensive -- as a father of five I
have seen those costs rise faster than the cost of oil -- and houses
in metropolitan areas are often more than young families can afford.
That bothers me, a lot; it is a failure of the American way. But
that bother is nothing compared with the screwing the government is
giving to the young men and women serving in harm's way in Iraq.
Whatever one thinks of the war and the officials who planned it,
those soldiers and reservists out there deserve more than moral
support. My stomach literally turned when I read this paragraph in
The New York Times last Thursday morning:
"President Bush is threatening to veto a bill that would pay tuition
and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who
has served in the military for three years since the attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001. A main reason is that it would hasten an exodus from
the ranks."
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put it this way: "Serious
retention issues could arise."
I bet they could. And should. The war is being fought by a tiny
percentage of the American people, and many of their lives are being
ruined. You want a war, Mr. President? Then ask Congress to declare
one. You want soldiers to be retained? Then ask for a draft. You
want to support our boys and girls? Then support their education as
other presidents and Congresses have done since the passage of the
great GI Bill of Rights during World War II -- legislation that is
still benefiting this country.
What is being done to our troops in Iraq is more than a failure of
political leadership; it is an outrage. Forget the fact that we
never declared war, or that we never had a real plan about what to
do in Iraq, or that we are fighting on credit, leaving the bills for
our children and grandchildren. Remember that only a small number
are involved in this -- the same people, professionals and
reservists, are being called back into harm's way again and again.
Those young men and women, serving a government without the guts to
even talk about a draft, are essentially indentured servants. Worse.
At least indentured servants knew when their obligation would be
over. This is more than unfair; it is shameful, a stain on the
democracy and its leaders. And now the president is considering
depriving them of a reward they deserve because some of them might
actually take it and not re-enlist.
This is a professional army? There was a time when troops treated
that way, no matter how well-trained or equipped, were called cannon
fodder. We owe them. The president whose ignorance put them in the
Middle East owes them. The Congress, which is ever looking the other
way and has not declared war on anyone since 1941, owes them.
This war is not worthy of a free country. And unless we do something
for the young people bravely taking the punishment for the failings
of their elders, we have no right to claim this is a land of the
free.
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