Since it's Memorial Day I want to honor all our veterans, and remember two very special vets. One of them was a great friend of mine, Al Burt, a Vietnam Vet who passed away last year on Memorial Day. The other is a man who I don't know, Paul Reickhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who is the person possibly most responsible for making sure our returning Iraq & Afganistan vets are treated better than their brothers & sisters who served in Vietnam were.
Before I get to them, i'd like to honor all of our veterans, and ask that we all remember that as we are mostly going on with our lives unaffected, hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters are still in harm's way, and over 2 million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It seems many Americans have forgotten that, even on Memorial Day. As Reickhoff writes: "On Memorial Day, it feels like we are citizens of two different countries..." Veterans and their families head to the cemetaries, the rest of us head to the beach.
http://iava.org/...
The sacrifice is not shared, it is borne almost exclusively by our military & their families. That is shameful.
War is hell, and our veterans continue to suffer from bearing the weight and memories of war. Over 140, 000 Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans are currently being treated for PTSD, an affliction that has physical as well as mental effects, as these men & women are much more likely to suffer health problems due to immune systems weakened by the incredible stress. Every day, 5 active-duty US soldiers attempt suicide, and 18 veterans attempt suicide. Each year, approxiamately six thousand veterans take their own lives, at a rate 3 times the national average. While we often hear of troop levels around 100,000 in Iraq & Afghanistan, we need to know that over 2 million Americans have served on those battlefields, and nearly a million have served multiple deployments. Counting the effects this has on their wives, husbands, children, and other loved one, tens of millions of Americans have had their lives turned upside down, while hundreds of millions more of us go on as if nothing is happening.
For more must-know facts about these sacrificices, see the article linked below by Nora Eisenberg:
http://www.alternet.org/...
Two Veterans:
Al Burt
was one of my favorite people to ever walk the earth. Smart, funny, very very kind and compassionate, with a mischievious and a smart-aleck but friendly attitude & smile that would light up a room, spending time with him was one of the great joys of my life. He enlisted and served heroically in Vietnam, winning medals reserved for the most valorous of soldiers, medals that he never boasted or even spoke about. The horrors he saw were burned on his kind heart. He struggled, as so many others did and are still doing, with PTSD for the rest of his life. But he managed to go on, inspiring others with his compassion and wit. He remained engaged in what was happening to veterans, especially when he saw a new generation of young men & women going to fight overseas in large numbers for the first time since his generation did so. He continuously wrote letters and sent emails, asking citizens to remember the ongoing sacrifice, and demanding elected officials and those in charge of veterans services take care of these new vets. He was heartbroken during his last decade of life to see so many of our young men & women dying again in war. And he never forgot those who died at his side in Vietnam. On what would be his final day & final Memorial Day he woke up and called his brother, weeping for his 60,000 lost brothers & sisters.
While proud of his service, Al did not define himself by it. He was a true "renaissance man." He was an avid reader of books and newspapers, both serious and for fun. He was a music lover and a musician. He was incredibly proud & happy that his nephews Shane and Dylan found careers as musicians performing their own music. He was elated when his younger brother took up the guitar as an adult, and spent many a night singing and playing and listening and smiling ear to ear as his brother and friends played all night long. Those were some the happiest times of his life, and ours. He was also a very gifted sketch artist, his art graces the walls of many of his friends and family. But more than anything, Al was a kind-hearted human who loved people, and hated injustice. He was a proud lover of and advocate for peace in the world, having seen the reality of the alternative. He was simply one of my favorite people I've ever met, and I will miss him 'till the day I die. I love you Al.
Paul Reickhoff,
as most of you know, is the head of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and is one of the greatest public figures America has ever produced. Reickhoff was a high-school football coach and Wall Street analyst when he volunteered for months in the Ground Zero clean-up in New York. Shortly after, he enlisted and served as a First Lieutenant and infantry rifle platoon leader in Iraq in 2003 & 2004. When he returned he almost immediately took up the cause of advocating for better treatment of our Afghanistan and Iraq vets after they served.
He was trying to make sure we didn't repeat the sordid history of America's treatment of it's own troops during and after the Vietnam war. While the media of the time focused on the disrespect shown returning vets by the public and anti-war protestors, left mostly unreported was the real crime: the shameful lack of support given these heroes by the very government and country that had sent them into war. Veterans services were an abysmal failure. Instead of treatment, vets suffering from PTSD were far too often told they had no "real" problems and left to fend for themselves. Depression, homelessness, and suicide became closely associated with service in Vietnam. Today, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are working tirelessly to ensure our new Vets are not forgotten and abandoned by those they sacrificed for.
The IAVA has worked in the legislative trenches, successfully pressuring our lawmakers to pass a new GI Bill, and secure historic levels of funding of the VA and Veterans Hospitals. Recognizing it is often the families of wounded vets who do most of the caregiving and sacrificing, the IAVA helped write and secure the passage of the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Service Act of 2010, giving help to tens of thousands of families taking care of seriously wounded veterans. Lots of people, especially politicans, talk big about supporting veterans, but do little or nothing to actually help them. The IAVA is making sure that big talk is backed up by real action. If you can, please support this organization.
http://iava.org/
Paul Reickhoff has become a one-man media force, using his experience and intelligence as he travels the country and speaks to anyone who will listen about the needs of our vets returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. If chickenhawk politicians think they can talk tough and rattle sabers while never sacrificing themselves and ignoring the needs of those heroes who are doing the actual fighting, Paul Reickhoff is there to make sure they hear the soldiers' voices. He is one of the most successful advocates for veterans in American history. Today he is reminding all of us of the heartbreak for soldiers who are making incredible sacrifices while the rest of us go on as if there are not brave Americans fighting and dying in 2 wars. Thank you Paul.
http://iava.org/...
So today I honor all veterans, but I give special thanks to Al Burt & Paul Reickhoff.
With props to Jim Carroll:
Al I miss you more than all the others, this song's for you
I salute you brother