I took advantage of an opportunity from IAVA to attend the Chicago Ideas Week Talk at the Goodman Theater. It was about the Military, and it was titled "From the Front Lines to the Home Front". The quantity and type of corporate sponsorship made me very skeptical and critical of the framework for the discussion from the get go. It seemed outright that the only ideas worth discussing were ones which could turn a profit for someone, and I really wish my impression was more wrong than right. Tom Brokaw led the audience through a two hour block of discussions, talks, and presentations featuring General Colin Powell; General Stanley McChrystal; Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Paul Reickhoff; Melissa Stockwell, Veteran and Paratriathlete; Taryn Davis, founder of The American Widow Project; and Maj. General Marcia Anderson, the highest ranking African-American woman in the US Military. I hold a certain degree of respect for Colin Powell, even though he played a key role in the events leading up to the US Invasion of Iraq, a distraction which I think directly affects the fact that our efforts in Afghanistan have gone on as long as they did. General McChrystal commands a little bit less respect, but my reasoning is only slightly more nebulous. There was a lengthy period of time which was spent stroking the egos of the financial sponsors of the event, JP Morgan, Chase, and Time. There are other companies, but the JP Morgan and Chase logos were plastered all over the place. I think were I live-tweeting the event, I might have made snarky remarks mocking what the people on stage said. When the VP of the Midwest branch of JP Morgan Chace, he mentioned the 100,000 veteran initiative, in which it is the goal of participating companies to hire 100,000 veterans. My question immediately was whether or not they would be subsequently fired. And considering that JP Morgan, along with Citigroup, and Bank of America are among the biggest institutions evicting people, how many of the evicted are veterans, and how many of these veterans have they offered jobs? or at least struck some sort of deal so they can keep their house?
The one statement which I agreed with which he spoke of was the idea that "Veterans can, in a sense, mentor all of us."
My skepticism was fully engaged as it appeared there would be little to address the fact that most of the young men and women who enlist don't do so for love of country, but more because the military is usually the best option they have in order to further their lives because they were born into less than stellar conditions. Yes there are people who do enlist out of patriotism, but to say that is the only reason they enlist is an incredibly narrow and selective view of reality. Brokaw did an articulate introduction in which he mentioned the immorality of having only one percent of a Democratic Nation bear 100% of the pain, hardship, injuries, and casualties for the rest of us.
General McChrystal and General Powell did hit on several kernels of truth in when you are with a unit, be it a company, platoon, or squad; when you are out in the field, whatever your military occupational specialty, it is ultimately about your team. When service members separate from the service either due to injury, or not re-enlisting, they are separated from a team, and because of their experiences, they really don't have a team looking out for them when they get back to civilian life, and they become stuck kind of in between.
One of the major themes which emerged from the two Generals talking could best be expressed in this metaphor: how can we get military cogs to fit into a civilian machine? What McChrystal and Powell spent a great deal of time on was how do military skills translate to a civilian economy? For me, this seemed to miss one of the other great failings in this nation, how do we help veterans as whole feel welcome in society, and what can we do to help the ones who are injured, hurt, or hurting. They did talk about the Wounded Warrior Project, and The Mission Continues, and other wonderful projects, but the amount of time spent on the economy over other issues was telling of the panel's priorities. There was a poignant moment which General Powell mentioned that at a veteran's luncheon he met a veterans who had lost three limbs and was basically recruited by a real estate company in California. The company wanted him specifically because he was a veterans, and they were aware of his condition. The young veteran said that losing three limbs was the worst thing which could have happened to him, but it was also the best thing which has happened to him. This served as an introduction to the concept that businesses from the small to the mega corporations should be proactive in recruiting veterans into the work force. I think in spite of the fact that this still is within the pitfall of basically putting profits over people, it was a step in the right direction.
Another relevant and kind of astonishing fact, General Powell again mentioned some interesting comparisons in how we were more engaged as a nation during previous wars. I can't recall what war he mentioned (I want to say Vietnam, but I am not sure), but with the ratio in the number of wounded back then was such that there was one wounded veteran for every sixty-some-odd civilians, so the fact that we had been fighting a war was impossible to ignore. Now we have a ratio of one visibly wounded veteran per 7000 civilians, so the effects of war are not as prevalent, and all but under the rug and swept for this generation of Americans.
I am reminded of the Robert E. Lee quote "It is well war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." I am afraid though that as a nation we have grown to fond of it, and in part is because we do not see the destruction which has been wrought, not just to the nations where we are waging war, but in the households of all the wounded veterans. Mind you, when I say wounded, I am not just referring to physical injury, but also stress disorders, PTSD, and other similar issues. I think as a society, we have not really had to confront the reality of war here in the United States. the closest we have come to that as a nation was the attacks of September 11, 2001. Another good thing which did emerge from the seemingly endless talk about veterans and the economy was the fact that while a veteran can face combat, and the dangers of deployment, civilian life is a challenge which they are not always prepared for, and it is up to civilian to be proactive in reaching out to veterans and their loved ones and help them find a team here.
Paul Reickhoff took the stage after the two Generals left. His talk seemed a little bit more centered in reality, but not by much. He does address what would be the middle issue of not every veteran comes home wounded, not every veteran is a victim, and many are in fact quite proud of what they did, and well should be. He did address the fact that the VA is not enough, and with their backlog of 1 million, that is 1,000,000 claim backlog, things with the VA are progressively getting worse, and this is creating an abhorrent situation for veterans. He did provide a statement which does answer the empty-calorie sentiment of support the troops; give them a job. But it was still largely centered in the larger notion of simply getting getting veterans from the battlefield to a job, addressing very little of anything which might be important in the details of that transition.
Melissa Stockwell presented a much needed female veteran perspective. She spoke of how her father, even in the 2000's still had the thought "They let women in the military?" It is both an amusing, but rather disturbing notion that people still hold that sort of mentality in the 21st century. She has since become an accomplished Paratriathlete, and a Prostheticist helping other people, not just troops reclaim some sense of normalcy in their life with a new limb, and technologies which have advanced to the point that it is not just a prosthetic, but simply a "different leg". She did remark on how because of her injury, she has done more since than she would have if she would have come home whole. I think people who are usually confronted with obstacles like a missing limb have often put the rest of us able-bodied people to shame in that they seem to do so much more.
After Melissa stepped off stage, Taryn Davis shared her story, which addressed how families of soldiers are veterans, but also how in this generation there are many young women who are acquiring the rather dubious title of "Widow" at a very young age. She had married her high school sweet heart, Michael Davis. Taryn recounted the day she found out about Michael's death, and my heart sank. I think this was by far the most human presentation/discussion in the entire panel. She spoke of the surrealness as she had gotten a ride from her parent's house by a neighbor to see two soldiers in front of a military vehicle shaking and barely holding their composure because they did not want to tell her that Michael was dead, and show because of this she thought they were telling another military wife. After the funeral, and a few months later, people discounted her grief as a widow because she was so young, or because "he knew what he was getting into when he enlisted" and to Taryn, it seemed a better option to join her husband than to go on living. When she finally went to Google to search "widow" and Google responding with "Did you mean 'window'", she had found new purpose in the other young military widows, and started the American Widows Project. I think this is one of the toils of war which we do not hear about. I actually had not even considered the premise of young 21 year old widows. The idea is so bizarre and unreal if you really think about it, but they exist!
I think Taryn would have been a great place to conclude the presentation, if anything because of the warmth and the fact that her story resonates most with tugging at the heart strings. No offense to Major General Marcia Anderson, but her presentation I thought was a very sharp turn back to the "we need veterans to get the economy going again" mentality. She spoke about the experience that reservists have, and how they are probably most like the ninja veterans in that they can be in your communities and you may not know that your neighbor is a reservist. I think it is important to have her voice and experience as the highest ranking female of color in the military, but it seemed like a very abrupt transition from something so centered on a sense of heartfelt community and emotion, to go back to business minded approach. She did mention two organizations which help reservists, Fort Families, and Army Strong Community Centers. I think if she were to keep with the emotional tone of Taryn's presentation, perhaps if she highlighted specific stories or went more into the details of the New York Veteran who was homeless with a bipolar disorder that was helped by the Rochester Army String Community Center, it may have had a sense of thematic emotional continuity. I will give due respect to Major General Anderson, to make it to her rank and boast proud titles like Mother and Grandmother among her other accolades is a respectable achievement in a male dominated field.
