Washington Post: Want to help veterans? Stop pitying them.
Chief Tango sends us a link to an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran entitled “Want to help veterans? Stop pitying them” which is basically the same thing that we’ve been saying for a while.
The press, politicians and even many veterans’ advocacy groups tend to focus, with legitimate reason, on service members who have returned banged up or who are struggling in their new civilian lives. But this fails to convey the full measure of this generation of veterans. That wouldn’t be a problem if Americans knew their military and understood these stories in context, with the knowledge of veterans who are thriving. But fewer than 1 percent of Americans have participated in our latest wars. Add their direct family members, and it is still only about 5 percent of the population.
With so few possessing a direct link to someone who has served, Americans often don’t understand that most of our veterans are not damaged and that many have successfully navigated the transition to life after the military. Even those suffering from trauma or physical injuries can have an enormously positive impact in their communities. Our veterans can make — and are making — valuable contributions in business, government, education, health and community service.
Our all-volunteer force has provided us with the best-trained military in the world. The reliance on volunteers, however, has led many other Americans to pay scant attention to the sacrifice and skill of our warriors. We let them protect us, while we go on with life as usual.
That lat part is probably the fault of George W. Bush who told us to go with our lives as usual so the terrorists don’t win. Some people don’t understand the limits of that statement. Some saw it as their duty to fight terrorism in the malls with their dollars and their inattention to the war. So now, their “pity” for veterans springs from that inattention. The only veterans that they read about in the news are the ones who misbehave and blame their military service for their crimes. Those are the veterans, or the non-veteran pretenders who thrive on the pity.
I can rattle off the names of folks from Tim Poe to James Deon Korfhage who lied about their service to make excuses for their behavior. To get pity from judges and audiences.
The concern about prospective bosses prying into post-traumatic stress or asking “Did you ever kill anyone?” prompted one active-duty soldier to tell us that he is more nervous about sitting for a job interview than he is about redeploying to Afghanistan.
That feeds the whole “pity” thing for people who have no experience or understanding of military service. They’re actually victims of the popular culture and the media who want to tell about the “crazy vets” who do bad things because George W. Bush sent them to war instead of the mall.
Paying attention to the many who have returned with serious physical and mental wounds is one way to build that support. But pity isn’t a sustainable strategy. A better recognition of the overall veteran experience — the bad, the good and everything in between — is essential to forging a lasting compact between those who have served and the rest of us.
The “pity” thing feeds the phonies who only compound their bad behavior with more bad behavior while the mall walkers pity them. After the Vietnam War, the popular culture (obviously, not all folks) reviled veterans for what they’d done in the war and the pendulum has swung back to the other extreme and everyone wants to be a veteran, even those with minimal or non-existent service. The “pity” is the attraction.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran has contributed mightily to the “pity” for veterans in the pages of the Post. For example, his columns After the Wars: The other wounds and After the wars: A legacy of pain and pride, so I guess this one as well as his book due out this month is his penance.
It’s easier for Washington Post’s readers and writers to think of veterans as victims of George W. Bush than to acknowledge their own contributions to the popular culture’s perception of veterans.
Category: Media, Veterans Issues
I like how a guy from india who grew of in the land of freaks in SF, and wrote a bullshit book about the Green zone,and never ever served one day in the military, has any insight about our military or Vets, fuck off back to Curryland.
The Washington (com)Post has, in my opinion, led the charge with the “Damaged Vet” meme along with their partners in crime, the New York Slimes. Trying to make up for it with this column, well written as it seems, may just be a case of “too little, too late”. I’m done with forgiving and turning the other cheek. I’ll either strike back or walk away and not acknowledge their existence.
JarHead Pat…I was going to write something, but you beat me to it and said it better. Screw Chandrasekaran with a rusty bayonet. How about Rajiv use his WP press privileges to call the Pentagon and go spend a long time researching on military bases. From boot camp to units readying to deploy and then, a trip to a VA to talk to a few vets there and THEN, go talk to a LOT of the majority of well adjusted, productive vets that no one knows are there because they’re busy working, raising families and living life like every American.
That’s “One In A Row”, to try to undo damage caused by themselves.
I STILL ain’t gonna subscribe to their bird cage liner. They can go bankrupt, as are all the Leftist Progressive LSDM (Lame Stream Dinosaur Media). And the quicker, the better.
Its about time, maybe more will catch on. I made a choice to serve, I am a victim of nothing.
Fuck you, WaPo, NYT, CBS, ABC, NBC, and the rest of you scumbag proggy media types for destroying our country and our military in cahoots with obamao and his gang…just fuck you…
FUCK every sniveling left-wing sycophant in Hollywierd and the liberal snooze media. I see them making efforts to portray us ME Vets the same way they did our Vietnam Vets, they’re just trying to do it slowly and subtly. I came back in after a nine year break in service just to get deployed and did two ME Tours after which my civilian employers treated me like dirt for the most part after I returned. Our facility was taken over by another company since, and they’re having some fling for us Vets on Veterans’ Day, which I won’t be attending. Most of the management that treated me like crap after I came back are still there, and to me, it feels like fake appreciation, thus I’ll be attending the local Veterans’ Day Parade and ceremony instead.
Of course cutting benefits and services will be seen as a move to “help” vets and end the “pity”.
I can just hear it “The VA is only enabling the pitying to continue. We need to cut the funding to ‘help’ the veterans. By making them dependent on the government, we’re not helping them improve their lives.”
Just another technique to fuck us over and screw us out of what we’ve earned.
You heard it here first.
Sounds just like every argument I have ever heard to end Welfare.
Huge difference between having paid in years and blood, though, and sucking at the public tit for free.