So, here's what's pissing me off (yeah, I know, today). During the Mesopotamian conflict all of the supporters of the war put these freakin' yellow ribbon magnets on the backs of their vehicles saying things like "Support Our Troops", as if not putting them in harm's way in the first place wasn't the most supportive thing one could do for a soldier.
Okay, the war is over. The military/security/industrial complex has sucked all it can from the deserts of the cradle of civilization (and it has become apparent that we are not going to get our hands on all that oil after all) and so we have decided to declare victory and go home.
My question is: Where are all those ribbons? The true legacy of this conflict is 6700 dead (for the purposes of this particular discussion we are counting only the American casualties), 40,000 wounded, 200,000 treated for PTSD, another million suspected but untreated. A backlog of 900,000 disabiity claims at the VA: people needing but not getting the support promised them when they enlisted. Thirty percent unemployment for the 18-24 cohort of veterans - the kids we recruited out of their developing lives and put on the battlefield. Thirteen percent of veterans unemployed generally compared to 8.5% for the labor force as a whole. Alcoholism is up. Drug abuse is up. Mental Illness is up. Suicide is up. You know, suicide, that action taken when the horrors of war and the cruelty of civilian life converge on the person who risked everything to serve the military objectives of this country.
Where are all those yellow goddamned magnetic ribbons?
