.US Iraq War Vets Decry Public Apathy
CAIRO, May 14, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Sure, US soldiers coming home from Iraq are welcomed with parades, yellow-ribbon bumper stickers and opens arms. But when they were out of uniform, everything was different.
For many Iraq war veterans, those moments of gratitude were short-lived or limited to close friends and family as they soon come to realize bitter impressions of a society that seems to be increasingly indifferent to their psychological and combat sufferings in Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, May 14.
The paper interviewed 100 of Iraq war veterans, many of whom were still in the service, others were not, and the constant theme through the interviews was that the public apathy about the Iraq war despite round-the-clock television and Internet exposure.
"It is not a United States unified behind the war effort, such as in World War II. There's no rationing, no sacrifice, no Rosie the Riveter urging, "We Can Do it!" Nor is it the country that protested Vietnam and derided many vets as baby killers," the Post concluded from the answers given by the vets.
Many said that the United States that Iraq veterans are returning to is indifferent.
They realized that the people are more interested in voting for the best young singer in the country through the popular American Idol show than knowing how many soldiers were killed in the daily Baghdad bombings.
"It doesn't cross their minds," stuff Adam Reuter told the Post. "To them, everything is fine."
Looking across a restaurant where everyone were stuffing their faces with pasta and drinking wine, Army Capt. Tyler McIntyre wanted to yell, "You don't know what you have! You don't appreciate it! You don't care!"
"The country is at war. People are fighting at this very moment. Don't these people know what's going on? Don't they care?
US President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and had close links to Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
By congressional reports proved later that Bush was "dead wrong" on the weapons case and the Green Zone prisoner had no link with Al-Qaeda.
"What Was it Like?"
Many vets are fed up with "dumb" questions by Americans like "what was it like?" in Iraq.
"You just try to give a softball answer," said Army Captain Garett Reppenhagen, who has been out of the Army for a year.
"Yeah, it was horrible -- whatever. Or you don't answer the question. You say it was hot. You don't tell them what it's like to kill a man or to have one of your buddies blown up. You just don't go there."
But the captain could spare no details if people pressed for an answer, then he would look up and see an expression that made him think they did not really want to know after all.
"The look on their face: This is not the light conversation I want to hear at a party," he said.
Sometimes, they would ask something so crazy there just was not any way to respond, such as when a friend asked Monika Dyrcakz, "Did you go clubbing in Iraq?"
"Some people have no idea," she said.
There are 136,000 US troops in Iraq.
A March 2006 survey by Zogby International and Le Moyne College found that the vast majority of US troops in Iraq (72 percent) wanted to end occupation of the Arab country within a year and return home to their loved ones.
Traumatized
Many soldiers came home haunted, carrying heavy memories that will take years to sort out with the images of bombings and bloodshed making some of them jumping out of bed in the middle of the night.
"I was taken out of my normal habitat and put in a crazy dream -- a nightmare, really," said Army Spec. Cheyenne Cannaday.
"I think about it every day still, and I'm not sure if it's gonna go away."
They came home driving scared, scanning the interstates and the back roads of their home towns, looking for bombs that were not there.
Jeramey James "Jay" Lopez was working under the hood of his car with his dad in New Mexico when one of the noisemakers designed to scare the birds out of the nearby pecan orchard went off.
It sounded "just like a round coming out of a tank," he said. Lopez's head snapped up and smacked the inside of the hood.
"My dad put his hand on my back, and he just said, 'Son, you're okay. You're home.' "
Others like Jon Powers came home and thought that their work in Iraq was finished and "swore I would never go back to Iraq until they build a Disney World in Baghdad."
But moved by the scene of Iraqi orphans, Powers knew his work in Iraq was not yet over.
He helped start a nonprofit, War Kids Relief, that helps Iraqi children. That is his new career.
A recent US study revealed that US troops returning from Iraq have the highest rate of mental health consultation and psychological problems compared to other troops returning from Afghanistan and other trouble spots.
One third of US troops returning from Iraq have needed at least one mental health consultation and one in five have been diagnosed with combat-induced psychological problems.
Amputees
Thousands also came home wounded, scars fresh; some even with shrapnel in them.
Kevin Whelan, who was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee, has so much metal embedded under his skin that it set off a security detector at the airport.
"In case it goes off," he warned the guard, "I do have shrapnel in me." The wand beeped as it passed over his shoulder.
Nearly 400 of the 550,000 Iraq war veterans returned as amputees and had to learn to open doors with metal fingers, walk on prosthetic legs, the paper said.
Senior Airman Brian Kolfage came home to sad, strange stares and spontaneous charity.
As he sat in a wheelchair after having lost both legs and his right arm when a mortar exploded outside his tent, a stranger handed him $250 in cash.
Many others have breathed their last in a war that alienated many Americans from the current administration.
A group of mothers led by prominent war opponent Cindy Sheehan, who lost her soldier son in Iraq, started Saturday a 24-hour vigil outside the White House to protest the presence of US soldiers in Iraq.
At least 2,437 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to a Pentagon count.
Islam online
For many Iraq war veterans, those moments of gratitude were short-lived or limited to close friends and family as they soon come to realize bitter impressions of a society that seems to be increasingly indifferent to their psychological and combat sufferings in Iraq, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, May 14.
The paper interviewed 100 of Iraq war veterans, many of whom were still in the service, others were not, and the constant theme through the interviews was that the public apathy about the Iraq war despite round-the-clock television and Internet exposure.
"It is not a United States unified behind the war effort, such as in World War II. There's no rationing, no sacrifice, no Rosie the Riveter urging, "We Can Do it!" Nor is it the country that protested Vietnam and derided many vets as baby killers," the Post concluded from the answers given by the vets.
Many said that the United States that Iraq veterans are returning to is indifferent.
They realized that the people are more interested in voting for the best young singer in the country through the popular American Idol show than knowing how many soldiers were killed in the daily Baghdad bombings.
"It doesn't cross their minds," stuff Adam Reuter told the Post. "To them, everything is fine."
Looking across a restaurant where everyone were stuffing their faces with pasta and drinking wine, Army Capt. Tyler McIntyre wanted to yell, "You don't know what you have! You don't appreciate it! You don't care!"
"The country is at war. People are fighting at this very moment. Don't these people know what's going on? Don't they care?
US President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and had close links to Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
By congressional reports proved later that Bush was "dead wrong" on the weapons case and the Green Zone prisoner had no link with Al-Qaeda.
"What Was it Like?"
Many vets are fed up with "dumb" questions by Americans like "what was it like?" in Iraq.
"You just try to give a softball answer," said Army Captain Garett Reppenhagen, who has been out of the Army for a year.
"Yeah, it was horrible -- whatever. Or you don't answer the question. You say it was hot. You don't tell them what it's like to kill a man or to have one of your buddies blown up. You just don't go there."
But the captain could spare no details if people pressed for an answer, then he would look up and see an expression that made him think they did not really want to know after all.
"The look on their face: This is not the light conversation I want to hear at a party," he said.
Sometimes, they would ask something so crazy there just was not any way to respond, such as when a friend asked Monika Dyrcakz, "Did you go clubbing in Iraq?"
"Some people have no idea," she said.
There are 136,000 US troops in Iraq.
A March 2006 survey by Zogby International and Le Moyne College found that the vast majority of US troops in Iraq (72 percent) wanted to end occupation of the Arab country within a year and return home to their loved ones.
Traumatized
Many soldiers came home haunted, carrying heavy memories that will take years to sort out with the images of bombings and bloodshed making some of them jumping out of bed in the middle of the night.
"I was taken out of my normal habitat and put in a crazy dream -- a nightmare, really," said Army Spec. Cheyenne Cannaday.
"I think about it every day still, and I'm not sure if it's gonna go away."
They came home driving scared, scanning the interstates and the back roads of their home towns, looking for bombs that were not there.
Jeramey James "Jay" Lopez was working under the hood of his car with his dad in New Mexico when one of the noisemakers designed to scare the birds out of the nearby pecan orchard went off.
It sounded "just like a round coming out of a tank," he said. Lopez's head snapped up and smacked the inside of the hood.
"My dad put his hand on my back, and he just said, 'Son, you're okay. You're home.' "
Others like Jon Powers came home and thought that their work in Iraq was finished and "swore I would never go back to Iraq until they build a Disney World in Baghdad."
But moved by the scene of Iraqi orphans, Powers knew his work in Iraq was not yet over.
He helped start a nonprofit, War Kids Relief, that helps Iraqi children. That is his new career.
A recent US study revealed that US troops returning from Iraq have the highest rate of mental health consultation and psychological problems compared to other troops returning from Afghanistan and other trouble spots.
One third of US troops returning from Iraq have needed at least one mental health consultation and one in five have been diagnosed with combat-induced psychological problems.
Amputees
Thousands also came home wounded, scars fresh; some even with shrapnel in them.
Kevin Whelan, who was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee, has so much metal embedded under his skin that it set off a security detector at the airport.
"In case it goes off," he warned the guard, "I do have shrapnel in me." The wand beeped as it passed over his shoulder.
Nearly 400 of the 550,000 Iraq war veterans returned as amputees and had to learn to open doors with metal fingers, walk on prosthetic legs, the paper said.
Senior Airman Brian Kolfage came home to sad, strange stares and spontaneous charity.
As he sat in a wheelchair after having lost both legs and his right arm when a mortar exploded outside his tent, a stranger handed him $250 in cash.
Many others have breathed their last in a war that alienated many Americans from the current administration.
A group of mothers led by prominent war opponent Cindy Sheehan, who lost her soldier son in Iraq, started Saturday a 24-hour vigil outside the White House to protest the presence of US soldiers in Iraq.
At least 2,437 members of the US military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to a Pentagon count.
Islam online
posted by madtom at 11:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home