Karina Lau would be slightly over 30 years old now. No telling what she would have made of her life, but by all accounts, she was a bright and talented young woman.
She never made it to 21; Pfc. Lau was killed at age 20 when the Chinook helicopter she was riding in was shot down by Iraqi insurgents near Fallujah in 2003. She left grieving parents behind:
“We tried to stop her from going into the Army,” Ruth Lau said, leading the way into her daughter’s room, which is kept locked. The Laus say they will never change anything in the room, painted in their daughter’s favorite color, lavender.
Karina was the daughter they’d always wanted, full of joy, warmth, discipline, talent — and more than a modicum of independence. The Laus kept every report card, every class photo, every silly memento, even the “Missing Tooth Award” given to their daughter when she was 5 to mark “A special day because Karina lost a tooth!” They watched their daughter graduate with honors and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” She played a dozen or more instruments, including the clarinet and saxophone. Since her death, teachers and students at Livingston High have raised nearly $25,000 for a Karina Lau music scholarship fund.
The daughter of Chinese and Mexican immigrants would have been the first in the family to graduate from a four-year university.
“I would tell other parents who have children who want to go into the military — in my opinion — don’t let them go,” Ruth Lau said. “Do everything you can to stop them.”
Her husband added, “They are too young, 18, 19 years old, inexperienced, still just babies.”
Years later, Pfc.Lau’s parents continued to keep her room as it was when she left it. Open thread.
Hal
This post sort of some my feelings for days like memorial day, veterans day, 4th of July. The Bush years have corrupted the meaning to some extent and even now I still see all of these America fuck yeah! sentiments and expressions of “patriotism” that seem more about who can be the most AMERICAN as opposed to honoring service members.
NotMax
Obligatory video.
patrick II
This is why that every time I see William Kristol on tv, with that smug smile of his, saying we need to send more troops and start more wars in the Mideast as casually as if he were talking about sending these kids across the street for a cup of coffee, I would like to put my fist through his face.
Not to mention clueless Bush, soulless Cheney, and neocons in general. But the smug Kristol really grates on me.
WereBear
Eric Burdon, “Memorial Day”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX-Wxp4NbX8
He’s still got every bit of what he’s got.
EconWatcher
@patrick II:
I am second to no man in my loathing of Bill Kristol, but I feel compelled to pass along one fact that surprised me: His son Joseph served as an infantry officer in the Marines and did a tour in Afghanistan, after graduating from Harvard. This is so unbelievably rare among families of leading chickenhawks like Kristol that it does bear noting.
And I agree: With the exception of Cheney, no one’s mug makes me ball up my fists in rage as much as Kristol’s.
Mustang Bobby
I hold my great-uncle Cary Gossard Dunn in the Light. He served in World War II, came ashore at Normandy, served in Korea, and died of cancer six months before I was born in 1952.
J R in WV
Some people deserve to be sent off to fight in a remote and foreign location. Without body armor! Like Kristol the warmonger.
The young lady in the post, not so much. What a loss to our community, to her parents, to our nation. So sad. She doesn’t look like a warmonger to me.
ETA: Thanks for the true Memorial Day post! Remember our brave fallen young military people.
Zinsky
@patrick II: Amen. The vile Kristol and people like grumpy Grandpa McCain need to have their entire families be the first in line when the Army, Navy, Maines and Air Force needs more cannon fodder, to go get their limbs blown off in a foreign country for no other reason than to lay claim to mineral assets that are not ours.
stinger
@Mustang Bobby: All honor and respect to him.
Mike in NC
Hoping to make it through Memorial Day without seeing or hearing anything about the Republican presidential wannabes and their list of countries America must bomb or invade to prove we love FREEDUMB!
Randy P
We went to hear an Irish group play yesterday in a local (American version of an) Irish pub. I don’t think it was intended to be a comment on Memorial Day, but in the middle of the set they did “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, which is apparently about a massacre of ANZAC (Australia/New Zealand) forces at Gallipoli and is for some reason popular with Irish bands.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY
OzarkHillbilly
@Zinsky: Say what you want about McCain (i do, often and with feeling) but he was the cannon fodder and bears the scars.
OzarkHillbilly
@Randy P: A lot of Irish ended up in Australia.
Chris
@Hal:
I think growing up in the Bush years means I will never *not* be able to look at “patriotism” and “support the troops” without a good degree of cynicism.
My family has West Point heritage out the wazoo. A couple years ago we all had a big family reunion there, first time I’d visited since childhood. As a cynical grown up, it kind of gives me emotional whiplash. I’m reading all these true and inspirational words from leaders like Eisenhower and MacArthur… while my inner history nerd remembers who these people were and what kinds of things they did that couldn’t possibly be further from the “duty, honor, country.” And yet, the other little voice in me recognizes that the words are still worth something, even if the people don’t live up to them.
Betty Cracker
@EconWatcher: Luckily for Kristol the Younger, he served after Bush left office, while Obama was winding down the wars, so he had a much better chance of making it through unscathed. Obama hasn’t wound things down as quickly as I’d prefer (everyone out effective 1/20/2009 would have been ideal, IMO), but no doubt we have fewer service members to mourn this Memorial Day because we elected President Obama rather than John McCain.
@OzarkHillbilly: Which makes his reflexive warmongering all the more appalling.
PurpleGirl
The past year I have been watching those histories on the History Channel and History 2, American Heros Channel, Smithsonian Channel about the First and Second World Wars. (The one show that History underwrote linking the two wars directly, unfortunately was ruined with comments from Joe Lieberman, Richard Bruce Cheney, IIRC John McCain and a few others.) If a show is produced by BBC, Canadian companies and a French company, I found them to be much better. I don’t remember seeing TV shows on the wars when I was growing up but I’m sure they never would have been as candid about the cruelty, brutality, and torture inherent in war. A series was recently made and is being shown now focused on the war in the Pacific — something that has been needed.
My feelings after watching these shows — maybe WWII was needed but wars since then, please we know what happens, we know what the personal costs and governmental costs are.
WRT to the post’s subject: I’ve always hated the advertisements for recruitment. From “An Army of One” to the latest “I was a Soldier”, they hang heavily on a lot of aspects of being a soldier or the idealized character of a soldier but not on the ultimate number one job — killing people. And let’s not forget the commercial where the parents talk about their feeling about their daughter joining the Army — but they don’t mention how it must feel to lose your daughter to an IED or a chopper being shot down.
Kbaithx, end of rant.
TaMara (BHF)
I feel blessed that with a large military family, almost all having served overseas during war time, they have made it home safely. My Great-Uncle Shorty being the exception, his plane was downed over Germany in WWII.
Chris
@EconWatcher:
This is where I invoke the bumper sticker wisdom:
“Your KID may be an honors student. YOU’RE still a dumbass.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
Yes it does. I always want to ask him, “Did you learn anything?” But why bother, I already know he didn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
@TaMara (BHF): Same here, all my uncles and father who went came back with the exception of my Uncle Joe. A C-47 pilot who crashed on takeoff after the war was over.
lamh36
@TaMara (BHF): agreed. my grandfather was in Vietnam, my father was in Army (I was born at the local VA Hospital) and I have at least 3 close cousins all of whom served in Armed Forces, all of whom got out and came home safely.
mai naem mobile
Karina Lau is dead but.Dick Cheney and his precious spawn are still alive. Enough to question the existence of god no?
gene108
What pissed me off about Bush, Jr., in particular as opposed to his hordes of evil minions, is his daughters were of an age to serve in the military, when he decided to invade Iraq for no good reason.
If he was serious about patriotism, the military and all the other jingoistic rhetoric he should’ve had his daughters first in line for a exotic Mesopotamian adventure.
Also, pisses me off that when he was pushing abstinence only education, I am pretty sure no one in his household bothered following it.
It’s just shit the little people have to deal with because the Lord of the Manor commands it to be.
lamh36
Remember The Warmongers
by Booman
WereBear
It’s like the stupid Duggar situation. They spend years raking in cash with the TV show, telling people THEY have the perfect family situation, BECAUSE of their crackpot take on religion, telling everyone else how to live…
And when a horrible thing turns out to have occurred in their family, and they handled it by NOT handling it at all, they whine that “no one’s perfect.”
PurpleGirl
@Randy P: In a very real the massacre at Gallipolli help create a national identity for Australians and New Zealanders. The planners of the campaign underestimated the Turkish abilities to fight, they didn’t have maps, they had few to no plans for resupplying the troops. Winston Churchill, Naval Minister at the time, did pay a political price for it. He joined the army and fought in Europe in his quest to restore his name. Maybe Irish bands like the song because it is very anti-British and highlights an incident when the British got payback (as it were) for what they’d done in Ireland and other places.
greennotGreen
To really honor our war dead, I think we should change the focus of Memorial Day. Instead of barbecues, we should have marches for peace. We should take the time to write our congress members to urge them to vote for peace, not war, to shrink the military budget and put the money into education, infrastructure, scientific research. Honor our war dead by trying to make sure we have no more.
lamh36
The Surprising History of Memorial Day
PurpleGirl
@PurpleGirl: These are edits I wanted to make. FYWP I couldn’t edit the comment not request deletion…
@Randy P: In a very real way the massacre at Gallipolli helped create a national identity for Australians and New Zealanders. The planners of the campaign underestimated Turkish abilities to fight, they didn’t have maps, they had few to no plans for resupplying the troops. Winston Churchill, Naval Minister at the time, did pay a political price for it. He joined the army and fought in Europe in his quest to restore his name.
Maybe Irish bands like the song because it is very anti-British and highlights an incident when the British got payback (as it were) for what they’d done in Ireland and other places.
Chris
@gene108:
I can’t really be too incensed at people whose kids didn’t join the military in the wars they advocated for; after all, it’s not up to them what their kids do, nor should it be.
A far better metric is what they themselves were doing thirty or forty years in the past when they had an opportunity to serve. I’m still not sure whether Bush’s little stint in the National Guard – “look at me, I’m going to play soldier in a unit that I joined specifically because I knew it wasn’t going to be sent off to do any actual soldiering, but I still want the military cred that comes with the uniform and all” – is marginally better than Cheney’s “I can’t even be bothered to pretend this plebeian work applies to me,” or worse.
Elmo
@OzarkHillbilly: I had an Uncle Joe too. He served through Italy and Europe, came home safe and sound after the war, and was shot dead on a Brooklyn street corner by two robbers fleeing and firing blind behind them to discourage pursuit.
Bystander
Everytime I’m being frisked in an airport (titanium knee replacement not a friend of the magnetometer) I’m reminded that someone among my ascendants have fought in every war since the Revolution. Then, I grit my teeth since I don’t think valor and sacrifice are descendible characteristics. Just look at George Bush Jr.
Zinsky
@OzarkHillbilly: McCain was committing a war crime, bombing a civilian light bulb factory, when he was shot down over Viet Nam. Some hero. His involvement in the fire on the USS Forrestal remains murky and he has often embellished his torture stories. He also is prone to fits of rage and is abusive to his own wife. The man is, and always has been, a creep.
Another Holocene Human
@PurpleGirl: anti English. We blame the English. The Welsh and the Scots get a sometimes undeserved pass although we’re not so sure about the Scots. The bloody English (Saxons, I suppose) are a safe topic of conversation, though.
Another Holocene Human
Was supposed to be going home today, but wife’s grandfather (navy, wwii) died suddenly, burial was Friday, grandmother took a bad turn, living in hospital since Saturday, and holiday weekend to boot
I hate hospitals.
Tommy
@patrick II: I am a military brat. Heck dad taught at the Army War College. Granddad shipped him off to military school when he was 12. You’d think my father would like war, but nothing could be further from the truth.
From a political point-of-view we agree on little. He is a Republican. But when folks like Kristol and others talk war we can find common ground. We both yell at our TVs and say you want a war, go fight it. Don’t talk our kids and our friends and ship them off to a war you won’t right yourself!
Chris
@Zinsky:
One of the more interesting points I’ve heard made about McCain’s war is that most of it took place zipping by over the battlefield – and the only time he ever saw the ground up close was when he was shot down, locked up, and tortured by the NVA. In other words, he never had to kill someone right in front of him and then watch him bleed to death; never had to occupy a Vietnamese village and see the way they reacted to an occupation force; never had to get to know any Vietnamese people enough to hear them talk about the brutality and corruption of the regime the U.S. was fighting for; certainly never had to watch My Lai or any American war crimes. From his point of view, the entire war was clean, except for What Those Fucking Commies Did To Me.
It doesn’t explain why he’s so eager to send more people into combat knowing they’d suffer the torture treatment and worse, but it does help explain why he so easily embraces the George W. Bush black-and-white worldview where Us Good, Dem Bad, and anyone who thinks more nuanced is a commie lovin’ traitor.
Another Holocene Human
@greennotGreen: hear, hear
@lamh36: Did not know this. Wow. Mem day was a big deal in New England and they’re proud of being Union, but I’m sad they never explained how it started.
We actually had a junior high teacher who flogged the notion that the civil war wasn’t fought over slavery. I didn’t believe her then or now.
Renie
In my local paper, it says George Pataki (3x NYS governor-R) will announce his bid for president. Add another clown to the car. There was also an opinion piece praising O’Malley over Clinton and Sanders written by,.. ready….a Republican political consultant.
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: Hey what did the Scots ever do to you?
satby
One of my conservative cousins shared Dubya’s Memorial Day message of “remembering the fallen” and I posted that thanks to him, we can remember more than4,00 more fallen and over 32,000 wounded in action. The flying monkeys came out to excoriate me, and I just told them that as the mom of a Marine who had 5 combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, they could pound sand.
“We all saw the convoys bringing the WMD to Syria” one of them said.
I hate these people.
fuckwit
@Chris: that’s my metric too. walnuts gets a pass and a wtf. shrub gets a weasel point for trying to split the difference, but no pass. but darth, feith, wolfowitz, kristol, olielly, limbaugh, hannity, and the whole neocon circus are just plain evil cowards, advocating for others to fight a war but not ever putting themselves in danger.
satby
@Tommy: read the history of Northern Ireland, where the Scottish helped occupy Ireland for Britain. Irish Protestants are actually Scottish descendants.
Big ole hound
@Zinsky: Agree. The entitled Generals son who hot dogged his way around carriers putting lots of sailors at risk and he continues to do so. Fourth generation to draw nothing but a government check for their entire lives from academy through retirement and benefits for generations of families. As a sailor in Nam I saw all kinds of assholes just like him in all branches of the service. War zones are a playground they feel entitled to.
Chris
@satby:
So do I. So. Do. I.
@fuckwit:
McWalnuts doesn’t get a pass, just some cred for having at least had the balls to put his money where his mouth was.
But one can very well serve in the military, serve in war, and still come out a complete piece of shit. John McCain. Colin Powell. Allen West. Chris Kyle.
Tommy
@satby:
You go girlfriend. I am the first male in my family that has not served for many generations. Things like military school and the military he didn’t want for me. You know I’ve never thanked him for his and I need to pick up the phone and tell him.
Tommy
@satby: I will, didn’t realize that happened. My Scottish family came here in the 1870s because we didn’t like the British. That we might have sided with the Irish later is IMHO a check mark in the good column.
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: The English transplanted Scots into the northern counties of Ireland to change the character of the peoples of Ireland. But they stayed in the northern counties and didn’t move south or west.
patrick II
@Tommy:
My dad was at Iwo Jima, I lost friends in Vietnam, my brother was at the airport in Lebanon, my nephew-in-law has brain damage from Afghanistan, and my cousin took shrapnel to the face in a fire fight in Iraq. We are not a “military family”, but have been a patriotic working class family, but when my own kids came of age in the early 2000’s I made sure to let them know that people like us are now playing a sucker’s game. It’s a shame to be so cynical, but that is the way it is now. I will not see my children lives wasted to further someone else’s ambition.
FortGeek
@PurpleGirl: How about the National Guard recruiting ads, showing exciting and heart-warming disaster rescue scenes, but not telling you that you’re going to be cycled through Iraq more than the Regular Army folks….
Renie
Just looking out my front door and had an interesting observation. I live in ground zero of the Republican base of Nassau County, NY on Long Island. I’m the only house with the flag out today. So the most liberal leaning family on the block of mostly Republicans has a flag displayed. I’ve also had a flag out every day since 9/11 – was also then the first on my block to do so. Yet according to our RWNJ, liberals aren’t ‘real’ Americans.
WereBear
That was a hideous thing in a whole administration of hideous things. People who signed up to help out during disaster relief get sent overseas again and again, losing their jobs, families, homes, and then getting shafted on VA benefits.
Republicans should be become something people say and then spit.
SuperHrefna
Remembering my great great uncle Fabian, WWI fighter pilot, who, like most WWI fighter pilots died in battle. http://rnzaf.proboards.com/thread/15468/fabian-pember-reeves-fact-fiction
PurpleGirl
@FortGeek: Yes, those ads also present an idealist picture and the Guard member may well also end up being sent to a place like Ferguson or Baltimore to ‘keep the peace’ (be an occupying force for the elite). Thanks for mentioning those ads. I could have mentioned those but I didn’t think of them while writing my comment.
srv
Chris
@Renie:
Years ago, I was at the Memorial Day concert on the mall in Washington DC (2009 or 2010), with a liberal and two conservatives.
I was the only one of the four of us that stood for the National Anthem.
Didn’t comment on it or anything because I think “hey, why aren’t YOU beinf properly patriotic” is just generally a dick move, but I certainly noticed it. I could chalk it up to obliviousness or ignorance for the liberal and one of the conservatives, but not the fourth – history and military nerd like me and obsessed enough with “heritage” and ritual patriotism that she absolutely knew you’re supposed to stand. She was just doing her silent martyr “my beloved country isn’t my beloved country anymore because Obama” act. Gag.
aimai
@satby: Jesus christ. Do people not gethow stupid the “we saw those convoys going into Syria” arguments are? If we saw them why didn’t we intercept them? This isn’t like Night and Fog in the german forests. its fucking desert with very few roads.
gene108
@WereBear:
If there was a “happy” middle road between rejecting Republicans and embracing the DFH worldview, it might happen, but for too many people rejecting Republicans is tantamount to accepting DFH’s and they cannot accept the fact their worldview is flawed and the modern, secular, world we live in is better.
Someone up thread mentioned the Duggars.
Reading comments from people, who supported them, what they were really supporting is some sort of alternate lifestyle, which rejects the scientific, secular, world we live in and these folks somehow yearn for a Little House on the Prairie type of life, when things were “simpler” and “godlier”.
satby
@WereBear: Yeah. That aforementioned Marine was a foster son, high school dropout on probation. The intense need for fodder during the early war years meant that the recruiter figured out a way to get a kid manifestly unsuited to serve in the Marines in despite the facts of no diploma-GED and a rap sheet. He served honorably, but his PTSD got worse every tour, and he got busted down in rank for minor stuff twice before getting a less than honorable discharge (stuff like driving to the PX on restrictions to get baby formula for his premie daughter). So now, still suffering from PTSD, he’s not eligible for VA benefits.
He’s not the only kid they treated like that, not by a long shot.
Tommy
@patrick II: Military service used to be kind of what we did. The family business for lack of a better word. We don’t do that anymore.
I was at my grandfather’s funeral a few months ago. Army. Taking to a niece I don’t often talk with. She was stunned I played the same video games, at 45, she did. She is 15. Tells me she wants to join the military and fly drones.
I was like why would you want to do that? She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, but my father, who worked at high levels in the DoD stepped in and told her well there are many things you can do with your life. Killing people isn’t one of them. Maybe a little more in your face then I would have said, but it hit home.
satby
@WereBear: Yeah. That aforementioned Marine was a foster son, high school dropout on probation. The intense need for fodder during the early war years meant that the recruiter figured out a way to get a kid manifestly unsuited to serve in the Marines in despite the facts of no diploma-GED and a rap sheet. He served honorably, but his PTSD got worse every tour, and he got busted down in rank for minor stuff twice before getting a less than honorable discharge at the end of his last enlistment (stuff like driving to the PX on restrictions to get baby formula for his premie daughter). So now, still suffering from PTSD, he’s not eligible for VA benefits.
He’s not the only kid they treated like that, not by a long shot.
satby
Gah, my edit shows up as a duplicate post!
SuperHrefna
Karina won’t be forgotten, my family still remembers Fabian and he died 98 years ago. Rest in Peace, both of you.
ThresherK
@satby: I don’t have kids, but I like to share your rage when our teevee nooze gets some service member or parent of the Iraq invasion to tutx-tut on air about how “we’re losing Iraq!!!!”, now in 2015, after all the one person did serving after 9/11.
The same media people didn’t give a damn about the questions not asked, or the lies offered, to stampede us in hthere some dozen years ago. Little too late to care about these servicemen and -womens’ “legacy” now.
Poopyman
Today I fly the flag to honor all the “Fungibles” who fought.
The ones who sent them, not so much.
Chris
@ThresherK:
And of course, they’ll never give air time to a veteran or parent with anything else to say, like “the war was a waste” or “stop killing our young people.”
trollhattan
@srv:
Ignoring “Bob Woodward said on Fox News” our takeaway is that Bush actually didn’t believe Saddam had WMDs, neutering the only argument for war, and launched the war anyway. I have to say, that really burnishes his decision-making skills and his place in history. Bravo.
satby
@Poopyman: this. That the people who sent those 4,000+ kids to their deaths never gave a damn about the lifelong pain of the families; that they cheerfully screwed kids who volunteered to serve; that they put in place ways to continue to screw them after they got out, and continue to vote against better veteran benefits: I will never vote for a Republican again just because of that, though they give us millions of other good reasons never to vote for them.
trollhattan
@lamh36:
Thanks very much for this history. Had no idea….
FortGeek
@WereBear:
Doing my part =)
Every time I say “Republican” or “conservative” or “fundie” I automatically add “scum” to it. Been a habit since sometime in 2003, for some reason….
trollhattan
My thoughts today are with all of you who have served and survived, those who served and did not, and the many, many among us who have been affected by the sacrifices of others.
My father and uncle on my mom’s side both were in Halsey’s fleet (unbeknownst to one another)–my uncle on a cruiser and dad on a carrier. Both are now gone so whatever history we carry are the memory fragments from stories told when we were kids. If only I’d paid better attention….
Nevertheless, the internet continues vacuuming historical bits and today I found this photo from “Life” magazine of my dad’s ship under kamikaze attack, as photographed from the neighboring Hornet. A lot of things have to go right to survive war; only one wrong thing is needed to not. Thanks, dad, and thanks especially to the gunner who didn’t miss that day (and all those other days).
Svensker
Anybody hear from Soonergrunt? He OK in OK with all the storms? Wishing him well and holding him in the Light.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108:
I understand that sentiment, but I strongly disagree with it.
Adult children are not property of their parents and they should be free to make their own choices.
There’s something to be said for a short period of mandatory community or national service. But even when things are “mandatory” there will always be ways around it – witness Cheney’s five deferments.
And just to be clear, I don’t think that an 18-23 year old getting a draft deferment means that they’re a hypocrite if they advocate for a war 40 years later. People and circumstances change.
The (metaphorical, at the very least) crimes that Cheney and Bush committed with respect to Iraq had almost nothing to do with their personal choices in their relative youth. It had to do with:
1) Twisting intelligence to fit the result they wanted rather than trusting the real experts and the evidence.
2) Once they decided to invade Iraq, they were incompetent about the execution. They didn’t have a sensible plan, and didn’t have the equipment and personnel to execute even their bogus plan.
3) They refused to learn any lessons from their mistakes and continued to deny and obfuscate any criticisms.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Scamp Dog
Three of my mom’s four brothers served in the Second World War, two in the Army Air Corps and the other in the Marine Corps. Donald and Darwin came home to very successful careers in business after the war, but KJ struggled in life, losing a couple of houses when he couldn’t keep up with the mortgage, some failed businesses and trouble staying employed.
Mom remembers that he fought on Saipan and Tinian, and a few weeks ago I found an online database of the Marines’ casualty cards from that era. He did have a card, which showed his unit (down to the company level), with the casualty code SS (CF). My brother and I are guessing that it stands for shell shock (combat fatigue), but I haven’t found any confirmation of that. So does the Juicer hive mind know the answer or know where I could find it? The site with the database has a list of casualty codes, but SS (CF) isn’t on it.
Despite all his troubles in his post-war years, he was always a lot of fun to be around, and I miss him.
SuperHrefna
@satby: That’s outrageous, the whole story, but especially that they can deny him VA benefits. Those swine. Trying to have their wars on the cheap. They really don’t see the rest of us as fully human, do they?
FortGeek
@PurpleGirl: I did 6 years im ly local Guard unit. We responded to only one hurricane in that entire time–and all we did was prep a few days before the storm…which promptly lost interest in the Florida Panhandle and turned west to scare Alabama and Mississippi instead.
I don’t remember when it was–maybe about the time of the L.A. riots–but our Powers That Be decided we needed Bashing Civilians On The Head (they had a bland-sounding bureaucratic term for it) lessons. Had us stomping around in formation with helmets and batons.
The dramatic highlight was during the Gulf War, when we were all put on “stop-loss” and 24 hour notice of possibly being sent to Iraq. I had a little more than a year left at that point. We didn’t get sent, fortunately.
Was really glad when my time was up. I wasn’t a good fit for military service.
Tommy
Thinking of my grandfather today. He did this:
Something he never talked about. Never. We learned about it after he passed away and all the letters he wrote. He didn’t get drafted, he enlisted. A doctor. Told he’d be a flight surgeon. In one of the letters, he tells my grandmother he is learning to fly a plane.
He was so frank he then said I might be the only person able to land the plane. “The Japs are going to shoot me.”
Happy thought. My grandfather later became a world traveler. China was a place he went back to again and again. I have more stuff from the China then I care to admit. I am scared to think what it is all worth.
FortGeek
@Poopyman: Honor the folks who fought…and (to put it mildly) fornicate the politicians who sent them needlessly into harm’s way.
*raises a drink in toast*
mellowjohn
something i post somewhere every Memorial Day:
REMEMBER
If you are able,
save a place for them
inside of you. And
save one backward glance
when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say that you loved them,
though you may not have always.
Take what they have left,
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it your own.
And in a time
when men decide and feel safe
to call war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O’Donnell, helicopter pilot
1 January 1970, Dak To, Vietnam
KIA 24 March 1970
lucslawyer
Well, bob woodward says that bush did not lie us into Iraq, but it was the “building momentum” for the war that caused bush to do it. Both of those “justifications” suck.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@satby: That’s horrible. :-(
Military medical “benefits” shouldn’t be treated that way. It’s inexcusable. War breaks people. Medical treatment should not be taken away.
Is there any way he can get re-evaluated by the VA?
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Agreed. That’s something I’d take up with my (his) congresscritter. Mine would certainly get involved in for one of her constituents. She so happens to have been born in an internment camp, courtesy of Uncle Sam.
sharl
@Svensker: Sooner has generally remained active on Twitter, and today is no exception – he’s mostly been retweeting Memorial Day-related stuff.
@Scamp Dog: Commenter raven is usually the go-to person in these parts for that kind of information. Maybe he’ll show up here later today.
PurpleGirl
My mother’s two brothers both served in the Navy during WWII. One uncle was trained as an airplane mechanic. He was stationed at Pearl. That morning some admiral ended up in the water after the bombing and my Uncle dove in and pulled him to safety. I’m told the story and his name are written up at the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Don’t know any stories about the other uncle’s time in service. (And for some reason, I’m spacing both their names.)
My own father was 4H — hiatal hernia. Some 40 years later said hernia nearly killed him when it strangulated. The only time I ever saw my father cry was the night before my brother was scheduled to leave for the Air Force. (Having flunked out of college, he preferred joining the Air Force to being drafted into the Army.)
PurpleGirl
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: PTSD are hard and expensive to treat. I don’t know when it becamse policy for the Services to claim any psyche trouble had to predate the active service period so that service branch and VA didn’t have to pay for the care. Cheap, cheap, cheap sings the birdie.
Plantsmantx
@lamh36:
Here’s a slideshow of illustrations titled “The First Decoration Day” at the LA Times site.
http://lat.ms/1ErmvOE
It’s based on this article by the historian David Blight:
http://bit.ly/1Q6M2DR
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@PurpleGirl: Obama has tried to change at least some of the issues with VA PTSD treatment. I don’t know how much of it has actually been implemented.
Yes, mental health care is expensive and too many people in the VA and DoD either can’t or won’t push for proper funding levels. But it needs to change. Here’s hoping that it is changing.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@SuperHrefna:
They really don’t see the rest of us as fully human, do they?
I don’t believe they see us as human at all.
I have a lot of mixed feelings on Memorial Day. It is a day to honor those who died in military service. Not why they died, nor how stupid it was that they were asked in the first place. That they were there and came back in a box. I think that is what we have to remember. I don’t think we should cloud their loss of life with anything but sorrow that they are gone.
I don’t think we should ever forget that lots of them ended up in those boxes because of stupid fucking assholes sending them where they didn’t need to be in the first place but for me that’s a separate issue.
Arclite
What a waste on a completely unnecessary war.
Jeb would have done nothing differently.
America, Fuck Yeah! as long as it’s not your kids dying.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
The VA will treat PTSD. Now. It was shunted off as a nothing, not an actual problem, but that seems to have changed, at least what I see. But the part that may be an issue is the level of discharge. Anything above dishonorable may qualify a vet. Have no idea if it is possible to have a discharge level appealed but that may be possible. I’d bet it would take, as you implied, a congress person/senator making a stink. But given our current president maybe even a letter to the WH might get the ball rolling if that is possible.
Brachiator
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I agree with you big time about the twisting of intelligence. The Bush administration seemed to do this in every area, from science and medicine, to economic policy, and certainly defense and foreign policy. I don’t think that any other administration so brutally and foolishly insisted that they could bend reality to their will and that experts were irrelevant.
Your second and third points follow from the first. The only thing that Bush and Cheney had was arrogance and a way of getting what they wanted. But they were incompetent and stupid, and unable to reevaluate their decisions. This became a tragedy for the nation and we are still dealing with the consequences.
Also, I do not see any way in which the invasion of Iraq could have been a success. Bush and Cheney thought that they could make the Iraqis do whatever the US wanted. This combination of arrogance and ignorance insured the worst possible outcome.
Ruckus
At the very least there is a crisis line that is available to vets even if not enrolled in the VA system.
I haven’t called them so I can not speak first hand but if you look when this started, 2007, you get the idea that President Obama doesn’t seem to have the same callous disregard for vets that conservatives do.
Origuy
My dad was in Korea with the Corps of Engineers. His first tour was in Okinawa, probably building the US base there. There were still landmines there and maybe still are. Japanese holdouts who didn’t know the war had ended were still being found all over the Pacific. The second tour was in Korea itself.
My mother’s father was the Army Balloon Corps in WWI. I think his unit made it to France, but I’m not sure. A lot of them were still in training when the armistice was signed.
I have an ancestor who enlisted in the Union Army two months before Appomattox. He was 28. I wonder why he waited so long. His unit saw some action, but spent most of their time guarding bridges and such. There were still Confederate holdouts for months after the war ended. They didn’t have the excuse that they didn’t know about the end of the war.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Decoration Day
zoot
Memorial Day is probably a better time than most to fess up: ‘yes, all you Americans who died or were wounded being dick cheney and donald rumsfeld’s pawns in Afghanistan and Iraq had your lives taken or ruined for no damned good reason at all’. Maybe its time to think about apologizing.
Bush Lied Us Into War:
https://soundcloud.com/dave-cadaqu/150531-bush-lied-a-basemp3
Chris
@Brachiator:
It’s part of the entire “echo chamber” we often talk about. From the seventies onwards, an enormous amount of effort by rich conservative families and corporations was put into creating a hermetically sealed universe of facts whose basic purpose was to create news, science, reports et al that fit the worldview conservative politicians and financiers wanted. Think tanks and right wing media are the biggest achievements there, but the thinking has touched things far beyond that (the religious right is an example, a billionaire-friendly alternate Christianity which has succeeded so well that it’s now become the mainstream of American Christianity). Basically, saying what conservatives want to hear has become a career advancer throughout America. The VRWC nexus will take care of you no matter how disastrously and frequently you are wrong, as long as you’re always wrong along with them.
Kathleen
@Another Holocene Human: My dad, who was born in Casper, Wyoming, recalls his Irish neighbors cheering the Germans for bombing England as they picked up their morning papers. His father, who immigrated from Ireland, volunteered for WWII though he was in his 40’s and had three children (he also volunteered in WWI). He was always so grateful to the United States for enabling him to make a good living and raise his family in the comfort he never knew growing up and he felt he had a responsibility to pay back..
Kathleen
@Another Holocene Human: So sorry to hear that. My condolences to you and your wife.
Betty Cracker
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I agree that not even the children of blood-gargling psychopaths like Cheney should be forced to join an all-volunteer military. But if it were up to me, the volunteer military would be very small, and every war — even military engagements illegally conducted without a declaration of war — would trigger a draft with no bullshit deferments.
Americans would think a lot longer and harder about meddling in other countries’ business if every family had to worry about their own loved ones being called up. My guess is our foreign policy would look less like an enforcement strategy for international gangsters and more like a defensive plan too.
Kathleen
@lamh36: Thank you for that story. I love learning about historical events that don’t make the “mainstream” story line.
Kathleen
@Renie: While running through a Northern Kentucky community this morning I passed a house with a Confederate flag on the front porch and a sign proclaiming “No Kentucky Hates Heroin”. Then I saw a guy with a Matt Bevin for Governor T shirt a Kroger. Blecccch.
Brachiator
People in my family have served in the military since at least World War II, serving everywhere from Europe and Asia, and the Americas. Most in my family came back, and most of my friends whose family served were also lucky. My stepfather served in Korea and used to have nightmares brought on by memories of his time there. But he would rarely talk about those days.
I can only offer honor and gratitude to those who served, those who came back and those who did not.
satby
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks Scott. I think he has put in for a reevaluation, but he’s not Ofcom that now. Now he’s in a contentious divorce. Not really as a result of the war, his wife has a screw loose.
raven
@Scamp Dog: Sorry I’m late. Here are the casualty codes for WW2 and Korea in PDF form
http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/Pages/Frequently_Requested/Casualty-Databases.aspx
rikyrah
From POU:
raven
@Ruckus: This is worth a read. Sebastian Junger has something with his contention that what many vets have is NOT PTSD but it is a severe problem,
Though only 10 percent of American forces see combat, the U.S. military now has the highest rate of post-traumatic stress disorder in its history. Sebastian Junger investigates.
Kathleen
@ThresherK: You are so right. I get so angry when frownie face “concern troll” so called “news” anchors express surprise and shock when they report stories about PTSD, or the financial plight of veterans and their families, or their physical and mental issues. Yet they were the biggest cheerleaders and the first to question or malign anyone who opposed or even questioned the wisdom of invading. Gee, who could have possibly known that waging wars has consequences on real people.
Brachiator
@Chris: Sorry, I think you are overly broad here, so it’s easy to be partly right. The Vietnam War was a clusterfvck of cynical denial and stupidity. And the religious right today is assertive, but hardly mainstream.
And what is especially sad are the people who have flocked to right wing media sources, though oddly enough, some of the most famous and previously successful have seen a huge drop in popularity.
And yet, I don’t think notions of an echo chamber or the influence of rich conservative families and corporations adequately account for the disastrous arrogance of the Bush administration.
satby
Stonekettle Station had a spot on post about Iraq that he took down a long time ago, but here is the authorized link.
I had to go read it again today.
To me, the best way to honor the sacrifices of the dead are to try to prevent more war and death, especially wars built on lies. So this can’t be repeated enough.
Ksmiami
@Randy P: the pogues do a great version. Looking very forward to seeing the water diviner film which is loosely based on a hodgepodge of Australian experiences in turkey
Tree With Water
@Chris: I know what you mean, and so do most Americans in one sense or another.. I came of age during our War in Vietnam, and spent all the years thereafter in a comfortable armchair with American military history as a favorite subject. At the moment, I’m halfway through the book, Sacred Ties [Tom Carhart; Berkley Caliber publishing, NY; 2010]. It chronicles the lives of 5 West Pointers, friends all, whose crossroads took them north or south. I happen to believe the very worst about Bush-Cheney (et.al), and take the political measure of democratic candidates by the willingness to confront the plot of lies that deceived us into waging the 2003 War in Iraq. In fact, I think it dishonors their memory not to acknowledge it as the infamous, monstrous betrayal is was, and remains. So, again, I know what you mean.
sharl
@satby: That IS an excellent post; thanks for posting the link. Here is the link again; I don’t know why – unclosed tag maybe? – but clicking on the ‘Reply’ icon under your comment went first to the comment box, then jumped to Jim Wright’s post. Weird…never seen that before.
That’s the post Wright took down because all the big media sites were using it without attribution and/or first asking permission, wasn’t it? I know he did that with (at least) one of his posts, this may be the one.
Chris
@Brachiator:
I think the disastrous arrogance of the Bush administration was an epitome, but one that kind of flowed logically from the development of the bubble in which conservatives have been able to live for decades. It’s also not an isolated incident. The Romney campaign’s “unskewed polls” moment was the exact continuation of “we create our own reality” a decade earlier. (Arguably even more tone-deaf, since it referred to the one thing you’d expect all politicians to want to have some sense of reality on – their chances of getting elected).
chopper
@Randy P:
the pogues did a well-known version, and a great deal of Irish pub bands basically copy the pogues and cover many of their songs.
Scamp Dog
@raven: Thanks! It turns out that SS(CF) isn’t on that list, unfortunately. I’ve requested a copy of the card, so I imagine I’ll have a better idea in a few weeks.
rikyrah
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Remember, he said he had BETTER THINGS TO DO than to go to Vietnam.
White privilege wrapped up in Republicanism right there.
Because, if ANY Democrat, or any Non-White had uttered that, it would have automatically disqualified them for public office for ETERNITY.
gene108
@Brachiator:
They thought the could push Ahmed Chalabi in as their dictator, like Cheney and Rumsfeld’s “boyhood idols”, Henry Kissinger and Dick Nixon, did by putting Pinochet into power in Argentina.
They thought they could topple Saddam, but Chalabi in to take charge and then get out and everything would keep running smoothly.
Unfortunately, despite what Chalabi told them, he was not that popular in Iraq and no one in Iraq would follow him as the leader of the country.
So they went with Plan B, which was improvising the Provisional Authority, and winging it from there, from de-Ba’ath-ifying the government, to dissolving the military and a host of other things they figured Chalabi would’ve been handling by June of 2003.
Chris
@gene108:
I continue to think 99% of the explanation for the Iraq occupation can be done simply by reading Heritage Foundation tracts and looking at what their ideology considers good governance.
They disbanded the Iraqi Army. They “de-Baathified” despite the Ba’ath Party being basically required for advancement in the civilian bureaucracy, thus effectively disbanding the civil service. They turned Iraq into a Fair Tax playground, thus slashing its revenues right at a time when reconstruction would’ve made the need for them skyrocket. And they replaced all these things with jack shit.
That’s exactly what Grover Norquist says you need: drown government in the bathtub and watch a happy working middle class democracy create itself by Invisible Hand. No way in hell that was an accident. They did what they thought would work, and disaster was the result.
Ruckus
@raven:
Thanks. Scanned that a bit but will have to go over that in a lot more detail.
From what I read I would say I agree, there is more to it than just combat. Anyone can have a traumatic experience. What that experience is depends on the person and what that trauma is, as well as their state of mind when it happens. Also some seem to have the tools to deal with trauma better than others. Pretty much like life but on a enhanced scale.
Ruckus
@Chris:
This is also a reason that Jeb and those involved can’t admit that they are wrong. It would be admitting that everything they believe in is crap. That’s got to be hard for someone to admit, that the bullshit they swallowed hook, line, sinker, rod/reel, and boat was wrong, stupid and malevolent. On the other hand they could just be sociopaths.
Brachiator
@gene108: Chalabi was an incompetent fraud. It is amazing that they thought they could achieve anything with him. And we don’t need to look back to Pinochet.
One thing I would like to know is whether the State Department and the various intelligence agencies have been cleansed of the fools and cowards that either signed off on this BS or just looked away. I would also like to know if the people who continued to deliver honest Intel have been allowed to flourish. I suspect that the knaves are still safely in their jobs.
Their Plan A was stupid. Their Plan B was worse. But it was and is meaningless to talk about keeping the Iraqi Army in place when the new civilian authority is corrupt and inept. The US did nothing but create a power vacuum and unleash old sectarian and tribal animosities. And Saddam Hussein had apparently structured the military so that there was not even a cadre of competent officers who might provide some direction or leadership. Maybe he made the army coup proof, but also feckless.
Brachiator
@Chris: Romney got b$tchslapped by reality pretty definitively. And Republicans have seen how reality bites when they tried to shut down the government. The GOP and conservatives have shown at the congressional and local level that they understand how power works. Here they are going for the naked power grab, not trying to convince the majority that they are right.
Mike G
A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
— Rudyard Kipling
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Brachiator:
Yup.
I was never a Bush supporter, but I was ambivalent about the Iraq war for a few reasons:
1) I didn’t think that the ~$1B/mo “no fly zone” stuff was sustainable. It seemed like “something had to be done” at some point.
2) Saddam destroyed his WMDs after the 1991 war, but he didn’t do it in a way that gave the rest of the world confidence. (Maybe he had to do it in secret for internal political reasons, but it planted seeds for future conflicts.) Scott Ritter said there were no WMDs, but the structure of the inspections and the politicization of his reports left too room for confusion.
3) I really couldn’t believe that Bush and the rest of the intelligence community didn’t have evidence to back up the claims they were making. People can and should argue about what evidence supports or contradicts policy recommendations, but they have to have a common set of facts for the debate to be meaningful.
Colin Powell’s presentation to the UNSC was a real eye-opener for me. His evidence included recorded calls that indicated the Iraqi leadership wasn’t fully cooperative. They had a few empty warheads. They didn’t show the UN the “mobile production facilities” that didn’t exist. That was the best they had? Really? That’s why we had to go to war right now?
4) GHWB did modern war right (politically). He got international support for his actions, and his actions were limited. He knew an occupation would be a disaster. The fact that W couldn’t get UN support or even support from most of our important NATO allies was disconcerting and a sign that Iraq was not going to go well. But maybe they’d find a way to make it work – they did the first Iraq war well after all…
It’s easy for me to understand why so many people didn’t accept the story from the critics that Bush was lying to get his war. It was so monstrous a charge that it was nearly unbelievable. Our presidents may do stuff we disagree with, the thinking goes, but they’re (with some historical examples to the contrary) not monsters. Well, Bush was a monster when it came to Iraq.
Lots of people still don’t accept that, not because they live in an echo chamber, but because to accept it means questioning so much of what they were taught and believe about our government and our country. Too many people can’t go there – still.
W and his administration thought they could make their own reality and be rewarded for it. The Teabaggers still think that way. The real world isn’t like that, and I think most of the body politic is slowly realizing it…
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
Very, very sad. The military can be a great career, but don’t ever forget that there is a finite chance of dying very young. I wish we could end these stupid wars.
Paul in KY
@patrick II: That grinning POS should die a horrible death.
Paul in KY
@gene108: They wanted to fuck up Iraq and knew it would be fucked up once Saddam was gone. They actually hoped Chalabi would do an incompetent job, because THAT IS WHAT THEY WANTED.
Paul in KY
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Scott, you were naïve/stupid then. The ‘WMDs’ were chemical weapons. What has been around since WW I days. You don’t go to war over some fucking chemical weapons.