{"id":56185,"date":"2014-11-02T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-02T16:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=56185"},"modified":"2014-11-02T11:57:56","modified_gmt":"2014-11-02T16:57:56","slug":"washington-post-want-to-help-veterans-stop-pitying-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=56185","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: Want to help veterans? Stop pitying them."},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>” which is basically the same thing that we’ve been saying for a while.<\/p>\n

The press, politicians and even many veterans\u2019 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

With so few possessing a direct link to someone who has served, Americans often don\u2019t 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 \u2014 and are making \u2014 valuable contributions in business, government, education, health and community service.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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. <\/p>\n

I can rattle off the names of folks from Tim Poe<\/a> to James Deon Korfhage<\/a> who lied about their service to make excuses for their behavior. To get pity from judges and audiences.<\/p>\n

The concern about prospective bosses prying into post-traumatic stress or asking \u201cDid you ever kill anyone?\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Paying attention to the many who have returned with serious physical and mental wounds is one way to build that support. But pity isn\u2019t a sustainable strategy. A better recognition of the overall veteran experience \u2014 the bad, the good and everything in between \u2014 is essential to forging a lasting compact between those who have served and the rest of us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> and After the wars: A legacy of pain and pride<\/a>, so I guess this one as well as his book due out this month is his penance. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chief Tango sends us a link to an opinion piece in today’s Washington Post by Howard … Washington Post: Want to help veterans? Stop pitying them.<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}