Statistics report that over 20% of the deployable forces of the United States Armed Forces have some form of mental trauma, be it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Military Sexual Trauma (MST) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The individuals of this 20% are still deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times under the influence of pharmaceutical grade narcotics to patrol around with guns and bullets and bombs yet people still look confused when they hear about things like kill teams, stunningly high suicide rates and an epidemic of military rape. What did you think was going to happen?
We are the Iraq Veterans Against the War, and we’re not going to let this keep happening to our brothers and sisters. Trauma is a way of life for us, but it doesn’t have to be for them.
We had gathered in front of Walter Reid, the premier hospital of the Armed Forces, to lay down yellow roses for the unlucky casualties who were trapped inside this citadel of trauma where they were enduring a kind of hurt that we’ll probably never understand. This is the anniversary of one of the two wars that ruined these people’s bodies and/or minds and we’d decided to use our lucky bodies to carry a message for them.
STOP DEPLOYING TRAUMATIZED SOLDIERS!
This is the message of Operation Recovery. We are mobilizing the anti-war movement to help us save our friends.
We carried our message for six miles on signs that I’d spray painted the day before with a hastily made stencil. With as few people as we had (we were 10 in number) we ran the risk of embarrassment because it is an awkward thing to walk amongst the cars in traffic with signs. I had been anticipating a kind of latent shame that would arise with being so austere as to take up a whole lane of traffic for any message, but that shame never manifested. I was finally carrying a sign for a message that I believed in. Not that I don’t believe in peace and love and all that other nonsense that I’ve seen on so many signs, it’s just that those things aren’t practical. This had a sliver of practicality to it.
When you think about it, if 20% of the fighting force is on psychotropic medication why don’t the powers that be open a door for them to exit their service so that they can heal from the wounds that they’ve incurred in the service of our country? Do they really need that 20%? Isn’t one deployment enough? I was part of that 20% and I can tell you that I didn’t do my unit one bit of good. None of us did. We got into fights and picked up drug problems and criminal records and STD’s while the bridges between our families, our friends and our sense of where home was and ourselves burned down. Some might say that is just the life of a soldier.
This 20% are not the kind of people that you want walking around foreign streets with a gun. You can’t predict what this 20% will do because they don’t know what they will do themselves until they break and then the only thing left to do is react. This 20% commits suicide, shoots civilians just for fun, nourishes addictions to various drugs, drinks too much and alienates friends because this war has made us 20%ers fucking crazy. We don’t want to do it anymore. We didn’t understand the terms of our contract. Let us out. If you’re going to win this war you need professionals, not cripples and lunatics.
The march was professionally organized with sandwich breaks and all. I was disgusted to find there was such a thing as a seafood sandwich sold in a plastic bag. Everything was going fine until a K9 unit pulled up and the dog lost its shit. There has always been a tension amongst our group about some of our hobbies and this wasn’t doing my side of the argument any good. I could feel the ire of our fearless leader burning from behind me. Did I have some un-smoked joint? Surely not. Such a thing does not exist around me. Everybody swore they were clean in whispered voices. Three canine cars circled us with their enraged hounds drawing even more attention to the spectacle we provided for the second half of our march. Even bad press is good press they say.
We made it to our destination tired but happy somewhere around right on time. After a quick rest we were standing on the steps of the Russell Senate Building. The cops were tugging at their chains to lay the law down on us by now but our legal eagles managed to keep the cop with the biggest mustache whom I took to be the leader wrapped up in chit chat long enough for us to let our speakers finish with Jason Hurd, with his magnificent mountain man beard and all, announcing that we were putting the policy makers involved in the Senate Armed Services Committee on watch, meaning that we would be investigating all information and records that they have related to the deployment of soldiers after diagnosis with a serious mental condition derived from combat or military sexual trauma.
We ducked off just in time to avoid a trip in the paddy wagon much to the dismay of the police officers who had worked themselves up.
We finished the day by walking through the Senate offices delivering the notices to the aides of the senators in the SASC. We were filthy, sweaty, and not exactly reeking of military bearing. The stuffy people in the building gave us bewildered smiles. Who are these freaks? I had a banana jammed into the sleeve pocket of my ACU top. TJ was wearing coveralls. I stole candy and had a hard time censoring my obscene comments. Completely unprofessional.
We made a good time of it, taking turns delivering the messages. I did an abysmal job of shpealing the talking points when delivering a message to Carl Levin, the Senator from Michigan, the state where I was born and raised. The secretary looked disappointed that I was one of his. My friends looked the same way.
I got separated from my gang for a few minutes after a bathroom break. In my weird, nervous and filthy state I was drawing too much attention without my gaggle of friends to provide some visual context to my outfit and demeanor. The anxiety made my skin prickle. The people stared at me like I was a lunatic. I was so relieved to find them sneaking around.
This is just the beginning of a campaign that the anti-war movement has been in desperate need of. This is a cause that we can come together on. Maybe we won’t end the war, but maybe we can end the war for the wounded so that they can come home to begin the long process of recovery. We need to find out who is responsible for these practices and put pressure on them to actually enact the Support the Troops mentality that has gotten so many of these people in their offices. We are the troops even if we’re broken. Support us by letting us heal. Please.
The Paper Trail 