New Veterans Hit Hard by Economic Crisis

Dear Readers:

Following is something I recently seeded to my Newsvine Column:

Seeded Article: “New Veterans Hit Hard by Economic Crisis“
Article Source: The New York Times

News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Nov 20, 2008 4:45 PM PST
Seeded by Noetical

Short-term measures do little to address the underlying economic difficulties that new veterans face, beginning with the job hunt. Veterans, particularly those in their 20s, have faced higher unemployment rates in recent years than those who never served in the military, though the gap has shrunk as the economy has worsened. (Veterans traditionally have lower unemployment rates than non-veterans.)

Recently discharged veterans, though, fared worst of all. A 2007 survey for the Veterans Affairs Department of 1,941 combat veterans who left the military mostly in 2005 showed nearly 18 percent were unemployed as of last year. The average national jobless rate in October was 6.5 percent.

Originally published to Noetical’s Newsvine Column.

Following is my comment on the article:

One part of the story that is particularly disturbing to me is:

Active duty troops who switch installations also find themselves struggling. Many of those forced to sell their homes this year are finding a scarcity of buyers, or even renters, particularly in states hit hard by the mortgage crisis. Military spouses must choose between taking a loss on their homes or riding out the housing slowdown and facing another separation from their loved one.

Although the government offers safeguards for some federal employees in similar circumstances, it will not help service members make up the difference if they are forced to sell a home at a loss.

What is worse, foreclosure or excessive debt can damage a service member’s career by leading to discharge, the loss of security clearances or, in extreme cases, jail.

A 2007 California task force reported that in the Navy, the number of security clearances revoked because of debt increased to 1,999 in 2005, from 124 in 2000.

“It’s the crash in the market,” said Joe Gladden, managing partner of Veteran Realty Service America’s Military, who sees families in extremis out of Northern Virginia. “It’s not that they have made stupid decisions.”

Mr. Gladden said e-mail messages and phone calls to his office had become so routine that he encouraged military families to share their stories anonymously on his company Web site, vrsam.com.

“I am about sick over this situation,” one woman wrote. “Our two young boys have to go without seeing Daddy until we can sell our house. Not only that, but we face the possibility of Daddy deploying to Iraq again. Shouldn’t we be able to spend as much time together until that happens?”

…so we make them sell their homes at a loss when they are moved by the Military, and then we kick them out of their jobs or even jail them for having financial difficulties that were created by their service. Oh yeah…and if they want to try to avoid selling their homes at a loss…they have to live away from their families for even longer than their tours of duty kept them away.

YIKES!

Doesn’t sound like supporting the troops to me. Kerry’s foreclosure relief bill sounds like a good start…but we owe more than a good start to our veterans, as well as to their families.

—Posted by Noetical, on Thu Nov 20, 2008 6:38 PM

To read all the Newsvine comments from this column, please follow this link:
*Veterans and the Economic Crisis Comments*

Which War Are We Losing Now?

I’ll never forget the day we finally won the Vietnam War. Now I’m not talking about March of 1973, when the last of the American combat soldiers left South Vietnam. I’m not referring to the 21st of January in 1977, when President Carter pardoned all the men who had “dodged” the draft during the war. No, the day I’m thinking of was one of the last days in February 1991, when the first President Bush declared a ceasefire in the first Gulf War. That was a mere one hundred hours after the ground campaign started and not long before we began to move 540,000 American troops out of the Persian Gulf. I remember calling a bunch of friends and family back then, to tell them we had finally won the Vietnam War. It really felt like that at the time.

My father, unlike nearly three million Americans from his generation, never served in Vietnam. In fact, I was conceived in the mid-sixties specifically to keep my father from being drafted and, my birth at the end of 1966 managed to accomplish that goal. By the time fatherhood was no longer a way to defer the draft, my father was old enough to have missed compulsory service in Vietnam. He was lucky and so was I. Many children of my generation grew up with fathers haunted by their experiences fighting in that war, as well as those of coming home from the most unpopular war in US history.

While the way Americans think of the Vietnam War is complex, varied and has evolved, like many of my generation, I grew up believing that it was the first war that America had ever lost. Since it was also the only full-blown war during my lifetime, while I was growing up, the military seemed to live under the dark cloud of its failure. So when Bush announced the end of the relatively brief and successful war in the Persian Gulf, suddenly people were acting as though this had been some kind of a mulligan…like we had finally been granted the opportunity to redeem ourselves with a war that we not only had won, but had won handily with hardly any casualties. We had finally won the Vietnam War!

A decade and a half ago, when President Bush and his advisors decided to go to war with Iraq, they knew it was a risky proposition politically. They knew it would need to be an unmitigated success. To this end, they limited their objectives in order to maximize their chances of achieving them. In a speech on April 27, 1991, entitled, “The Gulf War: A First Assessment,” then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney explained the administration’s thinking along these lines:

Should we, perhaps, have gone in to Baghdad? Should we have gotten involved to a greater extent then we did? Did we leave the job in some respects unfinished? I think the answer is a resounding “no.”

One of the reasons we were successful from a military perspective was because we had very clear-cut military objectives. The President gave us an assignment that could be achieved by the application of military force. He said, “Liberate Kuwait.” He said, “Destroy Saddam Hussein’s offensive capability,” his capacity to threaten his neighbors — both definable military objectives. You give me that kind of an assignment, I can go put together, as the Chiefs, General Powell, and General Schwarzkopf masterfully did, a battle plan to do exactly that. And as soon as we had achieved those objectives, we stopped hostilities, on the grounds that we had in fact fulfilled our objective.

Today I was reading an Op-Ed piece from the New York Times called, “Home Alone,” by Danielle Trussoni, about her father’s difficulties as a Vietnam Veteran, in which she mentions that, “It saddens him to watch a new generation of soldiers going off to fight what is becoming an increasingly unpopular war.” So how did we get here from there?

For answers, we need look no further than the architects of the first Gulf War. In the same speech from 1991, Cheney demonstrates an eerily portentous understanding of the pitfalls involved in removing Hussein from power, as he defends the administration’s decision not to during the first Gulf War:

I think if we were going to remove Saddam Hussein we would have had to go all the way to Baghdad, we would have to commit a lot of force because I do not believe he would wait in the Presidential Palace for us to arrive. I think we’d have had to hunt him down. And once we’d done that and we’d gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his government, then we’d have had to put another government in its place.

What kind of government? Should it be a Sunni government or Shi’i government or a Kurdish government or Ba’athist regime? Or maybe we want to bring in some of the Islamic fundamentalists? How long would we have had to stay in Baghdad to keep that government in place? What would happen to the government once U.S. forces withdrew? How many casualties should the United States accept in that effort to try to create clarity and stability in a situation that is inherently unstable?

I think it is vitally important for a President to know when to use military force. I think it is also very important for him to know when not to commit U.S. military force. And it’s my view that the President got it right both times, that it would have been a mistake for us to get bogged down in the quagmire inside Iraq.

It’s just too bad that Cheney didn’t heed his own advice. I guess that’s what you get when you elect flip-floppers.

My Thought for the Day…

The other day I was listening to an interview with John Crawford, author of The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq
on the Al Franken Show. When asked about dealing with the fear of getting blown up while on tour in Iraq, he explained that he couldn’t really go around actively thinking about the danger he was in or he wouldn’t have been able to function. Instead, he explained, it was more like walking around with that nagging feeling you get when you’re driving too fast and you know it’s dangerous.

Well, I certainly don’t have the kind of daily danger in my life that a soldier in Iraq does. Nonetheless, this metaphor seems apt for the way I feel sometimes, in a world where I believe our leaders are at best idiotic, incompetent, negligent and obtuse and at worst, corrupt, opportunistic, malevolent, depraved and repressive. Each day a new issue riles, irritates or terrifies me. These feelings have become this generalized anxiety that I live with, like I’m in a car that’s going a bit too fast…and unfortunately my idiotic tenth cousin once removed (yes, I’m really related to Bush, but I didn’t vote for him) is the driver. That said, I am mostly sanguine about the world and its future.

I find that talking about the issues that bother me helps me to diffuse the anxiety, as it allows me to feel that I’ve made some active contribution to changing that which I fear or dislike. I know we don’t usually think of discussion as being an act of change, but it really can be. Whenever I engage in public discourse, whether it’s in someone’s living room or here on this little slice of cyberspace, I think of myself as being a part of this giant forge in which we all heat, hammer and shape our thoughts. I believe in this process, even though most of the dents we each make in the communal metal are imperceptible.

In addition to reading the news each day in the New York Times, I also consume a variety of opinions each day from talk radio, the Times Op-ed section, various blogs, magazines and cable news shows. We live in an age where there are so many voices contributing to the public dialogue that it can sometimes seem like a meaningless cacophony. While this may be overwhelming sometimes, I consider this superfluity of opinion to be a quality problem that I’m happy to have. I don’t agree with every opinion I read, but each helps me to see an issue from a new perspective and helps me to test or temper my own.

And that’s my thought for the day =-)

Are We Still In Iraq?

This is a reeeelllly long email that I wrote in October of 2002 in response to a bunch of impassioned emails that my family was writing to each other at the time about whether or not we should go to war with Iraq (it was right after Bush’s resolution, back when we still thought Iraq might have WMDs.)

The first part is my take on the pros and cons of going to war with Iraq at the time…while I cannot include all of the emails from my family’s exchange, in order to protect their privacy, with her permission, I have included an email my Aunt Jeanine wrote. It is my hope that this will provide the necessary context, as it also includes snippets from some of the emails sent by various family members on the topic, which inspired/instigated my email to them.

(FROM Noetical:)

Dear All:

I will admit that my first thought when I saw all these emails was “oh no, this side of the family is just as dysfunctional as everyone else in my crazy extended family…somehow that had escaped my notice for 36 years.  But as I began to really read, I came to realize that while my initial realization does in fact hold some truth, I am grateful to be a part of a family whose members hold strong, impassioned values and beliefs…and have the intellect and will to express them.

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry began his famous speech, which inspired Virginia to join in the American Revolution with words reflecting this tradition: “No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope that it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve.”

It is the very act of engaging in such a dialogue that distinguishes us from many other societies…not just because we are “free” to (there are many over the course of the years since 1776 who could attest to the fact that “freely expressed” ideas led to their persecution, and sometimes even death)…but rather because we are a people who consider it a responsibility to stand up our ideas and ideals.

I might not always feel proud of “America” as a government, world force or world leader…but I always feel proud to be an American. Nationalism, just as most “isms” are, is a movement, sentiment I have come to distrust and even fear. I think of it as a curtain that governments draw so that we cannot see what the “wizard” is up to…as though we can not be trusted to understand or reason in the face of complex issues. I ask not for the right to decide what to do about the situation in Iraq, but rather for the freedom to know, to discuss and to participate in a national debate without being labeled as “Anti-American.”

There has been much talk of Hitler on both sides and personally I think that we should all learn more history…there must be other times, other monsters from mankind’s recorded past from whom we can learn.  Hitler was a manifestation of the particular circumstances that existed during that moment of our past.  While there are many lessons to be learned from our interactions with Germany during that time, please remember that one of the most valuable lessons we have learned from our past mistakes is that history can help us understand the present…but cannot adequately define it.

The world stage and human condition continues to increase infinitely in complexity, making many of our assumptions and responses to a given crisis obsolete each every evolving moment. We imperil ourselves both physically and morally if we try to define our leaders, villains and movements of today with analogies which only serve as limited pieces of rhetoric designed to win our respective arguments…this is made most evident by the fact that BOTH sides are using Hitler to quickly stigmatize each other.  Yes our world has been forged by our past…each war, each momentous event gives form to our thoughts, our understanding. But who we are and what we do is a new and unique entity that merely resembles the progenitors from whom we have inherited this earth. In order to move forward wisely during this crisis, we must strive to understand, to the best of our abilities, the ways in which the unique circumstances of this place in time must be addressed.

Albert Einstein once said, reflecting this very sentiment at the dawn of the atomic age, “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…”  He knew that we must begin to comprehend the incomprehensible if we were ever going to survive in a world in which we were newly capable of the incomprehensible…this was back in the 50s when all the existing plans for the Vietnam situation included the use of nuclear weapons.

That said, I think we can look to our past for better understanding of our present. At 7 p.m. on Monday, October 22, 1962, President Kennedy appeared on television to inform Americans of the Cuban missile crisis. In this speech he reveals some of the internal struggle that guided his response to the crisis:

“The 1930’s taught us a clear lesson: aggressive conduct, if allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged ultimately leads to war. This nation is opposed to war. We are also true to our word. Our unswerving objective, therefore, must be to prevent the use of these missiles against this or any other country, and to secure their withdrawal or elimination from the Western Hemisphere.”

Kennedy was not only a product of WWII, but furthermore felt personal shame from the fact that his father had been an active supporter of the early policy of appeasement toward Hitler in the ’30s.  By the time he was faced with the Cuban missile crisis, it had become conventional wisdom that Hitler could have been stopped short and WWII avoided had his aggression been checked years earlier.  No one can know whether or not this is true, but Kennedy wisely saw that whether or not it was true, the situation confronting him had unique aspects which called for a unique response. His belief in the absolute intolerability of a nuclear presence so near our boarders was countered by his fear of retaliation against the people of Berlin, should we act precipitously. There are many ways in which the Cuban missile crisis could have been resolved…but I believe that it was Kennedy’s determination to fully understand the various nuances of the situation in order to respond carefully and appropriately that led to a resolution that did not include nuclear holocaust.

In another part of that same speech by Kennedy, he speaks to concerns that many of us have about Iraq today:

“Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”

I do think that while the situation is different, these words reflect the feelings of those who consider Saddam’s actions to similarly constitute a direct and deadly threat.  While I agree with them as well as JFK that the mere possession of weapons of mass destruction by a country like Iraq constitutes a clear and present danger, I am not convinced that Iraq does have these weapons…I’ve seen the U2 surveillance photos of 1962…as did the world when Stevenson argued our position at the UN. I find it difficult to believe that forty years later our technology cannot manage to supply us with comparable evidence if in fact there is any.  If it really is true that Iraq is a direct and active menace to our lives, where’s the evidence…More proof, less rhetoric please. One of the ways our government got the scientists of the Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb was to convince them (many of them Jewish) that Hitler was hot on the trail of developing the same weapon…which of course turned out not to be true.  Regarding this, Einstein said in 1946: “If I had known that the Germans would not succeed in constructing the atom bomb, I would never have lifted a finger.”

Of course I think we should defend ourselves…but from whom and how?  I think we need to respect the complexity of the situation and respond with a clear understanding of what is actually going on.  Instead all I hear is rhetoric that challenges my patriotism whenever I question the government…

If there is anything I want to learn from the past, it is that we cannot react to situations because our leaders say “just cuz.”  They told us that all communists were evil…so we blacklisted them, feared them and persecuted them. One of the byproducts of the 1950s red scares was that any person with history or understanding of Asia was branded a “pinko” or a “commie” and was “purged” from the “intelligence” community and government. This is one of the reasons that the government so terribly misjudged so much of what happened during the years we fought in Vietnam. Most of the people who could have knowledgeably advised the President had been weeded out of his pool of advisors…Do we really think that Bush is including men in his circle who understand all the nuances of the situation in the middle-east? Yes, he has people who have waged war there, but does he have people who have spent the time to understand what it is to wage peace there? These are my concerns.

Ron Rosenbaum, in his New York Observer Article “Goodbye, All That: How Left Idiocies Drove Me to Flee,” from October 14, 2002, he gets mad when people respond to Sept. 11th with the sentiment that “maybe it’s a wake-up call for us to recognize how bad we are, Why They Hate Us.”  But the truth is that we MUST wake up and endeavor to understand their legitimate grievances, because there is no other way to begin to understand why they do what they do.  How do we fight and win a war if we don’t even understand what we are fighting against…I’m not saying that theirs is a better way of life than ours…not even close.  But my way of life has taught me to question why…and I question why because I have a belief that there is power in knowledge and danger in ignorance.  If I am willing to support a war for anything it will be both of and for knowledge.

Some have quoted Jeanine as saying, “No wonder they all hate us,” and respond by saying, “what one wonders is, how much do the people who say that HATE the USA themselves.  Do you really think that Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the rest of those people who hate us have a better form of government?”  My point is that there is no point to reacting to Jeanine’s effort to see the other side with a statement you know she doesn’t agree with. Of course she doesn’t think Iraq has a better form of government…and furthermore, I’m sure she doesn’t think that anyone who died on Sept. 11th “deserved it” because of US foreign policy.  But honestly, do you actually want to call off any real investigation into what the complex dynamics of the situation are by dismissing any questions as disloyal?  That just doesn’t sound like my family…and it certainly conflicts with many of the values you’ve managed to instill in me.

So anyway, let’s have a trial…let’s put Saddam on trial for crimes against our nation…and let’s see what he’s done, what he is planning. Did he participate in the conspiracy to blow up the world trade centers? Does he have nukes? Inquiring minds want to know. Pull back the curtain of nationalism and let’s have it out like Americans…freely and openly in pursuit of the truth and a better, safer world.  If Bush can give us facts and evidence to march toward war…I’ll get in line.  But I’m not willing to blindly and “patriotically” accept that Bush knows what’s best for me or my brothers.  We’re talking about asking our sons and even daughters to kill and die for something.  To use your analogy…if we’re going to send our children out to kill the guy who is threatening us…shouldn’t we make sure that it isn’t just a rumor…started by that guy up the street who never really liked him? Our constitution gave congress the responsibility of declaring war because war is a serious thing and the congress is a slow deliberate body that requires the participation of multiple points of view…a process which we have skipped in the past with poor results.

I do believe that this is a struggle between good and evil…I just don’t think that we can say that the US is good and Islam is evil…to me it is much more complicated.  Furthermore, to the extent that any struggle against evil entails good…how can we “fight the good fight” without remaining mindful of what is good?  Surely the sanctity of life, even Muslim life, is paramount.  Cesar Chavez once said of violent action that “…If you use violence, you have to sell part of yourself for that violence. Then you are no longer a master of your own struggle.” Don’t let us loose what is good about America in our fervor to defend it. Chavez also said of violence that it “just hurts those who are already hurt…Instead of exposing the brutality of the oppressor, it justifies it.”  If we really are going to win a war against the ‘Islamo-fascists’ we must also win the war of minds.  You can say to the guy in Baghdad that you’re there to save him from the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, but ultimately it doesn’t go over as well when you’ve just bombed his house and killed his wife and children.

All that said, I guess what I’m really saying in response to the poll is that the jury is still out with me…I want to see more than just the opening and closing arguments of the prosecutor before I vote on the verdict.  The whole thing scares me and I hope we survive…sometimes I worry that we won’t…on the same days I think how lucky we were to have Kennedy on the switch in 1962.

Maybe nothing can help America and the ‘Islamo-fascists’ have a meeting of the minds. Voltaire said it well back in 1764: “What can we say to a man who tells you that he would rather obey God than men, and that therefore he is sure to go to heaven for butchering you? Even the law is impotent against these attacks of rage; it is like reading a court decree to a raving maniac.”  But the court of world opinion is populated by many who have yet to come to a verdict.  All I’m saying is that the process is important…even if the maniacs don’t get it.  It isn’t for them anyway, it’s for us.  Well, if you’ve gotten this far, you probably need a nap…I love you all and thanks for reading my rant.

Love, Noetical.

SO THAT WAS MY TAKE. FOLLOWING ARE SOME OF THE THINGS MY FAMILY WROTE THAT LED TO MY RANT:

on 10/10/2002 4:00 PM, Jeanine wrote: I’m taking a poll. A quick “YES” or “NO” will suffice…although a paragraph would be great, too. Thanks.

Q. Do you agree with the passage of the president’s Iraq resolution?

Answers as of 10/11/02:

Noetical’s Grandmother: “No. But I guess it is a done deed now.  We’ll just have to pray that he has sense enough to show a little restraint.”

Noetical’s Uncle: “No. I believe we need to take a strong position. However, we must build consensus and we should use the United Nations. We should do everything possible not to be viewed as an aggressor. I believe the benefit of taking out Iraq does not at this time overshadow the negative of world reaction and the possibility of setting off the entire Muslim nation against us. It will be a short-lived victory, solving little, unless we are reacting to outward aggression by Iraq. I fear that simple minded Bush either doesn’t understand the risk, or is simply using this for political gain, trying to detract from other problems at home, such as the economy. Sorry this wasn’t a short answer.”

Noetical’s Cousin: (He is busy with school and admits he hasn’t enough info to form an opinion, yet. I’ll bias him!)

Noetical’s Other Cousin: (I don’t have his email address. But I have reason to believe he would say “NO!!”)

Noetical: (No response yet.)

Noetical’s Brother, Morgan: “Nuke ‘em says I.”

Noetical’s Sister In-law, Julia: No. I do not agree. I don’t believe we should wage war on Iraq without the support of the UN or the world community. . .”

Noetical’s Sister, Mariah: “No. I’d say more, but I don’t want to convulse and foam at the mouth right before bed.”

Noetical’s Sister, Megan: (taken a bit out of context): “No. …Our government is out of control. I think a riot is long overdue.”

Noetical’s Aunt, Jeanine: “This resolution is more than the ok for Bush to bomb Iraq. It transfers the power vested in Congress (by the constitution) to the President (one man), giving him the right to declare war whenever and wherever HE sees fit—without discussion from we-the-people. It also sets an arrogant, outrageous precedent for other nations to violently aggress against their own enemies (“Well, the U.S. does it.”). If this is not ok for other countries to do, why is it ok for us to do? Have we no shame? No wonder the world hates us!

Should we bomb Iraq right now? Absolutely not. Not without UN support. Not without proof that danger from Iraq is eminent. Not for votes. Not for oil. Not to distract us from the REAL risks to homeland security: an economy, education and healthcare system in shambles.

Can you tell which is the Terrorist Nation? Personally, I think the U.S. needs a regime change.”

END OF FAMILY EMAIL SNIPPETS

OKAY, well…that’s me and part of my family…at least when it comes to politics. I hope you found this interesting.

Best, Noetical.