"I can tell you've been a soldier by the way you stand."
Seems to me that an even more obvious clue ought to be that paper headed "Honorable Discharge. "
25
The United States has had 2.7 million people serve in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. What are we doing for them?
Politicians have no problem talking about big military budgets for future weapons of war. Big ships, fast planes, rugged tanks. Very rarely do they talk about putting more effort into supporting the millions of vets of WW2, Korea, Vietnam, up to the current deployments. Counseling, job skills, mental health, financial aide, etc.
They don't need another empty platitude thanking them for their service, they need real, substantial support.
45
As a veteran of Vietnam, I found that Kipling's poem "Tommy" captured this perfectly in its last stanza.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!”
39
I have always thought that every enlistee/draftee(?) should be required to read Kipling's poem, "Tommy" prior to induction.
17
@jim allen That was my very first thought when I read this article.
3
the Federal government has never been good about taking care of veterans, since the Revolution. This is nothing now, and neither is PTSD and the constellation of related traumatic disorders. It is good for the Times to remind us of this, along with the graphic reminders to "buck up" that continue to be aimed at veterans of our many wars since.
16
Don't forget the 'Bonus Army'. It's shameful the way the government waged war on its own WWI vets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
35
I notice that there are no African-American soldiers depicted. This was still the era of Jim Crow and although they were asked to fight they were all expected to embrace degradation and servitude as their reward.
Woodrow Wilson was a segregationist and his racist policies were a disgrace not to mention the numerous black GI's that were lynched merely on the basis of daring to return home in uniform - most likely the only decent clothing they had at the time of their discharge.
57
I always wondered if it was different for veterans from World War 1or 2 returning to adjust to normal life. I suspected it couldn’t have been, that they were just told to “ get on with it.” I couldn’t see how they could not have had the same nightmares, personality changes, feeling of isolation and hopelessness that today’s veterans have. This article makes it clear that they did, that soldiers returning home have always shared the same experiences. It is heartbreaking. When we send our sons and daughters to war, we need funding, policies, and education to know how to welcome them back home.
31
Better yet, let's get out of the war business & spend the money on healthcare, education, etc.
119
The grunts serving as cannon fodder on the front lines are always the losers in a war and so are the civilians caught up in a conflict, regardless of which side wins. But let's not forget that there are also winners. For example, where would Hollywood be today without war, especially WWII, the most costly of all to date? Tens of millions of lives were lost, amd in the wake of that huge tragedy fortunes in the millions have been and still are being made. Perverse? Yes, but sadly, that's human nature.
9
In 1987 I was in a shop selling I don't remember what and was examining a framed poster which was nothing but words which you would be familiar with if you had been in VN. The guy who owned the shop asked me if I had been there: "Welcome home, he said." He was the second (and last) person to say that to me. The first was my father, who said it when he picked me up at the airport in 1967.
I find the current "thank you for your service" which I hear every time ("active service military" are called to board planes early, tedious, and meaningless. There's another entire generation of working class (and immigrant) people carrying the weight of this country while the rest profit and have no clue what service is. This country needs a national service initiative for young people, whether military or in some other role, and male and female both. Two years is about right.
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@ARTICULATUS STREICHEM
I would add that maybe we need a recurring service initiative. That is sort of like getting ones car inspected. Maybe every 10-15 years, with no deferments, where middle-age and older adults - serve in some capacity. If only for extended weekends. It need not be strictly military in type. But in service of the nation and most importantly its people.
Service is not all about dressing up like soldiers and learning to fight. It could be and should be about other forms. A domestic Peace Corps sort of thing. A year of once a month weekends working for the local government helping them modernize, etc. Once a month go fix a senior citizens home. A community center.
Service is like a muscle...its needs to be worked-out to stay supple and useful. And Americans in this age are far to apathetic and eager to let it happen as long as they dont have to be involved..."let someone else take care of it...I have to binge-watch my shows!"
17
@ARTICULATUS STREICHEM Yes. So that they could learn how vast this nation is in people and ideas and histories.
8
@ARTICULATUS STREICHEM My youngest son (Army, three Afghan tours in six years) would respond to "thank you for your service" with "and thank you for our underfunded VA hospitals and inadequate body armor."
43
All the casualties of war, military and civilian, get short shrift, and the effects that spread outward from their immediate trauma get even shorter shrift. I was well into my twenties before it occurred to me that there was anything unusual about a father who woke up screaming every night, or about the fact that neither of my parents would or could speak about their young adulthood. Faulkner said it best: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
34
A stanza from Country Joe and the Fish's "Vietnam Rag" goes:
Come on fathers across the land
Send your boys off to Vietnam
Hurry now don't hesitate
Send him off before it's too late
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
In a few months, it will be 50 years since I stepped off a plane and into Vietnam. We saw and dealt with real, actual carnage (not the current president's concept of "carnage") in our forward aid station on the Cambodian border, the wounded's first stop on their way to the mobile hospital in Tay Ninh or to 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon.
I was never in direct combat in the form of a firefight, but I still remember, as if it happened 30 minutes ago, the truncated limbs, skulls blown open, loops of intestines spilling over the sides of litters.
I have believed for almost 50 years now, the luckiest of those who actually endured combat, came home in those "boxes."
55
In the wars this nation has been in since Vietnam we look at the death tolls and think "Well, that wasn't so bad." We fail to see the many more thousands of lives ruined by the involvement of our military men and women in wars that should never have started. The world has to do something too prevent wars. Our "no more wars" President continues to push this country into potential conflict by his ignorance and bluster. When will mankind realize the futility of armed conflict?
25
Seems like we are making progress in terms of helping soldiers who have returned from war. As for me and my fellow Vietnam Vets, nothing other than a pat on the back, final paycheck, and a one-way ticket home. We were also expected to blend back into society just as those who returned from WW1. But let me tell you, war never leaves you, it stays with you from the day you landed in the war zone until your final day on earth. Some people still don't understand that and that's a shame.
43
Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. The objective of all soldiers is to win the peace. War is the failure of our political leaders not soldiers. It is easy to swing the stick. As long as there are bad guys that do bad things there have to be good guys that do bad things better. Leadership is essential at all levels to ground this out. It starts at the top...
3
I left the Army after six years and started a job in the corporate world, and the kind of advice in the posters, those corny, is not bad advice. No one who has not served is going to really understand what military service is, so the best option for a veteran is to try to be better than those around him. Again, the advice may seem insensitive, but it is not bad advice at the end of the day.
10
@Numidica I must take minor insult to your point that no one but those who served in the military understand the "ideas" in those posters. Or any such messages, be they as old as these or younger.
Not every civilian is undisciplined. Doesn't understand that being clean and fit is a positive. That they can try and bring service to their community. That standing up straight, and having a positive attitude is integral to integration. Or that they can make people and things around better!
Seriously. Im a civilian,and I hold all these and more as important,and markers for how to live my life, and what to example to my family.
Plus, I know plenty of vets, in wartime, or "peace"...who are slovenly, undisciplined and gave up on their fitness a long time ago. They came back to civilian life, and threw all that training out and never looked back.
I might not know military service from experience, but I fully comprehend and embrace the many lessons taught...and learned them all on my own! In a world that often looks at discipline and a straight spine (and all that means) as freakish.
7
The main theme in the book and movie, CATCH 22, is no sane person would want to be in a war. There are no winners in war. It is hell itself. And as a species and a nation, we will never learn from our mistakes.
41
It would be of interest to learn how other warring nations have treated their veterans.
16
The fantasy writer JRR Tolkien fought in WWI and the result of that trauma runs all through The Lord of the Rings. Read the ending chapters of The Return of the King and you'll get a sense of the trauma and sadness of Lt. Tolkien returning home from the Battle of the Somme.
29
Grassroots America was well aware of the shameful neglect suffered by veterans of "The Great War."
In 1937, RCA Bluebird Records released a single of "The Forgotten Soldier Boy," recorded by the popular early country music duo the Monroe Brothers (Bill -- the future "Father of Bluegrass" -- and older sibling Charlie).
Composed by Bert Layne, the song ends with these poignant and powerful verses:
"They promised gold and silver, and bid us all adieu.
"They said they'd welcome us back home when the terrible war was through.
"We fought until the war was o'er, they said we'd won the fight,
"But we have no job or money, no place to sleep at night.
"They called us wandering boys bums, asking for shelter and bread
"Although we fought in no man's land and a-many poor boy is dead.
"So listen to my story and lend a helping hand
"To the poor forgotten soldier boy who fought to save our land."
Clearly, two decades after the armistice, the plight of many ex-soldiers was still a painfully recognized issue.
74
We, who are about to die, salute you.
1
@Michael W. Espy Are you familiar with the song No Man's Land (YouTube, Eric Bogel).
1
Deep inside, those who did not fight knew all too well what these men did. Calling it "war" does not excuse the most brutal of men's instincts.....legalized murder on a grand scale. The fact that returning soldiers are shunned and they themselves cannot speak of what they did is testimony of their actions. I say commanders-in-chiefs (by law) should be forced to lead troops into battle along with their congressional generals.
26
Soldiers in war experience what no other fellow citizen not exposed to the same physical and mental punishment will ever understand or comprehend. Without this understanding, decision makers Stateside can never have the awareness or interpretation necessary to provide the succor these veterans need and deserve.
9
@NOTATE REDMOND, I have mixed feelings about your opening sentence; it often seems to be forgotten that plenty of civilians have experienced war, and also that war, while unique in many ways, is not the only form of prolonged, terrifying, life-threatening trauma; there are other forms, and those too are unique in their own ways. I'm not sure, for example, how one would weigh up the experience of prolonged violent abuse in childhood, which is common enough, against the experience of combat.
I don't *at all* mean that you, specifically, are minimizing other forms of trauma as against that of war. It's just that the "Nobody can understand war" trope is often hauled out as though there were no other suffering comparable in its extremity and incomprehensibility, and I think there's something worth unpacking there.
11
Rudolph Tandler is the artist signature on the "Report for Work poster.
The WWI War poets give wonderful insight to the ends of these soldiers. (Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Graves, Rosenberg, Seegar).
6
This brought to mind the story of the Bonus Army that Hoover ordered McArthur to crush in D.C. during the Depression. Patton was also involved and Eisenhower wrote a report whitewashing it. An interesting episode in our history.
33
@Thomas - are you a vet? Why not? There’s another interesting episode for you to consider.
My mom and hers were in downtown DC that day when the teargas filled the air and Doug was cleaning the streets.
10
One more footnote to the revolting folly of unnecessary war.
14
Unfortunately we see this same level of neglect in the way this country still treats returning veterans and their families today as Hayden saw after World War I.
Nothing much has changed. Once the soldiers have done their jobs for the plutocrats and politicians they go from the status of expendable assets to persistent liabilities to be shed as quickly as possible. Once the money has been made the capitalists only want to cut their cleanup costs.
An aside: I also find the Gordon Grant illustrations rather racist and sexist. They depict white middle class or upper class northern european Protestant men as Upright soldier with the exception of the one slovenly soldier who has distinctly heavy set Celtic features. The ethnic implications seem pretty clear.
22
@Richard From Massachusetts The era of the "Great War" was decidedly racist and misogynist. It was the era of Woodrow Wilson, who screened D.W. Griffith's racist "Birth of a Nation," which glorified the Klan, in the White House and who re-segregated Federal employees in Washington, D.C. Black service-members were segregated and restricted to menial tasks, labor battalions, and in the Navy, to mess-cooking and boiler-tenders. It was the same during World War II and didn't change until President Truman de-segregated the armed forces by executive order. I saw vestiges of that racism while serving in a squadron on an aircraft carrier in 1969-1970.
The treatment of women ws likewise abhorrent. Rumors abounded that service-women were either sexually promiscuous, or lesbians, which explained their presence in the military.
Only in the current era of the volunteer military, are the services addressing these problems as necessary to retain experienced service-members, with the worst aspects of racism and misogyny being eliminated.
4
@Richard From Massachusetts a lot has changed in the military and with veterans relative to WWI and WWII, and even from the Vietnam conflict. Opportunities for women opened up in a way that was never possible prior to about 1974. Before that women had all kinds of restrictions placed on them while serving, restrictions that are not applicable today, to include a societal view that women who served were either prostitutes or looking for a husband.
The ushering in of the all volunteer force have demanded changes occur, and the military of my parents generation (both my parents served), was far different than my long military career. I had opportunities not afforded to my Mom.
The treatment I have received from the VA for the past 15 years has been excellent, and they are my first choice of healthcare providers, so far.
3
Great article - thank you for this.
Shell shock or trauma was removed from the DSM just before the Viet Nam war began - no one has explored why this occurred, which frankly is strange and suspicious. Why is this relevant? If the doctors couldn't diagnose a problem per the DSM handbook, it couldn't be treated or funded.
PTSD was restored to the DSM because of lobbying efforts by Viet Nam vets who couldn't get treated for PTSD as a result of their war experiences. The story behind the removal of shell shock or ptsd from the DSM would be interesting to know. It certainly was a first
27
@Kyzl Orda
The DSM is more about politics than about science.
10
No one ever wins a war in reality. Everyone involved pays a price. Only in history books there is a winner.
20
The article doesn't say very much about something that many of the posters allude to: the large number of returning soldiers who suffered from venereal disease as a result of what was called "horizontal recreation" while overseas.
VD still wasn't mentioned in polite society, but I doubt any serviceman couldn't see what was one of those "souvenirs" picked up on the battlefield.
And with regard to those suicides among vets, it's important to remember that prior to introduction of penicillin, tertiary syphilis was one of the leading causes of mental illness.
30
@Steve
interesting point; when you say "it's important to remember that ...., tertiary syphilis was one of the leading causes of mental illness."
Tertiary syphilis takes a number of years to present: so soldiers unwell in 1919-20; as described here; might have had primary syphilis; and perhaps a short bout of secondary;
but I would suggest not tertiary.That might be 10-15yrs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis#Tertiary
2
@Fred Jones It wasn't until many years after the Vietnam War, when the Armed Forces stopped looking the other way when service members engaged in "horizontal recreation; it was the HIV and AIDS pandemics which caused the Pentagon to formally place bordellos "Off Limits" and making patronizing practitioners of the "worlds oldest profession" a Court-Martial offense.
4
@Mike 71 it was after World War II that Article 134-38 - Pandering and Prostitution World made prostitution and patronizing a prostitute became punishable under the UCMJ. In fact, during WWII a health campaign that warned United States soldiers stated, "You cannot beat the Axis, if you get VD."
The issue was addressed decades before the HIV and AID pandemics.
2
well, it seems with every war more is learned about how to treat returning soldiers...maybe if we fight enough wars we'll finally get it right...or maybe just stop with these wars in the first place...
35
And has our treatment of returning soldiers changed? Months waiting to be seen at the VA hospital clinic? Employers who refuse to hire them? A charity paying for day to day care instead of the US government funding the care of the people who VOLUNTEERED to defend our freedom? For shame America!
29
World War I was horrific in every respect. Imagine surviving trench warfare, primitive armor and artillery, and disease only to come home to a set of societal expectations that you were required to live up to, lest your image be tarnished forever.
I find the artwork to be a neat period piece. But the message it sends is very sad, especially the illustration under the headline. Who knows what demons the “slovenly” soldier is still fighting, as opposed to the “crisp and clean” specimen to his left — who may also be fighting his own inner battles?
The perspectives we gain about war, across the decades...
Interesting story.
16
So, what do you do with your army after the war? The Romans gave them farms far from Rome itself. Charles of France, sent them off to conquer Basel, Switzerland to die by the thousands on the ends of those Swiss pikes and thus eliminate the social costs of having an idle army loafing around Paris. Our founding fathers gave Revolution veterans land in the west, as far away from eastern cities as they could be sent. After that the ultimate treatment of war veterans everywhere was pretty much left to fate. I don't have a good solution.
11
@Mark Kinsler
Same with Mao, who sent human-wave attacks into North Korea,
5
@Mark Kinsler In the 1700s, Sweden gave a house and plot of land to soldiers who served honorably in its wars on the continent. Those that came back got them. In those days, the king might have set out for wars in present-day Germany with 17000 men, and returned with less than 5000. Sweden also bestowed new family names like "the Oak", "Sharpshooter" on some of the more heroic soldiers, replacing Johnson, Svenson, etc.
5
Woodrow Wilson had won re-election in 1916 with the slogan "he kept us out of war". But when Wilson saw the war's tide finally turning towards the allies, he employed a "born on third base" tactic and jumped in so that he could impose his grandiose ideas on the armistice agreement.
The doughboys meant nothing to Wilson; they were simply pawns for his self-aggrandizement.
12
@Charles
The Zimmermann Telegram and the German general diplomatic bungling notwithstanding.
1
@Charles It was no different under Lyndon Johnson, who in early 1964, said: "I will not be sending American boys to do what Asian boys should be doing for themselves." Like Wilson, he lied, and Nixon, who succeeded him and had a "secret plan" to end the war, lied as well, as revealed by the "Pentagon Papers."
4
Always remember: the men who start the wars are not the same as those who have to fight them.
105
In order to satisfy a "never let a crisis go to waste" neoconservative political agenda, spurned on by post 9/11 patriotism, threats of non existent WMD etc., today's returning veterans, who volunteered to serve their country, went to war.
"Mission Accomplished!"
Bush, Cheney and their political strategist Rove are triumphant.
Now they're gone.
And the unpleasant aftermath sets in.
PTSD, an over stressed VA system, substance abuse disorders etc. remain. All predictable consequences of war.
"Welcome Home. Thank you for your service."
You served your purpose. Time to be "normal" again.
The war continues. Abroad and at home.
Good Luck.
10
I hope we learn from the past and do more to help veterans readjust to society. The article relates to events that happened almost 100 years ago but with few changes still happens today. We should do more to address the alarming suicide rate of veterans. They protected us we should help them. This should not be a partisan issue, all our politicians should support our troops and our veterans. Thank you for this perspective.
16
Yes, we’ve learned a lot in the past hundred years about how to treat combat veterans even if we have much, much more to learn.
(I always thought much of the gun violence present in the Wild West of the 1870s and 1880s was a result of Civil War veterans not quite having a handle on civilian life. Could be wrong...)
As for the posters, there’s nothing wrong with sentiments behind them. Too bad as a society now afraid to set standards, we don’t have similar posters about sloth, violence, substance abuse, etc.
44
@EGD "Too bad as a society now afraid to set standards, we don’t have similar posters about sloth, violence, substance abuse, etc." Maybe we substitute poster-based education for peer-reviewed and funded public education? Perhaps we create opportunities for Americans, rather than decry general vices that often fail to have just one cause? And, when you say, "Too bad as a society now afraid to set standards," who in society would set those standards? How would we make sure that these standards are not set by some moralizing blow-hard that dreams wistfully of an imaginary time before the present.
20
Even though I live in the states, it sounds like you’re describing a different country when you suggest that substance abuse and sloth are not roundly condemned here.
In case you didn’t notice, there’s a whole political party whose success basically revolves around identifying and labeling the indolent. These accusations don’t have to be true to be effective, and I suggest we go the other way and make room for compassion and perspective toward those we view as slothful.
17
@Austin However, there is another political party which seems to endorse indolence and not taking responsibility for one's self. It offers free medical care to illegal immigrants, free college, free income and nearly free everything else. It offers free cradle to grave socialism, irrespective of whether you served your country in the Armed Forces, or not!
3
The military's sense of obligation evolves with every war. I'm in the Army so can't speak to the Sister Services, but when I first enlisted in '02 there wasn't much. Now, any Soldier preparing to leave attends a laundry list of classes that cover everything from educational benefits to housing, finding a job to writing a resume to practicing interviews (SFL-TAP). The entire process is weeks long, and Soldiers can start it 18 months before their ETS date. It can be tailored for whatever the Soldier wants to do immediately upon leaving the Army, so the classes are adjusted to cover more or less of a topic area. There are also monthly job fairs so employers can get a sense of their potential employees before they even leave the Service. Units are required to send their Soldiers through the program, so there's not generally a problem with giving the Soldier time to get it all done.
This all appeared in the last decade or so, once it became clear how Iraq and Afghan vets weren't coping on the outside. I imagine SFL-TAP will continue to expand over time. Getting out certainly isn't the long fall off a short dock it used to be.
54
That sounds excellent. I'm not sure what the Canadian forces do. In many respects we treat our vets dismally.
1
@Alexandra
“Getting out isn’t the long fall off a short dock it used to be” ... until you approach the VA medical system, which is underfunded and overwhelmed.
4
Interesting article that helps show the history of medical and social awareness of PTSD. I don’t know why we seem so reluctant to see the true scope and cost of war beyond battlefield tactics and technology. If we did, we all might be more likely to find other ways to resolve our issues.
62
There is more profit in making war than peace. If put to a vote, the people would rarely choose war. The motivation for war usually starts at the top where the greatest of wealth and egos dwell. "Rich man's war - poor man's fight" is usually the case.
140
@ggmeade
Profit, for those( usurers) that generate the loans collateralized by debt, that is loaned to the government at compound interest- and don’t forget the international weapons industry. These two, always win every war.
11