Editorial Observer in the NYT, but I really recommend reading the whole article (it's not long). It tells the story of Pfc. Joseph Dwyer who died last month at home after serving honorably in Iraq.
He was 31 and very sick. For years he had been in and out of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. He was seized by fearful delusions and fits of violence and rage. His wife left him to save herself and their young daughter. When the police were called to Mr. Dwyer’s apartment on June 28, he was alone. They broke down the door and found him dying among pill bottles and cans of cleaning solvent that friends said he sniffed to deaden his pain...
His friends tried an intervention, showing up at his door in October 2005 and demanding his guns and cans of solvent. He refused to give them up.
Hours later, gripped by delusions, he shot up his apartment. He was glad when the SWAT team arrived, Ms. Knapp said, because then he could tell them where the Iraqis were. He was arrested and discharged, and later moved to Pinehurst, N.C. His parents tried to get him help, but nothing worked. “He just couldn’t get over the war,” his mother, Maureen, told a reporter. “Joseph never came home.”
The way we treat our veterans is a travesty. This isn't an issue that should cause divisions on partisan, ideological, or philosophical lines. This isn't an issue that needs to wait for a new Administration. Summer is a slow season, and, while Obama and McCain are focus group testing their fall ads, they should take some time out to say, together that our vetrans deserve better, and they should endorse a biparisan plan now. Pfc. Dwyer, and others like him, won't make it to January.
2 comments:
But just because there's a travesty in sight doesn't mean the state will provide the answer. I'm not arguing against you at all, because I agree that this is disgraceful and something has to be done, but I am asking for what the government can do to go towards preventing this sort of tragedy. (It seems like there is a solution which involves not getting involved in unnecessary wars, but obviously that's not a complete one.)
I think no unnecessary wars is a good start, but in any conflict, if the government commits troops, it implicitly agrees to provide them with the support they need (MRE's, body armor, and help readjusting on the homefront). If you can't run vetrans' services, you shouldn't go to war.
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