Never, Never, Never Forget The Veterans Of The Iraq War

Phil Brennan | February 3 2005

Comment: Unfortunately the writer is under the illusion that these people were maimed in the name of freedom for Iraqis. This website doesn't define institutionalized torture, iris scanning to re-enter towns, curfews, disarmament, masked secret police, outlawing of free speech, staged elections, taking people to detention camps for selling alcohol, not presenting their papers at checkpoints, or stealing wood, as freedom. However, the points made about crippled Vets are salient.

Every once in a while I read something so profoundly disturbing that I can't put it out of my mind. That happened the other day when I read a piece in the American Conservative by Fred Reed where he discussed the plight of the terribly badly wounded veterans of the Iraq war.

It should not have come as a surprise - I know that wars do dreadful harm to some of those who fight them - and although we mourn the dead, we seem to prefer not to think about those living but terribly maimed warriors whose lives have been forever changed.

My father lost his hearing in World War I. As I grew up his total deafness was one of the central facts of my life. It colored every aspect of my family's life. It was a burden he carried until the day he died. Yet he was one of the lucky ones - he was surrounded by an extended family that willingly shared his burden. There are others not so fortunate. They carry their burdens alone and forgotten for a lifetime.

Reed writes with bitterness - he is obviously no fan of the Bush administration's Iraq adventure, but he drives a stake through the hearts of those of us who support the struggle and praise the heroism of those in combat, weep for the families of the war dead, and manage to put out of our minds what to us is unthinkable - the fate of those whose wounds are horrible and permanent.

He writes about watching "the first meeting between a young Marine from the South, blind, much of his face shot away, and his high school sweetheart who had come from Tennessee to Bethesda Naval Hospital to see him," and the images that one short paragraph plants in my mind are going to remain there to haunt me for a long, long time.

Among Reed's points is the painful fact that many of these wounded will be forced to live with the disabling results of their wounds for the rest of their lives, and many will do so without the love and support of wives and children - and their fellow Americans.

Noting that we do not see much of the casualties he writes "yet they are there, somewhere, with missing legs, blind, becoming accustomed to groping at things in their new darkness, learning to use wheelchairs that will be theirs for 50 years. Some face worse than others. Quadriplegics will be warehoused in VA hospitals where nurses will turn them at intervals, like hamburgers, to prevent bedsores. Friends and relatives will forget them.

"Arms do not grow back," he reminds us. "For the paralyzed there will never be girlfriends, dancing, rolling in the grass with children. The blind will adapt as best they can. Those with merely a missing leg will count themselves lucky. They will hobble about, managing to lead semi-normal lives."

While some of this is extreme - I doubt that many "friends and relatives will forget them - but he makes his point - the rest of us will.

Reed forecasts that many of these wounded warriors will sink into bitterness that sooner or later will turn into hatred of those who sent them to war. Maybe. But if bitterness does grow into hatred it should be for all of us who might be agonized by their plight now, but will simply put them out of our minds as time goes by.

Put yourself in their place. For the time being they are remembered by their fellow Americans but that will not last. The war will end, the world will move on to struggle with new troubles and horrors for that is the stuff of life, and the memory of the forever maimed and crippled will fade from our consciousness. And they will be alone.

We are reveling in the wake of the Iraqi elections, as well we might. Seeing the joy of the Iraqi people over having a chance to chose their own leaders and their own destiny should be a matter of pride and rejoicing for all Americans. We did a good and noble thing in freeing them from despotism, and among those responsible, are the permanently maimed who gave their future lives that Iraqis might be free.

We owe them and we have a debt to pay. Part of that payment must be a pledge that we will never, ever forget them. There are many ways we can keep that pledge. One is to be sure to that they are aware that their sacrifices will be remembered by all of us from now until our dying days.

There are organizations such as Wounded Warriors (http://www.woundedwarriors.org) who can tell you how to help them now and remember them in the future.

For my own part I promise that from now until the day I die I will take a few moments every day of my life to say a prayer for them and ask our Lord to bring them comfort and peace. You might think about doing the same. Its really not the least you can do for them, its the best thing you could do for them.

Never, never, never forget.

Pax Vobiscum