Land of the free should find way to take care of its brave
When Army Maj. Tammy Duckworth came home to the suburbs after leaving both legs and almost an arm on the battlefield in Iraq, she said something I had heard all my life from my dad, who was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and flew 25 bombing missions over Japan before coming home to be a farmer and a family man.
"I'm just a soldier," Duckworth told the media during a ceremony to mark Tammy Duckworth Day in Illinois. "I was just there doing my job."
Her job was in the U.S. military. She's a veteran -- just like 23.7 million others in the United States, including 1,003,572 people in Illinois.
Sunday, we honor their service with a holiday now associated with half-priced sales on linens and discounted electronic gadgets. The original holiday (called Armistice Day) was celebrated on 11/11/1919 -- the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress made Nov. 11 a national holiday in 1938, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name in 1954 to Veterans Day.
While the holiday often seems dedicated to "the greatest generation" who won "the good war" of World War II, it is a holiday honoring all veterans.
People rarely dub today's troops the greatest generation -- in part, because the people fighting our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and serving our nation at home and abroad hail from several generations. Troops killed in action so far this century include teenagers, young adults, middle-aged folks and some grandparents.
Sacrifice doesn't make value judgments about the worthiness of the cause. The Wheaton College soldier killed this week during a helicopter flight in Italy paid the same price as a female reservist ambushed in Iraq, a young father shot dead on a Normandy beach, a captured soldier massacred in Korea, a "grunt" who went to Vietnam and never came home, or a soldier who simply got lost during a training exercise and died of hypothermia and dehydration on his home base before he ever saw action.
While we should honor our aging veterans of World War II, we shouldn't forget the younger vets -- many who need services far beyond parades and flag-waving speeches.
In Illinois, we already have more Vietnam-era veterans than we do those from World War II. The number of Illinois vets from the first Gulf War and the current wars is growing daily and one day will surpass our Korean War veteran ranks.
In a study titled "Shock and Awe Hit Home," the Nobel Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility this week predicted that veterans of our currents wars will need more than $650 billion in health services once they come home. Already, the action in Iraq has left us with the highest percentage of amputees in any war since Abraham Lincoln left office.
Another study found that one out of every four homeless people is a veteran. Those who have served our nation often come home with lingering health and psychological problems and difficulty returning to the jobs and families they left during their time in the military.
Just as you can't go to war against a nation without planning for what comes next, a government shouldn't spend money waging war unless it is prepared to care for its warriors. Those men and women volunteer for duty so that our government doesn't have to draft anyone to fight our wars. That is worth something.
"It was," my dad and his B-29 buddies used to say matter-of-factly, "our job."
That job should come with benefits worthy of the sacrifice.