veterans

A Show of Support for Standing Rock Protestors

Valerie Taliman

Welcomed on site by Native veterans from many tribes and Lakota elders and youth, veterans are joining more than 11,000 water protectors camped along the Cannonball River who have gathered to protect their water supply, sacred cultural sites and burial grounds from further destruction by DAPL. In recent months, DAPL workers bulldozed irreplaceable sacred sites and burial grounds after court documents revealed their location; some compared this action akin to bulldozing Arlington Cemetery.

 

The Descendants: PTSD and the Latest Generation of War Casualties

Mike Mariani

While war may be hell in every generation in which it rears its bloody-horned head, the participants are never the same. There is simply no accounting for the differences between the men fighting in Afghanistan and those who fought in, say, the Guadalcanal. Because of this, we must not treat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as if they have a precedent. They do not. Theirs is a war of insidious casualties, where so much fighting takes place in the days, months and years after they've returned home. Although the same could be said for all modern American conflicts, the psychological struggles veterans face have seemingly become darker and more daunting in recent years. 

Forgetting the Iraq War

Andrew Lam

From New America Media: What is certain is that the war in Iraq claimed 4,487 American lives and left 32,226 Americans wounded, according to Pentagon statistics. According to Iraqbodycount.org, the number of Iraqis who died from violence ranges between 103,000 and 114,000. The United States spent nearly $3 trillion fighting it, and with another exorbitant war still waging in Afghanistan, the result is a bankrupt U.S. economy. After all, in 2000, the U.S. economy had a $230 billion surplus. In 2011, U.S. debt is at $15 trillion and growing. That’s $1.3 trillion a year going south.

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