Would we send our daughters off to have sex if it would benefit our country? Yet, we send our sons off to kill when we think it would benefit our country!”
Leonard Ravenhill

Veterans and the Moral Wound of War

Micah 4:2-3 “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the Lord’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem. 3 The Lord will mediate between peoples and will settle disputes between strong nations far away. They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore."

On this Veteran's Day, I offer prayer and protest on a day where we are turing our hearts and minds to our Veterans. In light of our 11 years of ongoing war, please take some time today to read this short post on the realities facing many of our service men and women today. Afterwards join me in extending prayers, grace and healing to those who kill, have been killed or suffer because of war.

"Before being known as Veterans Day, Nov. 11 was Armistice Day—a day of mourning the fact that WWI failed to be “The War to End All Wars.” But even before that, it was the feast day for the patron saint of soldiers and chaplains, Martin of Tours. Martin served nearly 25 years in the Roman military and saw how government worked, having worked closely with Caesar Julian in the Praetorian Guard. In the end, he laid down his sword and became a priest, convinced that the best way to inaugurate change is not just through the political process, but with proactive Christian charity." -Logan Mehl-Laituri, Iraq veteran

"In the shadow of Veterans Day, in our eleventh year at war, two prominent evangelicals, representing both ends of the political spectrum, were silent about the human cost of war. Their omission was a dangerous oversight."

"Although veterans make up only 7 percent of the U.S. population, they account for an alarming 20 percent of all suicides. And though treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder has undoubtedly alleviated suffering and allowed many service members returning from combat to transition to civilian life, the suicide rate for veterans under thirty has been increasing. Research by Veterans Administration health professionals and veterans’ own experiences now suggest an ancient but unaddressed wound of war may be a factor: moral injury. This deep-seated sense of transgression includes feelings of shame, grief, meaninglessness, and remorse from having violated core moral beliefs.

Veteran suicides average one every eighty minutes, an unprecedented eighteen a day or six thousand a year. They are 20 percent of all U.S. suicides, though veterans of all wars are only about 7 percent of the U.S. population. Between 2005 and 2007, the national suicide rate among veterans under age thirty rose 26 percent. In Texas—home of the largest military base in the world and the third-highest veteran population—rates rose 40 percent between 2006 and 2009.

 These rates continue, despite required mental health screenings of those leaving the military, more research on PTSD, and better methods for treating it. Veterans are also disproportionately homeless, unemployed, poor, divorced, and imprisoned. The statistics, however, do not disclose the devastating impact of war on veterans’ families and friends, on their communities, and on other veterans. Moral injury is not PTSD. Many books on veteran healing confuse and conflate them into one thing. It is possible, though, to have moral injury without PTSD.

 The difference between them is partly physical. PTSD occurs in response to prolonged, extreme trauma and is a fear-victim reaction to danger. It produces hormones that affect the brain’s amygdala and hippocampus, which control responses to fear, as well as regulate emotions and connect fear to memory. A sufferer often has difficulty forming a coherent memory of a traumatic event or may even be unable to recall it. Symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and dissociation. Our ability to calm or extinguish fear and process emotions is often impaired by trauma, and a previous history of emotional trauma or a brain injury can make a person more susceptible to PTSD.

Dissociative episodes can put sufferers back into experiences of terror and make them lose a sense of the present. They can feel unreasonable fear in ordinary situations or startle at sounds that mimic battle. They may experience a compulsive need to retell stories of terror, to reenact them, and to transfer past fear-inducing conditions to the present. With PTSD, memory erupts uncontrollably and retraumatizes the sufferer, which can make retrieving a coherent memory nearly impossible. Clinicians have treatments for PTSD, and such therapies are crucial for those diagnosed with it.

 Moral injury results when soldiers violate their core moral beliefs, and in evaluating their behavior negatively, they feel they no longer live in a reliable, meaningful world and can no longer be regarded as decent human beings. They may feel this even if what they did was warranted and unavoidable. Killing, torturing prisoners, abusing dead bodies, or failing to prevent such acts can elicit moral injury. Seeing someone else violate core moral values or feeling betrayed by persons in authority can also lead to a loss of meaning and faith. It can even emerge from witnessing a friend get killed and feeling survivor guilt.

In experiencing a moral conflict, soldiers may judge themselves as worthless; they may decide no one can be trusted and isolate themselves from others; and they may abandon the values and beliefs that gave their lives meaning and guided their moral choices. Recently, Veterans Affairs clinicians have begun to conceptualize moral injury as separate from PTSD and as a hidden wound of war."

(Statue in NYC outside the United Nations building)

Upcoming Foreign policy debates

We are still present, engaged or fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, iraq, Yemen, Libya, Africa and probably Iran next.

Foreign policy issues are very critical in this election and will be discussed in the last two debates on October 16 and 22.

Here's the brief references about military issues from the first Democrat/Republican presidential debate:

Here was Obama on Romney's five-point plan:

"I would just say this to the American people. If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for, $7 trillion -- just to give you a sense, over 10 years, that’s more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney’s plan may work for you....I think it’s important for us to develop new sources of energy here in America, that we change our tax code to make sure that we’re helping small businesses and companies that are investing here in the United States, that we take some of the money that we’re saving as we wind down two wars to rebuild America and that we reduce our deficit in a balanced way that allows us to make these critical investments (emphasis added).

Mitt Romney on the same question:

"We have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of our people, and that means a military second to none. I do not believe in cutting our military. I believe in maintaining the strength of America’s military....The president’s reelected you’ll see dramatic cuts to our military. The secretary of defense has said these would be even devastating. I will not cut our commitment to our military. I will keep America strong."

Now Obama has far surpassed Bush on war matters, even while cutting the military budget, he's proven we can be far more "lean & mean" as the reports below reveal. Please do your homework on war matters, many lives and our economy sustainability and prosperity depend on informed and principled voting on these issues.

Living Under Drones video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yMOzvmgVhc&sns=em

Every Person Is Afraid of the Drones': The Strikes' Effect on Life in Pakistan, article:

http://m.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/09/every-person-is-afraid-of-the-drones-the-strikes-effect-on-life-in-pakistan/262814/

The ever increasing use of Drone attacks kill innocent children, mothers, families as well as our enemies. It's a faceless war that our taxes pay for and your vote matters.

The 'oBomba' war hawk presidency

- Signed the NDAA into law - making it legal to assassinate Americans w/o trial
- Personally oversees a 'Secret Kill List'
- Waged war on Libya without congressional approval
- Started a covert, drone war in Yemen
- Escalated the proxy war in Somalia
- Escalated the CIA drone war in Pakistan
- Will maintain a presence in Iraq even after "ending" war
- Sharply escalated the war in Afghanistan
- Secretly deployed US special forces to 75 countries
- Sold $30 billion of weapons to the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia
- Signed an agreement for 7 military bases in Colombia
- Opened a military base in Chile
- Touted nuclear power, even after the disaster in Japan
- Opened up deepwater oil drilling, even after the BP disaster
- Did a TV commercial promoting "clean coal"
- Defended body scans and pat-downs at airports
- Signed the Patriot Act extension into law
- Deported a modern-record 1.5 million immigrants
- Continued Bush's rendition program


The U.S. is NOT leaving Iraq or Afghanistan, as Obama claims
Feb. 7, 2012 - The CIA is expected to maintain a large clandestine presence in Iraq and Afghanistan long after the departure of conventional U.S. troops as part of a plan by the Obama administration to rely on a combination of spies and Special Operations forces to protect U.S. interests in the two longtime war zones, U.S. officials said (read).


Read the rest of this list and then tell me how anyone who believes in peace and freedom can support Obama.
http://stpeteforpeace.org/obama.html

“Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one creator; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”
— Book of Common Prayer

Think before you Vote