Bush gang doublecrosses GIs, vets
By
Caleb T. Maupin
Published Aug 3, 2007 8:47 PM
Jonathan Town was one of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. youth sent to Iraq.
He was sent to occupy Iraq and defend the U.S. occupation from Iraqis determined
to free their country from it.
Town was probably told countless times by the military recruiters who persuaded
him to enlist that he would be given medical care and taken care of if he were
injured. He was probably encouraged by the words of George W. Bush and his
cronies about “supporting the troops.” He probably felt that those
who whipped up the right wing into a frenzy about how opposing the war was
“betraying the troops,” would stand beside him when he was wounded
in battle with the Iraqi resistance.
But he was misled.
On a fateful day in 2004, a well-armed unit of Iraqi resistance fighters, who
had endured sanctions, bombings and other inhumanities by the U.S. government,
struck back at the occupation military forces. They fired a 107-mm rocket at
the U.S. base in Ramadi, Iraq. The projectile ripped through a building and
exploded three feet above Spc. Town’s head.
Town later awoke in a hospital bed and has since suffered from hearing loss,
headaches, memory loss, anxiety and an inability to sleep. The military was
happy to hand Town the metallic item attached to a ribbon known as a
“Purple Heart”; however, when it came to the actual health care he
needed to recover from his injury, the government was a little less
inclined.
Discharged in 2006, Town wanted to be treated for Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), something afflicting tens of thousands of GIs. The Pentagon
decided to avoid taking responsibility for his problem. The military claimed he
had a previously existing “personality disorder,” and the fact that
an 18.8-kg explosive had gone off right above him had nothing to do with his
current ills.
Town is not the only one. Records show that since 2001 more than 22,500 GIs
have been categorized as having “personality disorders” in order to
block the required treatment they would receive from veterans’ hospitals
if they had PTSD. What’s significant is that Town, who has two children
and spent seven years in the military, received honors 12 times. You would
think the Pentagon would give him special treatment.
What an insult it is to say that those who have seen body parts lying on the
ground, children dying and all the other carnage of war, are unaffected by
having been sent to kill and die in a criminal occupation. And then to blame
their trauma on a “personality disorder” that they already
supposedly had, in order to avoid paying the bill.
What person who is not already a sociopath would be able to look at such horror
and not be disturbed? It seems that to those who run this country, people are
commodities, something Karl Marx wrote about years ago in his book,
“Capital,” and in his economic manuscripts. Under the capitalist
system, words can echo in Dick Cheney’s bunker about “supporting
the troops,” sentimental stories can run on the FOX news channel and NBC,
but in the end those sent to repress the people opposing imperialism are
themselves considered nothing but cannon fodder by the powers that be.
Because Town put up a fight and got some support, Congress held a special
hearing July 25 and the Pentagon decided it had better allow his treatment for
the time being. But his case still exposes the war makers: they may call the
troops heroes, but profit rules when it comes to paying their bills. GIs and
veterans will have to fight another war at home to make sure they get the
benefits they were promised.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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