Why would anyone join the Armed Forces today?

Yes, I understand that it is a way to get around punishing tuition's to get your college under your belt; or as is often the case with the National Guard, it is a way to supplement one’s income at a time when jobs seem to have dried up despite the glowing statistics published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I wonder when Mr. Conyers will start taking a look at the statistics being touted by the White House….



Okay, let’s say you bite. You are attracted by being an “Army of One…” and you join up! What are your likely prospects


Despite what the recruiter may have told you, you can look forward to going to either Iraq or Afghanistan once, twice or even more during your enlistment.


And the tour is no longer six or eight months, it’s twelve months…


Normally, most National Guard troops and Reservists had two years to stay at home for every one spent on an hazardous duty site like Iraq; that’s no longer true in today’s war.


As a result, military psychologists are saying that troops who are ‘whole’ and apparently unwounded are returning in increasing numbers with signs of all kinds of mental problems—from depression to unseen problems that result from the brain-jarring experience of being shot at by IUD’s….

Where the physical explosion literally shakes the target’s brain in its shell case resulting in unseen injury that can manifest itself in different ways later.



80% of wounds tend to be caused by these ‘roadside bombs” and IUDs. If the military had moved forward, as it should have, and put a priority on the manufacture of the new military vehicles that are mostly impervious to the IUDs, we would not be reading about one hundred plus new deaths a month in places like Baghdad.


But it hasn’t happened.


When it comes to almost limitless investment in weaponry, we seem incapable of doing the right thing when it comes to our young men and women...


From day one, the Pentagon and the White House has refused to get behind the proper safeguards for American troops. In even the first deployment, there were only 254 armored Humvees sent to the front.


And through-out that period, many troops or their families had to purchase their own armored vests because the military was not providing them.


One of the reasons for continued break-down of military assets was because the troops themselves took on the task of retrofitting our trucks and vehicles with steel plate which put an extra burden on frames and drives and for the most part, did not provide the necessary level of protection for our troops.


To add insult to injury, wounded returning troops are finding that oftentimes, instead of getting the treatments and benefits they need, they are simply dropped from programs or given a token payment instead of the full support that will most likely need if they are to survive in civilian life.


The facts are staggering!


If you are wounded, the chances are that your wounds will be rated by the military; they will issue you a grade based upon their impression of the severity of the wound. And you will then either be handed a lump sum payment or become entitled to a life-long benefit. The trouble is that a survey of these assessments has been judged inappropriate to the kind and severity of the wound. In one recent case, a returnee from Iraq was in such bad shape, he had to have an implant of a morphine pump so that he could alleviate his pain. His award was ten percent which was below the twenty percent minimum required for a continuing benefit. Instead, he received a lump sum payment of thirty five thousand dollars which he ran through almost immediately after leaving the service and now is in a poverty situation with his wife and two children and no recourse, or benefits to look forward to. While his case is under review, countless others may take years or decades to review....



According to VA investigators, approximately 80% of such assignments have been below the level justified by the nature and severity of the wounds received. Moreover, today, more than a million and a half Veterans do not have medical benefits to speak of…



You guessed it: You invest everything you have, get wounded and you wind up dropping between the chairs...



Just the other day, the head of Veteran’s Affairs resigned; that is after loosing millions of VA records and after an employee was allowed to take his computer home with important confidential data that may have been compromised. Under his aegis, the VA is behind six to eighteeen months or more on attending to the most current cases.



To add insult to injury, many of the families left stranded with high bills or inadequate treatments and no recourse....



Not that all of the blame should be placed on VA since the Armed Forces bear considerable responsibility for misjudging awards and for not providing for wounded servicepeople.



As of now, we are being told that there are some 25,000 wounded American personnel as a result of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is no way to verify that number without going to each member of the Armed Services and asking each branch for specific numbers by category….i.e. accident, in the line of duty, etc. And since this information is obfuscated, one doubts the numbers one receives in trying to get at the truth.


However, by extrapolating randomly from individual unit figures, it is possible to come up with a number that may rank two or three times higher than the numbers we are being fed. It is unfortunate that based upon the lies, obfuscation and misleading data that comes out of the White House, we have to treat their information as distorted and inaccurate but to do otherwise, would be buy in the subterfuge and misleading claims relative to the War from the very beginning.



When the smoke clears, we suspect that our numbers are more credible than what we are being told. In virtually all areas, the Pentagon and the White House have misled the American people and, increasingly, the American people are coming round to the idea that that constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors” and is an impeachable offense.



Les Aaron

A Veteran and former Military Adviser