This Time of Year

I’m leaving Saturday for my tenth consecutive year of riding my motorcycle from California to Washington, DC for Memorial Day weekend. In years past including the year I started the ride, 2000- the year my father died: I rode partly to be in DC to honor him and to ride in the longest running protest against the United States of America ever held. It’s now in its 22nd year. It’s called Rolling Thunder, Inc. Ride for Freedom. Maybe you had to be somehow affected by the Vietnam era to understand the deep fire that still burns in the hearts of military families and those who served during that era to fully appreciate the meaning that the POW/MIA issue holds for those of us who participate there.

Although it has become a party for many of the 500,000 motorcyclists who gather in the Pentagon parking lot for the demonstration; the POW/MIA issue is the watermark of the betrayal that is a fact of life for all who have ever served or are proudly serving now in the US military as well as their families who wait.

The truth is that betrayal of soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen is really nothing new. Everyone knows that the English navy defeated the Spanish Armada. No one knows that the Queen ordered all the ships to stay at sea rather than allow a seaman to touch shore in England for having done so English law would demand that they be paid. Few know that over 50% of the sailors in the navy that defeated mighty Spain died aboard ship from disease and starvation rather than be paid the wages which were due to them. Not much has changed.

They say that all politics are local; well I say that all causes are personal. When my father retired as an E-8 (Senior Master Sergeant) after 29 ½ years of service in the United States Air Force he had served at Pearl Harbor, World War II in the Pacific, Korea and Vietnam. He came home from Vietnam when I was 16. I know better than most as it has been in the conversation my whole life, what concurrent pay, disability ratings, and long waits for health care and endless forms for benefits mean to a military family. I also know now what it means to have been raised by someone who is afflicted with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is the gift that keeps on giving, generation to generation.

Easily defined, difficult to diagnose perhaps, simply PTSD is the continuing effect of trauma not expressed in a timely manner. Being raised by someone so affected by uncontrollable anger has its own consequences on a family and on that family’s children. The kids most often begin to act out their own PTSD.

For my father, who we absolutely knew loved us enough to unleash one hell of an ass whupping if he was angered, PTSD was controlled by staying in the club. After WWII he just stayed in the military where everyone understood or at least tolerated an old sergeant and expected nothing less. For the rest of us, though, life has been a series of difficult choices.

After retirement the old man then fought the VA Medical system for 32 more years for 100% service related disability. They finally granted it to him 6 months before his death at the age of 90. I’m quite sure that it was an accomplishment about which he was most proud. He was certainly more proud of having finally won that war than he was of any medal he ever received.

The rest of us grew weary of the constant updates of his battle with the VA, much like hearing a list of new medicines and treatments from someone elderly, but not really listening. I suppose we should have listened more closely. In the end they killed him by treating his heart disease for 9 months with allergy medicine. And I went to DC with the rubbing from his marker on my bike. That year I found the group Rolling Thunder and discovered that I’m a Blue Star son.

What I was not prepared for having found some like minded in the group run by an old sergeant with his own PTSD issues, is that upon studying the POW/MIA issue I found that the shoddy medical care and all out war my father fought for his benefits after retirement really goes all the way back to the seed of that betrayal. I’ve always wondered, “Why?” How can a country that owes so much to its fighting men and women virtually turn a blind eye to them all the while exclaiming, “We Support the Troops”?

To be fair, most people had no idea how shoddy the facilities are at Walter Reed until they were recently exposed. All were quick to point the blame, but really is it the fault of a government run health care program or is it our fault? Yes, the VA Medical System is the only real government health care program in the US. And it sucks- ask almost any military family member that has driven hours only to be told to make another appointment- 12 months from now.

VA Med is overburdened, understaffed, underpaid, under funded and in some cases dealing with ancient facilities. Has it improved? Gosh yes, just ask anyone lucky enough to have survived their care long term. Is it good enough? That’s so tragic as to be almost humorous. The VA Med can’t possibly serve a country at war let alone a country with a history of continuous wars, conflicts, and police actions all over the globe, all of the time.

What the system is now trying to contend with shouldn’t be a surprise when you stop to realize that we have veterans who have served on our orders and deserve the benefits we promised them from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, Somalia, Grenada, the Gulf War, the War on Terror to just name a few favorites spanning almost 75 years. That’s a lot of people vying for benefits in a system that is fatally flawed: it’s government run, single payer health care. It just doesn’t work unless you don’t expect much for care.

How will the VA Medical system then provide for the now 1,000,000 children that have been affected by deployment, disability or loss of a parent or parents serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or any number of police actions anywhere in the world? These are abandoned kids in many cases; high risk of acting out the trauma they have no way of expressing because they are alone with the ghosts that hide in their minds.

Think about the impact on a family of deployment after deployment after deployment that stretch years not days or weeks. Think about the impact of disability. Think about the shear terror of waiting days, weeks, months and then doing it again with your dad in harms way and mom sitting glued to 24/7 news feeds, websites all the while crying her eyes out once again. Do you really think that the kids are “adaptable”? Do you think that the terror they imagine in their not knowing is any less terrible than the terror that their mom or dad is dealing with ‘over there’? Yes? Then you would be wrong.

But, that view is often shared by vets who will tell me that no one can imagine the horror of war. My response is that yes you’re right; I can’t imagine that horror any more than you can imagine what is going on in the mind of a child attempting to fend off the horror of his imagination. How do you explain to a five year old that not everyone dies in war?

Do you know that family grief counseling is new to the VA Medical system? It’s available to any family member who wants to throw the kids in the car and drive to wherever the meeting is held. Try that sometime when you’re scared out of your mind and hoping against hope that the kids are ‘fine’. But, you may know a VA center nearby… right?

In the end we have now come full circle to the seed of the betrayal of the American POW/MIA issue and the consequences of the attitude that G.I’s are expendable. They are to quote a general speaking to the Blue Star and Gold Star families at one of our fundraisers, “Precious Resources.” He had no idea how crushed some of the Mom’s were on hearing that their sons are “Precious Resources’. One of them said to me, “He looks at my son like a fox looks at the chicken coop. Except for him it’s another star on his shoulder instead of a meal.”

It’s been quite a lesson to learn and we’re learning it too slowly. When we brought the torch to the Navajo and Hopi reservations to light it in honor of the Lady Warrior, Lori Piestewa for whom Squaw Peak in downtown Phoenix was renamed as Piestewa Peak: We were shocked at the reception. The people from both reservations lined the highways for miles. They still do every year when we return. There is an attitude of honoring the warrior in celebration and ceremony for their return and caring for their family in their absence that is shared by the entire Native community. We renew that spirit of honor, celebration and ceremony every year when our ride returns to the Navajo and Hopi Nations. As a country we have so much to learn from our Native people about honoring the warrior.

For 10 years now I have read every single book on the subject of the POW/MIA issue. I’ve given 15-20 speeches a year; ridden hundreds of thousands of miles, spoken to the experts in person and listened to them speak from Washington DC to the telephone in my office. One thing is clear: We left live prisoners after every single war we’ve ever fought. That mindset is finally changing, but the deep wound of betrayal can only be healed with the truth. That truth has been poignantly revealed by our unique experience in Vietnam. In the end our POW/MIA’s left in country at the end of the Vietnam conflict were deemed expendable. Demands by the new government in North Vietnam for the war reparations promised by Nixon/Kissinger at the Paris Peace Accords were finally refused by President Reagan. Reagan was followed of course by President George H.W. Bush who was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in the years immediately following the end of the war in Vietnam and further negotiations for the release or our POW’s were moot.

Did Reagan do the right thing? Did Carter or did Bush I? Or for that matter did Eisenhower do the right thing and avoid further conflict with the Soviet Union after WWII? It’s above my pay grade, but the issue was put to rest publically and forever by Senators Kerry and McCain who ran the 1991 Senate Committee investigation on the POW/MIA issue during the Bush I years. All efforts by those who knew the truth were squashed in a political sleight of hand; confidential record declarations and debunk mindset. We simply refused to pay for our POW/MIA’s. Maybe we should never have agreed to have done so from the beginning. It was Watergate and the end of the Nixon era that derailed any chance we ever had of seeing them returned. Nixon/Kissinger promised, but Watergate and Nixon’s resignation sealed their fate.

So why do I say, then that this was a betrayal and that the betrayal of the fate of those who serve on our orders continues today? Because the benefits that are promised to those who serve our country in the Armed Forces of the United States exist in an unending labyrinth through the VA system; and it is subject to constant change. From the effects of Agent Orange exposure to Gulf War Syndrome to PTSD without Veteran Service Officer assistance a Veteran applying for benefits practically needs a Philadelphia lawyer to be successful and the VA has all the time in the world. The Vet is on the other hand mortal; often suffering and all too often denied the very benefits they were promised. My dad often said that his hole card was that he was too tough to die.

America is deaf to the suffering of military families. There is little to no provision to the effects of war on them and they are many. Throughout our history these families have suffered in virtual silence. Mothers have hoped in complete denial that their children are ‘fine’. Families have been afraid that loud, vocal in- your- face protests might jeopardize their loved one’s chances for earned and needed benefits. And the list of reasons goes on and on. Maybe, just maybe if we all had someone serving, and we enforced the law with regard to caring for them as well as their families we would finally come to the realization that in the end we just can’t afford to keep doing it the way we’ve always done it.

What’s needed now is the light of truth. This travesty has spanned every single administration. It is not a partisan issue. Eisenhower knew that the Soviets had grabbed all of the American POW’s held by Germany at the end of WWII. He knew that they used them as human guinea pigs in medical, drug and mind control experimentation, vivisection and other crimes too big and horrible to contemplate. The Kerry/McCain committee had eye witness testimony to it and what did they do? They classified it.

In a poetic, karmic piece of justice neither Kerry nor McCain who fell on their swords in the 1991 Senate Committee for the right of future political power; who used political maneuvering and bureaucratic sleight of hand to hide the truth in Vietnam was able to fulfill their lifelong ambition as Commander in Chief.

Of course none of the foregoing will ever be made up to a child whose father or mother began being deployed in 2003 and after five tours is no longer the person who left. The child then 5 is now almost 12 and the 10 year old is now almost 17. They and their families have quietly suffered with the pain of deployment, disability and the thought or the reality of the loss of one or more their parents in Iraq and Afghanistan for their entire childhoods. They will deal with it their entire lives unless something is done and done now.

But, to where and to whom do they turn for help? If the VA Med spent only $100 per child the $100,000,000 would swamp their budgets. Even the highest of risk kids are tough to identify unless families can drop the cloak of denial and actually seek help. What would we do if these kids had been exposed to tragedy at their schools? We’d send in a bus load of grief counselors and at least attempt to make sure that they had a chance to express what is going on in their heads. Right now we just hand out pamphlets.

That’s a travesty and it has to stop. When I started this charity run called Carry the Flame, I knew only that I was a Blue Star son and that war and warriors can have a tragic effect on the lives of those close to them. That someone somehow needed to reach out to our Blue Star and Gold Star families and let them know that their quiet trauma has not gone unnoticed and unappreciated. That was in 2002 before the beginning of the War on Terror and the tragedy of 9/11. That was before the size and scope of the trauma metastasized after 7 long years to include over 1,000,000 kids.

When we started we thought we could provide grief counseling courses to school counselors, now I’m sure that the problem is too huge to possibly begin to make a reasonable dint in the amount of money needed to help provide for them through private fundraising. What we can do now is support the organizations attempting to identify highest risk kids and use our visibility to raise the awareness in America that we have over 1,000,000 of our Precious Resources at severe risk of acting out a very angry PTSD of their own.

It’s time to put an end to the denial of the effects on these military families and their kids. It’s time to really put up or shut up about how you “Support the Troops”. If nothing else buy a magnetic bumper sticker from a Blue Star Mom and display it to tell others that you put your money where your mouth is. Do it not as a political statement, but as a statement of compassion.

Some time ago I realized that this betrayal is not a POW/MIA issue. This is an American families’ issue that knows deceit and betrayal- not political party or persuasion- all too well. After all, we may publically humiliate, detain and prosecute the American soldiers charged to guard the prisoners at Abu Ghraib; the lawyers who wrote in defense of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’; contractors who unconscionably shot into crowds, etc. etc. etc. But, do you know that we have never, not one time ever arrested, investigated, prosecuted or sentenced anyone for crimes perpetrated on our POW/MIA’s under the laws provided under the Third Geneva Convention? So we’ll gladly use the laws against our own troops, but never apply the law on their behalf. “Betrayal”, you ask? “In broad daylight”, say I.

Saturday it will be raining here when I leave. That beats the last 3 years of snow by a country mile. I hope the Mojave Desert is warm, but not too hot and still winds so we miss the sand storm we rode through last year. I hope the Midwest hail and thunderstorms are ahead of our riders instead of barreling down on them as they did 4 years ago. I hope that the pollen count of the sweet smell of honeysuckle in the South is survivable without the antihistamine pills that may make our riders drowsy. I hope that the bikes run well and that each rider makes safe, sane decisions about risk. I hope that the Flame brings some tiny amount of healing and hope to the Gold Star and Blue Star families that will greet us on the way.

This year, having split from our association with Rolling Thunder, Carry the Flame Across America will hold its own ceremony at the World War II Memorial on Saturday, 23 May at 5:00pm. Volunteer Blue Star and Gold Star Moms and Wives will read the names of the fallen from Iraq and Afghanistan in unison from each of the 50 state posts of the WWII Memorial in unison. At the same time we will pass the Flame of Hope that will have been blessed in the name of every religion through the prayers and hands of thousands as it makes its way from Barstow, Ca to Washington, DC.

Marine SSgt Tim Chambers who for the last 6 years has held a salute while standing in the middle of the road on Constitution Avenue until the last motorcycle has left the Pentagon parking area (usually over 5 hours) will stand at salute before the upturned rifle, boots and helmet while the names are read and the Flame is passed.

Please consider this to be your invitation to join us. Please consider this letter a challenge to you to help us continue to spread the word that these kids and these American military families deserve much more. We know what is right; you know what is right, now get out your checkbook and do the right thing. You can go to www.carrytheflame.org for our route information and contact address.

Then get out your pen and write to your Senators and Congressman and tell them that while we’re spending billions to bail out spoiled bankers, incompetent business leaders and crooked politicians; you think it might be a really good idea to help these kids and these families with a resolve to provide the medical, educational and mental health benefits they and their parents have earned.

You know yourself that it is far easier to help a child than to attempt to fix an adult.

After all it was We The People who sent them there. Thank the Heavens for the men and women who fight on our side. They’re the best in the world, the fiercest the world has ever seen and they come in peace asking only what they have been promised in return for having risked their lives as well as the peace in the lives of their families who wait another day for news of their safe return.