The Letter I Sent to Senator Jim Webb

To The Honorable Jim Webb
January 25, 2007

Dear Sir,

Thank you.

My ex-husband, was a Vietnam Era Vet, though he never served in country, he did serve on a mission that is still classified. He is the father of my two oldest children and he died in a motorcycle accident last summer.

After the war he was able to start his life due to the GI Bill. I know that he would be very pleased to know that these new vets will be able to start their life with help from a new GI Bill.

Unfortunately he also had two things that these new vets will suffer and are suffering from. While on that classified mission he suffered a head injury, which left him in a coma. He awoke half a world away at Wilford Hall in San Antonio. Decades later, this hospital is where he died.

He also had PTSD. Had it been treated effectively and vigorously when he came home, I believe his life would not have been so troubled.

It is my hope that you and other Senators and Congresspersons who have served, especially in war, will make sure that these service persons will have full and abundant “after” services and therapy when they come home and rejoin our communities.

Veterans from every war have needed these services. In wars past many took to self medicating, becoming alcoholics, crippled by depression or violent toward their families. While we did not know then what we know now about PTSD, trauma, shock, etc. there is no excuse for us to withhold, deny or under fund these necessary services to those who have given and sacrificed so much, just because their country asked them to. We owe them.

Thank you for your service then and now, and please thank your son for me.

Of Lower Standards, Urban Warfare and US Street Gangs in Iraq

Two years or so ago I commented on Americablog about my concern for US soldiers coming back from Iraq and their psychological welfare. As the ex-wife of a Vietnam veteran the issue is of interest to me.

Will these men and women who served our country receive the mental help they need for them to get through the horrors that they've seen and allow them to be fully functioning members of society? Or will the government once again cut the benefits these who've risked so much for this nation deserve in full?

Well we already know that the Bush government/administration, while risking no family members themselves, are cutting back and/or not fully funding necessary services for those who have served. The president who can afford to privately pay for his own medical insurance and doctors, receives the finest tax payer funded care. He always will.

What I did not think about when raising my concerns is that when the military lowered it standards to try and reach recruiting goals, that meant letting in gang members. These gang members are more than eager to "serve" their country.

All that training in urban warfare, house to house fighting, sniping, suppressive fire, kill zones, explosives, not to mention field medic training. Our modern paramedics came from the medics in Vietnam. So successful was it to have on the scene medical help, that more soldiers survived. Bring that lesson home and ambulance ride became more than just loading the injured into the back a converted station wagon. It became, in some cases, a fighting chance to live.

The medics in Vietnam brought back their training for use at home. What do you think gang members, learning urban combat tactics will bring back from operations in places like Fallujah, Du-jail, etc.?

Don't think a gate community will save you either. Ever see what towns/cities in Iraq look like? Here's Mosul:

So while this brewing problem goes under and un-reported (another case of our lap dog media) do you think a Republican controlled government will help pay for the domestic devastation these military trained gang members in an unnecessary war, will cause? (At any other time they'd be vetted out).

Me neither.


Video report from North Carolina
The News Blog
Training Terrorists for the Home Front HuffPo
Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency Strategic Studies Institute
United States Army War College
Violent gangs infiltrating US Military? -- Whatsakyer