Mother’s Day plea: Bring troops home

By Kathleen J. Hall

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It's Mother's Day again, founded in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe as Mother's Day for Peace. Having lived through the horrors of the Civil War and its aftermath, she called for women of the world to ask themselves: How can we raise our children to be merciful, charitable and patient in a world where war is waged daily against the children of other mothers?

Today we are again engaged in war, and the horrors of it have only grown through the years. Our service men and women are repeatedly placed in situations that invite atrocities, and with modern communications, we hear about them back home. There have long been prohibitions against desecrating the dead, but history is full of instances. Maynard Sinclair, a marine veteran of Vietnam, says the outrage about U.S. servicemen urinating on dead Taliban just shows the public's naiveté about war.

Now we are trying to make sense of a soldier who is accused of sneaking off his base at night and killing 16 civilians, nine of them children. The rules of civilized warfare (an oxymoron) condemn this, but apparently would allow it if he had been on duty. Reserve Marine Lt. Col. Paul Hackett warned against too harsh judgments, saying, “When you ask young men to go kill people for a living, it takes a whole lot of effort to rein that in.”

Or as Chris Hedges, veteran war reporter writes: “The war in Afghanistan feeds the culture of atrocity. The fear and stress, the anger and hatred, reduce all Afghans to the enemy, and this includes women, children and the elderly. Civilians and combatants merge into one detested nameless, faceless mass. The psychological leap to murder is short.”

The United States routinely pays the survivors of civilians “accidentally” killed by our soldiers during military missions. We are paying the survivors of the 16 victims of an off-duty soldier about ten times as much, and reports are that the Afghans have trouble understanding the difference. I have trouble understanding it, too.

The Department of Defense, concerned about psychological trauma, has employed noted psychologist Robert Seligman to make soldiers more resilient mentally. Sounds good, but do we really want our sons and daughters toughened up so they can witness and perhaps even commit atrocities, without being troubled?

Advances in medical care are bringing more survivors home than ever before, and we see up close what post-traumatic stress disorder is. We don't really know how to treat this long-lasting psychological damage, although we try.

One army psychiatrist, counseling a deeply troubled serviceman, said, “No, you're not crazy. Your mind is responding in a perfectly normal way to the insane things you have experienced.” Is it any wonder that veterans have higher rates of joblessness, homelessness and suicide?

One hundred forty-two years ago, Julia Ward Howe called for peace and the amicable settlement of international questions. If you want our country to spend less on weapons of war and more on negotiating peaceful settlements of international disputes, contact your congressmen; they decide how your tax money is spent.

Last year, 39 cents of every federal tax dollar went to pay for current and past wars. Only

2 cents were spent on diplomacy, development and war prevention.

Howe called for all mothers to take a stand against war, so that “our sons (and daughters) shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy, and patience.”

Support our troops: Bring them home.

Kathleen J. Hall of Cedar Rapids is a member of Workers for Peace Iowa. Comments: khall479@aol.com