It is a hazard of my existence that I often end up reading books that reflect on the aftermath of war. Being someone who has long read and studied military history without being a particularly militaristic person, I have long been interested in the intersection of war and society, long before it became a fashionable pursuit for historians [1]. I have among my friends and acquaintances quite a few veterans of war, and I know at least some of these people to have been deeply affected by the horrors they have seen. The same is true when I read various memoirs of those who have survived war, or looked at documentaries of those killed in war, examining the difficulties for family members left behind. There is no question that republics, like the United States, to use the most obvious example as an American myself, frequently engage in warfare that has left a large degree of wounded survivors harmed in many ways as a result of having so many of the best years of life learning how to kill and trying not to be killed before being returned to civilian life. Yet, throughout American history, there has long been a sense of ingratitude towards veterans for their sacrifices.

This ingratitude towards veterans started early in American history. Lest we forget, one of the earliest threats to America’s political order was the Newburgh conspiracy as unpaid soldiers grew mutinous during the period between Yorktown and the Treaty of Paris, which guaranteed American independence in the eyes of the international community at large, which was only managed successfully by impressive theatricality on the part of George Washington himself. Only a few years after that, restive American Revolutionary veterans who had been promised lands in lieu of payments rose up against the impecunious state of Massachusetts, prompting concerns of anarchy and disorder that led to a decisive support of the stronger central government of the Constitution given the manifest failure of the Articles of Confederation. From our nation’s founding, at its very beginning, there was already a black mark against the nation for the way in which it took advantage of the young men who had won independence by force of arms, only to be neglected and have their promises go unfulfilled when peace arrived.

It was after the Civil War where America’s shameful treatment to veterans was next noticeable as a looming social crisis. The sheer magnitude of the suffering of the Civil War, with amputees, people afflicted with PTSD, and alcohol and laudanum addicts in the hundreds of thousands, overwhelmed the capacity of the United States to cope with the long-term public health demands. A public that clearly wanted to let bygones be bygones and forget the whole war ever happened, mistrusted efforts at soldiers to show solidarity with their former comrades, and seemed to actively oppose providing opportunities for veterans to live in dignity and honor. Whatever express or implied social contract exists between a republic and those who defend it in military service, that contract was broken by a postwar society that wanted to reduce expenses quickly, even if it became clear that those who suffered were soldiers and their loved ones. Once the war is one, and the soldiers are disarmed, the Americans of the postwar period wanted as few reminders as possible of the prolonged expenses that result from warfare, until there were few enough survivors that they could be viewed as a national treasure instead of a massive strain on the national budget.

Nor was this the last time that America failed to pay its debt of honor to veterans after a war. In the aftermath of World War I, where two of my great-grandfathers were gassed by the Germans, the nation was treated to a sad spectacle of impecunious veterans fleeing from town to town barely one step ahead of debt collectors, or the sight of tens of thousands of bonus army protesters marching on Washington DC during the Great Depression seeking the payment of promised pensions. Our nation hardly did right by the doughboys either, just as they had not done right by the proud paladins of blue or the victorious soldiers of the Continental Army. Once the war was won, the nation wanted to get back to partying and consuming and wanted to forget about the horrors of the Great War, the trenches and poison gas and butchery, in the vain hope that by trying to forget about it that it would never happen again.

In fact, there is only one time where it might be said that the United States did pay its debt of honor to to returning veterans, after World War II, and that involved a massive expansion of budgets, a nearly permanent state of “cold war,” the destruction of constitutional government, and massive long-term expenditures to rebuild ungrateful nations like Germany and Japan, in the case of Japan without even cleaning house and forcing them to recognize their own horrors and atrocities, alongside such matters as the GI Bill and the Interstate system. Certainly veterans of the Vietnam War did not find any such society at home willing to give honor and support to those struggling with the lingering effects of those wars, and our contemporary society has shown no such willingness at support for the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and other recent conflicts, if indeed such people and their plight ever cross our mind at all.

It is easy to point out the details of our republic’s ingratitude towards veterans, to recount the melancholy history and extent of that ingratitude and dishonor. It is less easy to point out the reasons why, but let us at least briefly attempt to do so. For one, America’s military has long been used in support of an overall tradition of civilian leadership, and at key points in history that leadership has proven itself to be hostile to veterans, such as the case of Grover Cleveland. In general, wars are very expensive, and once they are won (as, in America’s history, they are usually won), taxpayers understandably wish to get on with the business of making money and keeping budgets reasonable and do not want long and ongoing costs, especially if they shut their eyes to the lingering effects of physical and mental wounds on veterans. The combination of the supremacy of civilian rule, and the fact that there has never been a coup attempt in the American republic, and the fact that there is an increasing lack of awareness of the horrors of war among the general population that makes empathy for the lingering horrors of trauma present among only those civilians who have other reasons to be well acquainted with lingering horrors. Is there a less violent way than a coup or a citizenry well acquainted with trauma for ordinary people to be grateful and appreciative, in a real sense, of what our nation’s soldiers have done on our behalf? Let us hope so, as a new age of retrenchment in budgets comes that threatens our ability to repay any debt of honor that contemporary soldiers have reason to expect us to pay. The pattern repeats itself again.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/death-is-a-hungry-hunter/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/15/are-we-not-also-veterans-of-a-great-and-terrible-war/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/07/16/book-review-the-fall-of-rome-and-the-end-of-civilization/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/book-review-after-lincoln/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/audiobook-review-marching-home/