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Caring for a Generation

When Army General Eric K. Shinseki, the first four-star Army general of Japanese-American ethnicity, was still his service branch’s chief of staff, he became (rightly or wrongly) a symbol of doubt about official competence in pursuit of the Iraq war.

Whether or not he deserved all the accolades, Shinseki became viewed, by the media especially, as the man who would not bow and scrape to the White House, even as he was the quintessential patriotic, oft-decorated career military man.

At that time —half a dozen years ago — most of our generals and admirals were known for being supinely supportive as the Bush administration chased its tail in Iraq.

This occurred at an enormous cost while the security environment in Afghanistan and Pakistan deteriorated. But in 2003, Shinseki suggested in testimony before Congress — albeit only in passing — that nothing less than several hundred thousand more troops than officially envisioned were probably needed if the US was to have any hope of quelling sectarian and anti-American violence in Iraq.

That estimate, though controversial at the time, was backed by much expert opinion. But it was then considered arrant unpatriotic apostasy by the Bush administration. Shinseki’s Congressional testimony, deferential and even nuanced as it was, so outraged then Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Rummy personally rode the general, the recipient of two Purple Hearts for life-threatening injuries in Vietnam, out of town. Within months the courageous general was out of a job. Shinseki knew that the Bush administration did not tolerate policy dissent from the mere chief of the US Army. White Houses at war — of either political stripe — rarely do. And so the general took his banishment with quiet class.

In hindsight, of course, the troop-level estimate was right, as Obama pointed out on an American TV interview show this past week when talking about the Shenski nomination for Senate confirmation as Secretary of Veteran Affairs. This would seem to be perhaps Obama’s best nomination so far.

Many more Americans - not to mention Iraqis — have died because of the misconceived US operation. And, right — the arguable success of last year’s US up-tick in troop deployment, known as “The Surge”, only underscored the truth value of Shinseki’s original instinct that more troops were needed. It was just that professional objectivity that undoubtedly made him attractive to incoming President Barack H. Obama. For the President-elect has said, again and again, that he doesn’t want to be surrounded by a cozy cabinet of women and men who only have “Yes Mr President” to say for themselves.

For the masses of long-suffering and in many cases under-served US veterans, Obama’s choice perhaps offers them hope of better treatment than in the past. The Department of Veterans Affairs is a mess and must be fixed: It is in desperate need of a thorough Shinseki shakeup.

It is under-funded and mismanaged; it cannot cope with the general needs of returning veterans, with their many varieties of battlefield-caused post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), 
and it cannot properly meet many 
clinical-treatment goals. This is an outrage. Americans once serving in Korea and Vietnam as well as Iraq put their life on the line for their country. Now their country needs to put its money where its mouth is and extend them all a proper lifeline. When our Vietnam vets returned home decades ago, they were castigated and criminally underserved. America must not let another generation of vets fall by the wayside.

This would be right not only because it would be just but also because it would be in the interest of the nation. Out of work and oft-homeless veterans comprise an important proportion of America’s drifting underclass. The size of this as well as its overall tenor is about to look and sound — as our economy worsens — like a Frankenstein monster.

Both Shinseki and Obama would appear to have the temperament and vision to see this problem through to a better social-policy conclusion. They know that America is no more immune to social unrest than China. Perhaps we can make something out of the coincidence that both Obama and Shinseki were raised in Hawaii. Or maybe we should leave it to legions of anthropologists and psychologists to derive some sense out of this, if there is any to be made. But of Hawaii, one thing can certainly be said: Many different kinds of people from many different backgrounds are squeezed together on relatively small islands. This is also not an inaccurate portrait of our armed forces. And, increasingly, it is not a bad overall picture of the United States.

Social stability is precarious when not every group and individual receives a decent measure of fairness and justice. Why should our veterans of foreign wars get anything less? The general should take no prisoners in the righteous reform of the inept and seriously under-funded Veterans Administration.

Veteran journalist Tom Plate is a member of the Pacific Council on 
International Policy