After putting in 13 hour days six days a week, Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Henderson finally took his life. He became the third member of the Houston Recruiting station to kill himself in three years. He had served in the hell that is Iraq and saw thousands of Iraqi men women and children die as well as his own friends. He hanged himself in his garden shed and joins the ranks of the other 540 soldiers that have killed themselves since 2003.
His wife told the AP that when recruiters "griped" about the pressure from above to fill their quota's, Army bosses would tell them they should feel "grateful" they were not in Iraq.
Some treatment for person's they call "heroes"
"We need to get to the bottom of this as soon as we can," says John Cornyn, a Republican on the Armed Services Committee who has been forced to raise this issue due to pressure from widows and parents. The army is investigating in order to "shed some light on the situation", says an army spokesperon.
Recruiters are under under massive pressure, sandwiched between the Army bosses who want them to get more cannon fodder for their predatory wars and parents of their intended victims who oppose the war and don't want their children dying for nothing.
Cornyn and the Army's response is typical garbage. It's like when they appoint academics and experts on to commissions about poverty rather than poor people. Poor people have the answers to the elimination of poverty, the experts, stooges for the perpetrators of this war will bore people to death covering up for it all. I remember after our strike when the boss hired a consultant to find out why we struck. As if we didn't tell them.
The thugs that rule society are responsible for these suicides; the Cheney's Bush's Rumsfeld's et al. Over the period of the Iraq slaughter billions have been made by a handful of people, private equity capitalists that they referred to as "Masters of the Universe" Hedge Fund manager, 25 of whom earned $15 billion in 2006 and others. Maddoff stole $50 billion (much of which the taxpayer will be expected to pay back) during the period of the Iraq war.
No, its amazing that there aren't more suicides. In fact , as the war goes on and young people come back, they will swell the ranks of the unemployed, the homeless, the domestic violence victims and abusers. Many will have a home in the prisons, mental hospitals and graveyards of America.
This is reality. During the Democratic Primaries I remember a young veteran asking a question of the candidates and Clinton and Obama and all the other representatives of the capitalist class and its murderous system stood up and clapped and thanked this young guy and all that other phony garbage; they're the best example of bourgeois culture and the worst example of humanity.
I have been very fortunate that I have never been in the position of having to go to war. It is not like Sylvester Stallone, John Wayne or Arnold Scwarzenegger portray it, three individuals who, like the imbecile Bush, managed to escape the dangers due to having the right connections.
Nothing is guaranteed in this world, and as a socialist I recognize that a democratic socialist society may not only not come in my lifetime it may not come at all. But it is possible and the only alternative to the horrors and misery of the so-called free market.
I owe it to myself, to our history, to the likes of Patrick Henderson, his friends and a million or so dead Iraqis to continue the fight.
2 comments:
Its a shame, recruiting duty is feared by every member of the armed services, save maybe the air force. The recruiters' career depend on them filling slots. They have to lie and manipulate on a daily basis in order to look out for their family's well being. They have an array of tools to use in order to get young people to enlist, bonuses, scholarships, job preference. It's a tough gig for anyone. It pains me to here stories like this, men and women who serve with nothing but good intentions in mind, only to fall prey to the inherently flawed system. Thanks for posting this Richard.
My early years were spent around military people. My dad was in the army and taken prisoner by the Japanese in Hing Kong. He served three years and nine months working for Mitsubishi in Yokohama.
I remember going to the British Legion or folks coming to my dad's place and they were all army buddies.
One guy had a wooden leg and could drink like a fish. He was the only one from the first world war and they used to say the liquor went down the leg. My uncle stepped on a land mine in Italy and blew half his foot off, he had pain from this all his life.
Sometimes they would go back and forth about which war was worse; always respectfully of course until the leg was full up and the alcohol had nowhere else to go but the mind.
Dad was in Japan with an Irishman named Paddy Cullen. When the Americans liberated his camp they took him to Manila and a British ship took him to Vancouver when they both went AWOL.
Paddy Cullen was a hard man and a scrapper, just what the British army needed. Dad had me in knots telling me about their exploits especially Paddy's ability to remove possessions from their owners.
Dad saw him once after the war and tried to help him get work. Paddy couldn't re-enlist you see, he was considered too unstable.
He wasn't unstable for wartime though.
Last time dad saw him he had a job painting Zebra crossings in the street (crosswalks.) Working for the council I assume.
I don't know what happened to him. Dad said he came from Dominick Street in Dublin and could I find him, but I couldn't.
That's what he got for spending four years of his life in prison for British imperialism, painting Zebra crossings.
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