It surprises people that I come from a military family, mostly because I come off as a liberal anti-war hippie.

But it’s true. My family’s history in the American military can be traced all the way back to Neil MacEachron, who fought in the Colonial army in the Revolutionary War. My mother’s birthfather, 1st Lt. Melvin Spencer, died at the age of 28 in an Air Force training crash in 1962, when my mother was 6 months old. Her adoptive father, my grampy, was in the Army. (Grammy had a type.)

My dad joined the Air Force in order to pay for college; my brother served in the Navy for six years. He wasn’t there when our dad died – he was on base. The Navy had given him leave for a few days the week prior, but it’s not a regular workplace. The United States military doesn’t just let you take off for an open-ended family emergency.

It was harder without him there. It hurt more. There is pain that hasn’t healed. So I can tell you that we know a little something about sacrifice. And we’re a lucky family, as military families go. We’ve never dealt with the human physical and psychological wreckage that comes from war. Even when done for the right reasons – which has certainly not been the case with all of America’s wars – war and violence are corrosive to the human soul. We throw young people at a critical developmental age (think of who you were between the ages of 18 and 25) into combat. We ask them to kill people so the rest of us don’t have to. And then we expect them to come home and resume normal lives? While we’re doing a lot better at recognizing mental health issues like post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, it’s obvious to me we haven’t done enough.

I find the patriotic holidays, of which the Fourth of July reigns supreme, intensely frustrating – and not just because the fireworks terrify my dog. American culture tends to fetishize the military. We hang flags everywhere. We proclaim our respect for the troops. But in a capitalist society, your money shows what you care about. And it’s quite clear that while most Americans love the idea of soldiers, they don’t give a rat’s ass about the actual men and women who do the work that soldiers do.

We say “Support the troops!” and allow our federal government to send trillions of dollars to the Department of Defense. The vast majority of that money never seems to trickle its way down to the actual troops. Where does it go? Well, we’re not entirely sure. The Pentagon has never passed an audit. But a lot of private industry defense contractors sure are rich. Glorification of the men and women in uniform and fear of appearing, I don’t know, disloyal or anti-American seems to keep people from saying, “Hey, wait a minute, do we really need to spend trillions of dollars on a fighter jet when the wars of the future will be fought with drones and cyberattacks?” That’s political suicide.

Speaking of suicide, did you know that when you call the VA, the first automated message you hear is which number to press if you’re having thoughts of suicide? That’s because in 2020, the year for which I could find the most recent data, an average of 16.8 veterans killed themselves every day. And those are just the sudden deaths, not the slow-motion suicides of self-destruction that come from alcohol and drug abuse – substance abuse that often starts as self-medicating.

It’s funny: Whenever I write anything about immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees and the ways in which we could, should or would support them, I get lots of nasty comments and emails. “What about our homeless veterans?” people holler. I don’t get those comments any other time. It’s not funny at all, actually. And it’s a trick question. There’s enough for everyone if we work at it. I’d like to see more publicly funded housing for veterans with wraparound mental and physical health services. Of course, to build and staff those structures, we’d need a large group of people who are willing and able to work. Breaking news: New Mainers are that large and willing group. Boom. Two birds solved with one stone.

We have so much taxpayer money for instruments of death but none left over for service members after the deployment’s over and the parades are finished and the flags are taken down for the evening. The struggles of dealing with the VA (everyone has a story) are used as evidence that the VA should be privatized rather than prioritized, fought rather than funded. Another chance to extract profit from the bodies and minds of Americans who signed up to serve their country, I suppose.

Have you ever met someone who has so much potential but keeps throwing it away or otherwise not living up to it? Felt the frustration of knowing all the talent is there, but the actions are missing? That’s how I feel about America. I love America. To be more specific, I love the people within it. A lot. And I think we could be doing more to put our money where our mouth is.

Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial