[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 20, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H1394]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE PRICE OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the American people 
to consider the price of the Afghan war, not only its unsustainable 
financial toll, but also the psychological cost to those on the front 
lines as well as those here at home, because this war, fought on the 
ground by a tiny percentage of Americans and largely ignored by the 
greater majority of us, nonetheless, has had powerful effects on each 
one of us.
  In the past 3 months, there have been several high-profile incidents 
in Afghanistan that have forced us to reflect on the mental state of 
the men and women who put their lives on the line every day in 
Afghanistan.
  In January, four soldiers in combat gear urinated on three bloodied 
corpses. In February, American soldiers burned copies of the Koran, 
which triggered 6 days of riots across Afghanistan. And this month, a 
soldier went on a murderous rampage in Kandahar province, killing 16 
Afghans, including nine children. These events have shocked us, but 
they remain remote to most of us.
  I want to talk today about what this war has done to our national 
psyche, that is, our sense of connectedness to one another and our 
sense of mutual obligation to this country.
  The war in Afghanistan is being fought primarily by a small group 
from the Army and Marine Corps who serve multiple tours because we do 
not have adequate replacements for them. This has allowed most of us to 
disengage ourselves from the terror, the suffering and despair endured 
by those who are sent to war. Retired General Robert Scales wrote in 
the Washington Post last week: ``We are fighting too many wars with too 
few soldiers.'' He's right.
  More than 100,000 of our soldiers have been deployed three or more 
times since 9/11. Many of them are overused, exhausted, demoralized, 
and unprepared to come home to a country that has little personal 
investment in the war and does not fully understand its objectives. Is 
it fair or reasonable to send these courageous citizens to war four, 
five, and six times?
  I was a doctor who treated combat soldiers returning from Vietnam, 
and I know that no one escapes multiple tours of combat duty without 
trauma. There have been almost 100,000 new cases of PTSD among our 
servicemembers since 9/11. The military suicide rate in some months has 
been higher than the casualty rate. We are wrong to subject such a 
small group--fewer than one-half of 1 percent of all Americans--to such 
a disproportionate share of the consequences of war.
  I felt this way in 2007 when I supported fellow veteran Charlie 
Rangel's bill, declaring it an obligation of every American citizen 
between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a 2-year period of national 
service either as a member of the national forces or in civilian 
capacity that promotes national defense in times of war. Several weeks 
ago, my constituent, Sergeant William Stacey, became the 399th resident 
from Washington State to be killed since the war on terror began 
following 9/11. In his letter, which soldiers write in case they die, 
Sergeant Stacey wrote:

       My death did not change the world, but there is a greater 
     meaning to it. There will be a child who will live because 
     men left the security they enjoyed in their home country to 
     come to his.

                              {time}  1010

  If more Americans sacrificed their time and energy toward our 
country's ideals, perhaps Sergeant Stacey's dream of a more peaceful 
Afghanistan could become a reality.
  As the overwhelming majority of the Nation stands by while 23-year 
olds die in a distant war zone, our national psyche has been frayed, 
and our shared identity is diminished. We have become immune, immune to 
the traumas of war, and we have lost our sense of common purpose.
  In the Vietnam War, when everybody served, you had no immunity 
because everybody knew somebody, but now it's not that way. We must 
face the true cost of war on not only our soldiers, but ourselves and 
our ideals.

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