VFP: "Bring Our War Dollars Home"

Remarks delivered at the NC State Capitol on February 20, 2012, hosted by North Carolina Peace Action.

Introduction, by John Heuer (Chair, North Carolina Peace Action):

I'm serving as chair of North Carolina Peace Action. It's my privilege to introduce our next speaker. Logan Mehl-Laituri is an Iraq veteran of the US Army. He is currently a student in the Master of Theological Studies program at Duke Divinity School, where he is a founding member of the student group Milites Christi and lead organizer of the After the Yellow Ribbon conference, held last Veterans Day and sponsored by Duke Divinity School. The conference focused on equipping congregations, colleges, and communities to engage more meaningfully with past and present service members.

Logan also serves as executive officer of Centurions Guild and is the author of the forthcoming Reborn on the Fourth of July: The Challenge of Faith, Patriotism, and Conscience. Please welcome Logan Mehl-Laituri.

Remarks:

I want to thank North Carolina Peace Action for inviting me, and especially John for being a conduit. I just wanted to share a story briefly, one that will hopefully lead into what I might offer. I might bring a slightly different perspective — I was worried, because I'm not incredibly politically astute. You can probably tell by the fact that I'm not wearing a tie, and I am wearing jeans. So I was a little worried: what do I bring to this conversation?

About a year and a half ago, I began orientation at Divinity School at Duke University, and they were telling us about all the different programs available to students. One of them is a psychiatry program called CAPS, and the representative was up there talking about doctor-patient confidentiality — how your information and background are kept safe. I think he was trying to liven the crowd up a bit. He said, "You can tell us you're cheating on your test, you're cheating on your spouse, you kicked your dog," and on and on, and ended the list with, "You can even tell us that you've killed someone." At that point, my entire cohort — my entire entering class — burst out laughing.

They didn't recognize that there's an entire generation of individuals like myself who wrestle with that very question — that it is not a laughing matter for 2.3 million veterans, or 2.3 active-duty service members, who will begin flooding the Veterans Administration healthcare system.

They didn't know that, according to a report from 2007, two years prior — in 2005 — there were over 6,000 veterans who had killed themselves that year, amounting to 17 every single day. They didn't know that over eight active-duty Iraq and Afghanistan veterans kill themselves every month, since that same study came out. They didn't know that in 2009 and 2010, there were more active-duty suicides than combat fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. They didn't know any better, and I quickly went about educating them as gently as I could.

What I learned — and I was in touch with other veterans there who were struggling with the same issues — was that people in class held assumptions like the idea that every service member goes to war with bloodlust. We're largely pacifists at Duke, and I identify as a pacifist myself. But the community just did not recognize the deep need that was right there in their own midst.

That's part of why I'm taking a leave of absence right now — to take some time off and do some writing projects. It's also why I took time off to help plan last year's Veterans Day event, called After the Yellow Ribbon. One thing we learned in the process was that veterans are integral to our communities. They sit next to us in class. They stand behind us in the grocery store. They sit in our pews in churches. But because we don't wear the uniform every day, and many of us have since been discharged, we don't recognize where they are in our communities — and that lets us go on assuming everything is all right when it isn't necessarily all right.

When I was speaking with John about what I might offer today, I told him I wasn't sure what to say politically. The epidemic of suicide is not merely a political issue — it is profound human suffering that needs acknowledgment. It needs a human response, not just a political solution or policy. I'll say that again: the epidemic of suicide is not only a political issue but profound human suffering that needs acknowledgment. It needs a human response, not just a political solution or policy.

Like Congressman Price, with whom I apparently share a theology background, I'd like to challenge this audience — because you are members of a community. The issue of caring for veterans properly and meaningfully needs to be addressed not just by our elected officials and religious leaders, but by you, the community. We all have a stake in welcoming our veterans home, and in helping them come home all the way — so that the wars may truly end. We may have ostensibly ended the war in Iraq, but the war doesn't end for the millions of people who look very similar to me, and maybe similarly to you as well. We need to make sure we're acknowledging that as a tangible human cost, not merely a financial one.

The VA system is another conversation entirely, but there is a human cost to war that often goes overlooked. I'd encourage you all to consider it as we continue to press for the end of the war in Afghanistan — and also for the end of the war for the veterans who fought it — and to welcome them more holistically back into our communities.

I'll close by saying: if you'd like to learn more about the Yellow Ribbon event from last year, we recorded everything. There were a number of theological academics, there were pastors, and our keynote speaker was the ethicist at West Point, Lieutenant Colonel Pete Kilner. Though we disagreed on a number of political issues, we all agreed that veterans and service members who've been in combat are an integral part of our communities and need our attention. If you want to learn more, go to sites.duke.edu/fdyellowribbon, download the recorded sessions, and watch the videos of the faculty and community members who spoke.

Thank you.