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We Expect Sacrifice Of Others, Not Ourselves

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By ARTHUR F. KIRK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 6, 2008

A few weeks ago I handed a diploma to Brian, a young man who worked very hard to finish his degree. He completed most of it online from Iraq in his hospital bed while he recovered from injuries that required nearly 20 surgeries before he could return to Iraq for his second tour.

Many more of my university's graduates will not be able to attend their graduation ceremony. They too are our soldiers, sailors, Marines or airmen and women in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf. Their jobs do not allow them to take off to graduate. It is just one more price they pay to protect the rest of us in our caps and gowns.

My university, Saint Leo University, educates nearly 9,000 members of our armed services, National Guard, reservists, veterans, and military dependents every year. Approximately 1,500 members of the military will earn a Saint Leo University degree this year. Some will complete their degree a decade after they took their first course. Others will complete that final course online in Iraq. These young men and women generally sacrificed a great deal of money and time to earn their degrees. But the price was worth it. But for our military students and graduates, the price they pay because we declared war on Iraq is the one that grieves me.

On March 24, 2008, President Bush told the nation the sacrifice was worthwhile.

Whose sacrifice? Not ours. While my students and graduates sacrifice to answer the call to war against extremists and attempt to restore security in Iraq and Afghanistan, the rest of us pay no price. They leave their families for 13 months at a time. They bleed. They feel real pain and fear. They are wounded, sometimes permanently damaged, and more than 4,000 died. They pay a very high price.

We pay nothing. We pay lower taxes, so all the billions required for them to fight must be borrowed. While they endure 120-degree temperatures without air conditioning and without power most of the day, we remain comfortable. While the quality of long-term care for veterans deteriorates and doesn't even exist for the National Guard (their veteran's benefits last only two years even after multiple tours in Iraq), we added prescription benefits for Medicaid and Medicare also with borrowed money. They pay another price with terrible stress on their families. Spouses must raise children and cope with all the family struggles alone. And many of these families have those subprime mortgages that are foreclosing with increasing frequency.

But the cruelest price is still to come. My students and graduates and their military comrades are part of the generation that will also have to pay the financial price for this war. While we wave flags and display "support our troops" bumper stickers, we blissfully ignore not only the wounded and suffering, but the huge debts that the next generation will have to pay so we do not have to pay any price. When the Greatest Generation fought, the entire nation bore some of the burden. They paid higher taxes, purchased war bonds, endured rationing, recycled everything to do their part. While young people who are just as great, in my opinion, wage this war, the rest of us sacrifice nothing, leaving them to pay a double price. And the price escalates.

Suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans should alarm us (144 through 2005). Divorce rates should too. Their services, particularly the Army and Marines, are "being worn thin." The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee heard pathetic testimony of how wounded veterans could not fight through our government's bureaucracy, climb the mountains of paperwork required and obtain reasonable medical care for their injuries. And the numbers requiring care are staggering. Veterans Affairs predicts it will treat 330,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 - at a cost of nearly $1.3 billion. The system has a backlog of about 400,000 pending medical claims and complaints.

But that total pales compared to the $1 trillion estimate of the war's total cost - most all yet to be paid. I worry that all of my young graduates and my children will pay for this while my generation depletes Social Security and bankrupts Medicare and Medicaid. They all face rising taxes and declining public service and deteriorating critical infrastructure. The generation graduating from college and high school will have to sacrifice and pay for all of this, but soldiers, like Brian, will pay the price twice.

Dr. Arthur F. Kirk Jr. is the president of Saint Leo University.

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