You Can Pay Now...or Pay Later


I guess it shows my age when I reference an old Fram auto parts ad--the part itself would change, but the theme was always the same: a mechanic who'd seen it all would hold up an oil filter or something similar, tell you it costs about $5 or $10 dollars or whatever...then point to the car in the garage--"a new motor, on the other hand, costs $1500. But the choice is yours--you can pay me now...or pay me later."

Sadly, with Iraq, we're perpetually opting to wait until the bill REALLY comes due, not the least case being the throwaway mentality wingnuttia has when it comes to the soldiers who are actually doing the fighting (as opposed to their sorry chickenhawk asses):

Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents' home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone.

But a "black shadow" had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children.

In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression.

At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled "severe and chronic." In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was "in need of major help" and that he had provided "more than enough evidence" to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, "have been well documented."

None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. "The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat," his rejection letter stated.

Yet abundant evidence of his year in combat with the 4th Infantry Division covers his family's living-room wall. The Army Commendation Medal With Valor for "meritorious actions . . . during strategic combat operations" to capture Hussein hangs not far from the combat spurs awarded for his work with the 10th Cavalry "Eye Deep" scouts, attached to an elite unit that caught the Iraqi leader on Dec. 13, 2003, at Ad Dawr...

Once celebrated by his government, Cruz feels defeated by its bureaucracy. He no longer has the stamina to appeal the VA decision, or to make the Army correct the sloppy errors in his medical records or amend his personnel file so it actually lists his combat awards.

"I'm pushing the mental limits as it is," Cruz said, standing outside the bullet-pocked steel door of the New York City housing project on Webster Avenue where he grew up and still lives with his family. "My experience so far is, you ask for something and they deny, deny, deny. After a while you just give up."

I wish Spec. Cruz the best of luck--and it sounds like, despite the raw deal he got, he's coping. But what's going to happen to the one-in-a-thousand or so who decide they've got nothing left to lose and go postal?

You know, just as war itself implies a measure of force that ultimately is indiscriminate (i.e., you WILL kill innocent people), there is also no such thing as a free ride when it comes to combat. Even the "easy" Gulf War I managed to influence a couple of people in an extraordinary-and-not-in-a-good-kind of way: Tim McVeigh and John Allen Mohammed. And anyone thinking Son of Gulf War will somehow produce a kinder, gentler veteran is dumb enough...to serve in the Executive Branch.

The consequences, however, will be deadly tragic.