Author: Laurence Vance

Two recent articles in USA Today illustrate the hidden costs of the war.

The first is about an Army study that found mental issues in 25,000 troops that came back from Iraq, including “post-traumatic stress disorder and depression to substance abuse and family conflict.” 7,000 soldiers admitted to having a drinking problem.

The second is about police officers who come home from Iraq with symptoms of PTSD “that law enforcement and mental health authorities fear could put their judgment and public safety at risk.”

Americans who served in the military and those who have the misfortune of being in their family or otherwise dealing with them will be suffering from the effects of this evil war for years to come. When will this madness end? Will it have to drag out as long as Vietnam did?

Patrick Henry College is a distinctively Christian liberal arts college in Virginia known for being friendly to homeschoolers. The college’s motto is “For Christ and For Liberty.” Imagine my surprise when I saw in the college’s latest “News & Events” that “for a growing number of PHC upperclassmen and alumni, the motto ‘for Christ and for liberty’ has translated into service to their country through the United States military.” One young man who interrupted his studies to join the Marines stated that he was “joining the Marine Corps for the same reason” that he came to Patrick Henry College.

I don’t know what kind of Christianity they are teaching at Patrick Henry College, but speaking as a conservative Christian, I want no part of it.

Over 181,000 people joined the U.S. military during the fiscal 2007 recruiting year. Many of them are no doubt professing Christians. As long as this trend continues, the state will never lack for soldiers to enforce its evil, interventionist foreign policy.

Thanks Patrick Henry College for supplying the state with more cannon fodder. Your motto ought to be “For Christ and Caesar.”

According the the new issue of the New American, a recent military report acknowledged that Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in twenty-six years. According to the report: “There was a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the number of days deployed.”

The anniversary last month of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan once again raised the question of whether nuking Japan was necessary, not to mention sane or moral. We usually hear that it saved the lives of half a million or a million U.S. soldiers. Bush the First once said that the bombs “spared millions of American lives.” But not even Truman went into the millions. I recently came across an audio recording of Truman speaking after the first bomb was dropped. Note here that he says “thousands and thousands” not “millions and millions.”

For more on Truman and the atomic bombs, see Ralph Raico.

Here is a senator speaking against the war:

Never was so momenteous a measure adopted, with so much precipitancy; so little thought; or forced through by such objectionable means.

On the passage of the act recognizing the war, I said to many of my friends, that a deed had been done from which the country would not be able to recover for a long time, if ever.

These deep impressions were made upon my mind, because I saw from the circumstance under which the war was made, a total departure from that course of policy which had governed the country from the commencement of our Government until that time; and this, too, under circumstances calculated to lead to most disastrous consequences.

We begin now to find the misfortune of entering into war without a declaration of war—without a declaration setting forth to the people the causes of the war, and one upon which they may hold the Government responsible.

I should have said that here was a senator speaking against the Mexican war. That was Senator John C. Calhoun in 1846 and 1847.

Operation Banner in Northern Ireland, the British army’s longest continuous military campaign in its history, has finally ended after thirty-eight years. 

Lieutenant-General Nicholas Parker, the General Officer Commanding, “makes it clear that he will not offer an opinion on ‘who won’ – no matter how many times the question is rephrased.”

Will the United States be in Iraq for thirty-eight years? Since we have had troops in Japan, Italy, Germany, and South Korea for over fifty years, I say yes.