Nasuti writes that the Pentagon officially admits that 5,500 troops have been killed and 38,000 injured. This deliberately ignores 95% of the actual injuries:

-170,000+ cases of hearing damage

-130,000+ cases of mild traumatic brain injuries

-200,000+ cases of serious mental health problems

These totals don’t include:

-over 30,000 cases of serious diseases

-hundreds of thousands of cases of minor diseases resulting from bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections

-thousands of cases of respiratory disease linked to exposure to toxic burn pit smoke

-hundreds of suicides

-thousands of cases of back, spinal and foot injuries due to wearing cheap and unnecessarily heavy body armor although lighter body armor is available

Nasuti rightly claims that in 2001, the Pentagon decided to follow the maxim that truth is the first casualty of war.

Nasuti, Matthew. “American Military Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan Now Exceed 500,000 (Part 1 of 2).“Kabul Press (Kabul, Afghanistan). Kabul Press. 2010.

Timothy Caldwell is a Vietnam Veteran, a father, an author, a Professor of Music at Central Michigan University for over 35 years. He is a noted critic of the government’s treatment of troops returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other wars. Caldwell has appeared on radio stations throughout the country discussing ways in which these soldiers can reacclimate themselves back into their former lives. He has created a community for veterans who have kept all that they have experienced and seen locked inside themselves. He wants to help them to find the keys to opening up and living their lives again.

In 1969, Caldwell was looking forward to his bright future and new career in a teaching position at the University of Dubuque (Iowa). He had not foreseen war in his future plans. However as fate would have it, his exemption papers were never sent to the government. Caldwell was forced to give up the teaching position and was then drafted and sent to Vietnam. He served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1972 where his life would be forever changed. In the Army, he was trained to be a chaplain’s assistant. In 1970, he was sent to Vietnam, the tour of duty that inspired the creation of his novel, “The Chaplain’s Assistant: God, Country, and Vietnam.” This fictionalized memoir is based on true occurrences and events that happened during Caldwell’s time spent in Vietnam, “Almost everything that happens in the book happened – just not necessarily to me.” In 2009 his book received the honor of being a finalist in the Military Fiction category of the Ellen Reid National Indie Excellence Book Awards. This summer Caldwell will be speaking to the Wounded Warriors Project (WWP) at the Chicago Air & Water show that takes place in August. The WWP provides programs and services to severely injured service members during the time between active duty and transition to civilian life.

On his website http://www.thechaplainsassistant.com, he has created an online forum under the community section where veterans can come to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly about their experiences as a soldier. Friends and families of soldiers, whether they were in Korea or Afghanistan, or any of the wars in between are welcome to participate in the community. He wants to provide a safe place and to help raise awareness that post traumatic stress disorder is a serious and real disease.

For more info visit http://www.thechaplainsassistant.com. He is also available to speak at community and veteran functions, and is available for interviews as well. Please contact Natalie@dreamtownmedia.com or Melissa@dreamtownmedia.com for further information.

Memorial Day, 2010: 4404 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq; 1000 Americans have died in Afghanistan. And the nation sleeps.

This Memorial Day, politicians across the country will spout words about heroes, sacrifice, and patriotism, then return to their divisive partisan politics while the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan continues on its bloody way. This Memorial Day will be just another way for businesses to lure shoppers into their stores for “Memorial Day discounts.” Some will advertise discounts in “honor” of those who have given their lives. How does shopping “honor” a soldier?  As soldiers in Afghanistan have said “We’re fighting a war while America is at the mall.”

The root of “memorial” means “memory,” and “preserving remembrance.” It is right and fitting that we celebrate those who fight, and have fought, for our nation. But if Memorial Day is only a momentary look at our past, then it is worth little. If the celebrations do not cause us to consider, and question, the actions of our government and how our soldiers are currently being used, then they mean no more than the smoke that disappears in the aftermath of an IED explosion.

“So,” you might ask, “what is the best way to support the troops?” Do what you can to first rouse yourself, then wake up our sleeping nation. Must we be fighting an endless war (as the Bush administration liked to call it)? How many more of our sons and daughters in uniform must die before, as in Vietnam, we say “enough” and withdraw our troops?

I believe the best way to support our troops is to bring them home. But whatever your answer might be, don’t forget them or their families now or after they come home. Coming home is hard.  A soldier returning from a war zone faces tensions and conflicts as he or she tries to move back into civilian life. But the new veteran has to learn that there is no going back; war changes those who fight, and life changes those who wait for the soldier’s return.

A week earlier, I had been vacationing in London, England, with my life-partner. Her father had been a doctor in the Army in Africa and Italy during the war, and because of this, he had missed the first three years of her life as he cared for the wounded and dying so far from home. We visited St. Paul’s Church where we came upon a chapel that had been created for American soldiers by a grateful England. The stained glass windows had images of sailors, airmen, and soldiers. The sun shone that day through these multicolored images onto a simple alter and peaceful area nestled near to where the legendary kings and queens of England are interred.

We both had headphones on that were attached to electronic guides for the church. As the man’s voice finished describing the memorial to the fallen Americans, a choir began singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. You can imagine the emotions that passed through us; she, for her father, and me as a veteran of the war in Vietnam. To have an ally honor our veterans in such a way left me at a loss for words.

One week later, when we visited the WWII memorial, the Korean memorial, and finally the Vietnam memorial–where I, once again, read the names of some of my friends–all these sights and sounds from London and D.C. blended together to make those moments more vivid and meaningful and me more reflective. In the past, it has been easy to attend Memorial Day events, see the parades, hear elderly veterans stumble through formal phrases of remembrance, watch flags passing by, and then turn toward home and family activities. Not this year, however.

Why? Because statisticians tell us that Vietnam veterans are now dying at the rate of one a minute. Each day, 1,800 of us leave this life, these images of the war of our youth. There were almost half-a-million Vietnam veterans and friends on motorcycles rumbling around D.C. as part of the Rolling Thunder tradition. Chances are good that some of those riders will not be with us next year. They are trying to keep the memories of their comrades alive, to remind the country that for them the hostilities in Vietnam ended decades ago, but the battles continue for veterans and their families to bring some meaning to the lives that were lost or damaged.

Our country has a very short memory. People who were not in the war are quick to forget, and the generations of Americans who have been born since the war have little understanding of what it cost our society in lives and treasure.

But even as Vietnam veterans struggle to find meaning to their sacrifices, our country needs to awaken to the fact that our sons and daughters fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are giving us new reasons to mourn and laud their sacrifices for us. For this country, every day needs to be a Memorial Day to honor the fallen and care for the veterans and their families. Only then will we as a nation be able to say that we truly honor our veterans.

Stories are now emerging of the problems returning veterans encounter when returning to home to children they have never met. In my personal case, I returned from Vietnam to a three-month old son. I recently heard of a soldier who came home to an eighteen-month old child who would have nothing to do with him. Coming home to friends and family is jarring in itself: coming home to young children, or children of any age, amplifies the re-entry issues.

If you know a veteran with children–whether that veteran is a mother or father, send a card or make a call to let him or her know that you are glad they are home. If you suspect there are issues at home, let them know they have a friendly, non-judgmental, person they can talk to. Believe me, they will need to talk to someone outside of their family circle.

I’m writing to let you know that just yesterday, President Obama signed into law the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Service Act. I was proud to cosponsor and support the goals of this legislation, which are a top priority for our returning veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq.

This new law provides funding, health care coverage, training, and support to the family caregivers of severely wounded veterans. When our young men and women return home with serious injuries, their families will have help paying the bills and care for their loved ones. The bill also helps them pay for travel, so they can go with their loved one when they receive hospital treatments.

With more women serving today in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, the VA needs to modernize and provide better health care for women veterans. This legislation requires the VA to plan appropriately for the future health needs of women who return home from combat.

This law also requires the VA to offer mental health counseling to all returning veterans, and gives the VA resources to find ways to reduce suicide rates for veterans. In addition, it creates several pilot programs to provide essential services to veterans, such as child care, dental care, and readjustment for returning combat veterans.

This law also provides support to help homeless veterans. Sadly, every night, nearly 130,000 men and women who served us in uniform sleep out on the streets, with nowhere to go. This law uses an integrated approach to bring together non-profit organizations, the VA, and local governments to reach out to homeless veterans and help find them housing and make sure they know about the benefits available to them.

Our veterans have given selflessly for their country, and we have a moral obligation to provide them with the support they need when they come home.

This past weekend I was performing at a theatre in my hometown in Kansas. After the first show, the other comedians and I went to a local bar to grab some horrible cardboard pizza and cheap wine. My parents, who still live in the house I grew up in, and my older brother who lives down the street from them, joined us at the musty pub. We sat in the corner on stained red “pleather” couches and had to raise our voices to be heard over the drunken revelers playing pool and foosball. The sound system was blaring a track by Toby Keith singing “I’ll put a boot in your ass.” My hometown was just as I remembered it: rowdy, small and friendly.

As I was washing down my preservative-laden pizza with tart white wine, a woman who looked like a cross between Brooke Shields and Courtney Cox approached me. She extended her hand toward me and said “Jennifer?” My addled, exhausted brain began searching my high school Rolodex, trying to figure out who this was.

“It’s me, Tina.” The synapses were starting to fire and I was quickly putting the puzzle together. Tina was one of my best friends in high school and I had not seen her since graduation. I threw my arms around her and gave her a huge hug, hoping that this was my long lost friend and not the waitress or someone asking for directions to the bathroom.

One of the first questions out of my mouth was: “Do you have kids?”

“Yes,” my slight friend replied, “Six, well five. My oldest son died this year from complications of muscular dystrophy.”

Tina’s face was pale and she looked like a child. She continued: “My second husband took a gun to his head after his second tour in Iraq. He killed himself in front of me and the kids.” Tina buried her face in my sweater as I held her crying in the middle of the bar. I didn’t know what to say, so I just stood there hugging my long lost friend, searching for words that couldn’t be found.

Suicide rates among soldiers are the highest they have been in nearly three decades and are exceeding suicide rates for the general population. There are months that there are more suicides among soldiers than soldiers killed in the line of duty. Each and every day an average of five soldiers try to take their own lives; compare this to 2001 statistics, before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when there was an average of one suicide attempt a day among soldiers.

Tina’s husband, Lance, was thirty-six years old when he shot himself in the head. He joined the Army right out of high school and had served in the Army for over eighteen years. He was a year and half away from being able to retire with full benefits. Lance loved the Army, he loved the community, the camaraderie and the discipline. He often told Tina that he couldn’t see himself doing anything else.

Lance’s first wife was his high school sweetheart, Kimberly. Lance and Kimberly had three children together. They were by all accounts a very happy family. Toward the end of his second deployment in Iraq Lance got an emergency message that his wife had died from a drug overdose.

Lance buried the love of his life. He felt guilty about her death and was convinced that it could have somehow been prevented. He blamed himself for leaving his wife with three young kids for months on end. Fifteen days after her funeral, the Army wanted Lance to go back to Iraq and leave behind his three children who had just lost their mother. He was sick and grieving and had to beg the Army to give him more time with his children. The Army finally agreed and slowly Lance seemed to recover from his devastating loss.

Tina and Lance met, fell madly in love and joined their families together. Tina got pregnant and the baby was nine months old and in Tina’s arms the day her father took his life.

“Seeing my husband take his last breath and bleeding to death in my arms — I felt like I had failed him,” Tina said. “I had called the Army so many times pleading with them to help my husband. They would prescribe him some pills and then everything would start over again. He was depressed and scared. He wasn’t afraid of dying — he was afraid of living with all the images he had seen in Iraq.”

After eighteen years of serving his country, Sergeant First Class Lance left behind a wife and four children, three who have no mother and no father. They are the forgotten casualties of war.

(The names have been changed to protect the family’s privacy.)

“The Chaplain’s Assistant: God, Country, and Vietnam,” a novel by Mount Pleasant resident Timothy Caldwell, recently was honored as a finalist in the Military Fiction category of the 2009 Ellen Reid National Indie Excellence Book Awards.

Caldwell, who wrote the book under the pseudonym JT Caldwell, said he is “delighted that ‘The Chaplain’s Assistant’ was a finalist in the 2009 Indie Book Awards. I hope that recognition in competitions will help bring the book to the attention of more readers.”

And Caldwell’s desire to make more people aware of the book has nothing to do with sales numbers or profits; rather, he’s focused on its potential benefit to fellow veterans.

“Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan — as well as Vietnam — who read the book tell me that the problems I wrote about — particularly in terms of returning home from war — very closely mirror their own experiences,” said Caldwell.

According to the awards’ official news release, “(t)he competition is judged by an independent panel of experts from all aspects of the publishing industry. The awards are based on overall excellence: cover and interior design, promotional text, and content, and winners are selected for each of over 65 categories.” The 2009 competition drew the largest number of entries in the Indie Excellence Book Awards’ three-year history.

“The Chaplain’s Assistant” also has earned a positive nod from the Midwest Book Review, which called the book “solid and riveting reading.”

The story behind the story
After his draft release paperwork was “lost in the mail,” forcing him to give up a teaching position at the University of Dubuque (Iowa), Caldwell served in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1972. His service included a 1970 assignment as a chaplain’s assistant in Vietnam — which inspired and provided much of the fodder for Caldwell’s novel, which he refers to as a “fictionalized memoir.”

“Almost everything that happens in the book happened— just not necessarily to me,” said Caldwell, a professor of voice in Central Michigan University’s School of Music.

To learn more about “The Chaplain’s Assistant,” visit http://www.thechaplainsassistant.com; Caldwell also maintains a blog at http://www.thechaplainsassistant.blogspot.com. To order a hard copy or Amazon Kindle version of “The Chaplain’s Assistant,” visit http://bit.ly/chaplainsassistant.

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Mount Pleasant, MI – August 1, 2008 – The Chaplain’s Assistant, a powerful new novel by author JT Caldwell, follows a year in the life of a soldier whose innocence is lost, priorities are changed and belief in God and country are shattered – overnight and forever.

Opera singer and teacher Ted Bertson never wanted to go to Vietnam. Recently married and with a promising career on the horizon, being drafted was not part of his plan. But once the draft notice came, a twenty-year journey through the endless brutality of war and a private hell called post-traumatic stress disorder followed.

While Bertson’s story is hardly unique from the tens of thousands of soldiers who’ve served in the last 40 years, little has changed in their treatment from the people around them and the government that called them to service.

Mr. Caldwell hopes The Chaplain’s Assistant will serve as a call to action for all Americans to regard veterans and returning soldiers of current wars as people who’ve endured the unimaginable and will have difficulty fitting back into the lives they left behind four or more years ago. “They’ll need special help, understanding and lots of patience from their families,” he says, “and renewed support from a government that apparently helps them only as long as they’re fighting.”

About the Author
JT Caldwell is a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1969 – 1972 as a Chaplain’s Assistant. Today he is a noted critic of the government’s treatment of the troops returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and other wars. He has appeared on radio stations throughout the country discussing ways in which these soldiers can reacclimate themselves back into their former lives. Mr. Caldwell, who lives in Michigan, is also an opera singer and Professor of Music at Central Michigan University, a position he’s held for 30 years. He is internationally recognized as an author and teacher of Dalcroze Eurhythmics, a century-old methodology for teaching music.

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