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THE VETERAN

Page 19
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Prisoners After War

By John Ketwig (reviewer)

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Prisoners after War: Veterans in the Age of Mass Incarceration
by Jason A. Higgins

(University of Massachusetts Press, 2024)

Jason A. Higgins is the digital scholarship coordinator for Virginia Tech Publishing and an assistant professor jointly affiliated with Virginia Tech University Libraries and the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He is the co-editor of Service Denied: Marginalized Veterans in Modern American History. I must disclose that I have had dinner with Jason and spoke to one of his classes.

I look forward to addressing other Virginia Tech classes in the future.

Prisoners After War is a bit of a play on words evolved from the common phrase Prisoners of War. Most Vietnam veterans are aware that far too many of our fellows are or have been incarcerated since returning from the War. Higgins begins by stating that veterans' "ability to readjust after War also depends on social, historical, and cultural context, which are often determined by race, gender, and legal status. The central research question that guides this project asks: What is the relationship between military-related trauma, discrimination, and incarceration?" In 1990, he points out, nearly 1,150,000 Americans were incarcerated, and that number swelled to nearly 2 million by the end of the decade. And, even though African Americans were only 12.9 percent of the total US population, nearly half of the people in prison were Black.

America's total prison population swelled from 200,000 in 1970 to 7.1 million in 2010. Despite criminal justice reforms, there were still 1.8 million Americans incarcerated in 2021, with 6.9 million booked and housed in jails without yet being convicted. With nearly 4 million on parole and millions more struggling to have a life after being incarcerated, "carceral punishment has become a way of life in the United States."

Higgins points out the impact that poor morale throughout the military had upon the futures of veterans. When Richard Nixon became president, the military had issued only a couple hundred undesirable discharges per year, but those "bad paper" discharges multiplied exponentially, from 6,911 in 1970 to more than 12,000 in 1971 and more than 25,000 in 1972. Of course, during those years, the military was confronted with a concentrated Black resistance movement, the GI anti-war movement (VVAW), and the debilitating realization that increasing numbers of GIs were rebellious, going AWOL, deserting, even mutinous.

Vets with other-than-honorable discharges were subject to lifetime consequences, such as being ineligible for veterans' benefits, entitlements, financial assistance, and VA health care. It wasn't until 2014 that the federal government recognized these problems and initiated reforms encouraging "liberal consideration" for "bad paper" veterans.

Prisoners After War paints a very troubling portrait of America since the JFK assassination, the single most outrageous incident of the struggle, which was conducted primarily by aging white men and the American society's elites, to counter the idealism and constitutional awareness of the various irreverent movements of the era. A lot of Americans were tried, convicted, and jailed, and a very significant percentage of them were veterans.

It must be noted, and Prisoners After War does an excellent job of it, that more modern-day veterans returned from Iraq or Afghanistan have been subjected to even more intense pressures and even more harsh judicial punishments. "Despite more progressive attitudes in the Army on PTSD, TBI, and depression, the military continues to punish those with mental health and behavioral problems, especially for first-time drug use."

"The US Army takes great pride in its policies of punishing members for drug use, framing the increase in administrative separations as progress and improving mission readiness. But from a different perspective, punitive policies for substance abuse disorder are draconian and regressive. Rather than providing treatment, the military kicks out personnel with mental health, substance use disorders, or behavioral problems that often result from fighting in the Global War on Terrorism. One study of VA health records showed that among 206,000 veterans, one-third were diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder, and 41 percent were diagnosed with a mental health disorder, including depression, or a behavioral adjustment disorder. In the first ten years after 9/11, misconduct separations accounted for a vast number of the Army's nearly 180,000 administrative discharges. As double punishment, former service members with misconduct discharges are usually denied access to VA benefits, disability rights, and health care. It costs less money and takes less time to discharge soldiers with behavioral issues than to treat their underlying mental health problems."

Author Jason Higgins interviewed many vets whose lives have been severely impacted by all this, and he does a skillful job of integrating the histories of their heart-breaking struggles along with a shocking, illuminating history of efforts by society's elites to preserve and protect their obscene wealth and authority. Prisoners After War is an important book illuminating some dark corners of American history. It is not an entertaining book, but one that exposes many outrageous and significant truths about America's mistreatment of its veterans. The writing is clear and convincing, the subject is troubling, the author's findings are well documented, and the book is highly recommended.

"Be all you can be" indeed!


John Ketwig is a lifetime member of VVAW and the author of two critically-acclaimed books about Vietnam, ?and a hard rain fell: A GI's True Story of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Reconsidered: The War, the Times, and Why They Matter.




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