Evangelicals totally dropped the ball with Vietnam veterans a generation ago but we don't have to make the same mistake. It's asinine that Americans expect the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA), alone, to meet the re-entry needs of Iraq veterans. The government is ill-equipped to address the core needs of veterans and the church needs to man-up and lead the nation in restoring the emotional, marital, familial health, and dignity of Iraq war veterans (Matt 5-7). Missional Christians fighting against the passivity of outsourcing help and restoration to government shout, "Abdication, no more!" Veterans need what the church has to offer.
Ninety-eight percent of the nearly 3,000 US troop casualties are men. When men die so that other men can sit at home and blog, play video games, watch Sports Center, argue about N.T. Wright, and obsess over what "emerging" means, the least we can do is commit ourselves to their families and to surviving veterans.
The fact that we already have unemployed and homeless Iraq war veterans in a nation of 30 million evangelicals is embarrassing. In fact, current projections put Iraq war veterans surpassing Vietnam vets in homelessness. What are we going to do? Here are few items we must take seriously in the coming months:
First, Iraq veterans need to be honored, especially enlisted soldiers! Ours is an odd culture that elevates people who write books for narrow subcultures above men who take bullets for people so they have the freedom to go to sports bars and watch football. Perhaps we don't honor enlisted men because they are not usually members of the emerging church cultural elite. Many Iraq veterans I know, for example, drink Bud Light and they like it (and that's fine). They don't read much. They wouldn't go to a feminized church where people are given crayons to color their feelings on paper during worship. They know that there's a real difference between women and men. Any Iraq Veteran, man or woman, deserves the highest levels of respect and dignity our culture has to offer. This may even go beyond the pragmatism of creating yet another "ministry." Veterans need the honor of life-committed, pursuant love, sharing life together in healing communities of Jesus followers.
Second, Iraq war veterans need psychological restoration. War is traumatic. No family or marriage should expect to be the same when any soldier returns from overseas. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is probably grossly under-diagnosed among returning soldiers (regardless of their being involved in actual combat).
People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, with difficulty sleeping, and feel detached from others; and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person's daily life for years. PTSD can enable depression, substance abuse, problems of memory and cognition. PTSD can impair a person's ability to function in social or family life, including occupational instability, marital problems and divorces, family discord, and difficulties in parenting. Forward thinking pastors will be reading about PTSD anticipating America's gradual withdrawal from Iraq.
Jim relates his PTSD experience this way: "The worst thing anyone can ever do is to say, 'thanks for your service.' That is the most pat and patronizing comment. So many of us get drunk and misbehave when we are back because there is something that we want that words cannot express. I myself held a dead child in my arms who had been decapitated and then went on to kill more than 10. Yes, I drank too much; yes I lost my finance because of my life. It took a year of therapy for me to put my head back together."
Third, Iraq veterans need comprehensive life support, employment issues, marriage and family support, health care issues, and so on. While the church might not be the best place for dealing with health issues the church is the best place for marital and familial restoration strained by the challenges of deployment, PTSD, financial stresses, and so on (Acts 2:42). This is the church at her social best, inviting all into God's liberation, healing, and redemption.
Fourth, Iraq veterans need to be given Jesus, the warrior. The Jesus who fights for his people. The Jesus who came not to bring peace but the sword (Matt 10:34). The Jesus who knows ancient combat. The Jesus who has defeated the Enemy, atones for his people, empowers, and sends them back into mission (1 John 3:8; Eph 2:10).
Will Jesus followers drop the ball on the 144,000 soldiers in Iraq and their families or the 244,054 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan already discharged? While some are meeting to have "conversations" about making the church androgynous and "Oprah-friendly" there are others who are leading Jesus followers into dangerous battles to fight against evil and for people who need Jesus' substitutionary atonement, healing, and restoration. The revolution continues. . .
Evangelicals totally dropped the ball with Vietnam veterans a generation ago but we don't have to make the same mistake. It's asinine that Americans expect the Department of Veteran Affairs (DVA), alone, to meet the re-entry needs of Iraq veterans. The government is ill-equipped to address the core needs of veterans and the church needs to man-up and lead the nation in restoring the emotional, marital, familial health, and dignity of Iraq war veterans (Matt 5-7). Missional Christians fighting against the passivity of outsourcing help and restoration to government shout, "Abdication, no more!" Veterans need what the church has to offer.
