Wednsday, June 13, 2007.  A Vietnam vet and father of a young man who is now stationed in Iraq asked C-SPAN’s Washington Journal morning call-in program host to investigate the high rate of suicides among those serving in the combat zone and who have returned from it. According to the caller, three soldiers had recently committed that ultimate manifestation of extreme depression. 

Of course the program’s host will not move on the caller’s request. Responding to anything is not the role of C-SPAN. Rather, C-SPAN’s mission is now what it has been from its first broadcast, to be the innocuous eyes and ears that bring unedited the machinations of the nation’s politics from the shadows and into the light of scrutiny for those sufficiently interested to tune in.

Interesting. Tragic. Yesterday AP ran an article describing how “Soldiers returning from war are finding it more difficult to get mental health treatment because military insurance is cutting payments to therapists, on top of already low reimbursement rates and a tangle of red tape.”

The article relates how the waiting lists run to months to see military doctors and weeks to locate a therapist willing to take on current and ex-members of the military, especially in the more rural areas that so many of today’s soldiers and marines call home.

And concerning surviving family members of our fallen, trying to cope with the grief  . . .  Joyce Lindsey, a 46-year old widow from Troutdale, Oregon, was forced to wait two months for counseling after her husband was killed in Afghanistan.

The tips of the spears have gotten the shaft and are now the bogeymen under the bed our government wants to keep hidden, along with the myriad of ugly dustbunnies indicating all is not at all well. It’s a revolting turn on don’t ask, don’t tell, or out of sight and don’t you trouble your pretty little mind.

“Bring ‘em on!”

“Mission accomplished!”

“Support our troops.”

Whether by man or woman, all repugnant, obscene, hypocritical, cowardly gestures made and uttered so safe on the distant sidelines. Reminds me of the gutless recreants who taunt one of the combatants in a schoolyard fight, “C’mon, hit ‘im Tony! don’t let ‘im get away with that.”

I’ve no doubt there are many members of our combat arms, on the ground and actively engaged, who want to “finish the mission;” whatever the hell defines either “the mission,” or “victory.” And regardless how any of us feel about any aspect of the war in Iraq, standing on the sidelines while those who have stepped forward to do our bidding get treated shabbily, our collective mission must be to do all we can on behalf of “him who has born the battle,” and costs be damned. Whatever we may be asked to pay, will pale in comparison.

Old saying: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. 

But the evidence is clear that almost no one is really willing to “do the time.” Rather, by the howls across the land for more tax cuts, the evidence suggests that for the most part our collective attitude makes us not much different than the backwoods Suthen law-yuh in Vicki Lawrence 1973’ The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia. “The judge said guilty in a make-believe trial, slapped the sheriff on the back with a smile, and said ‘Supper’s waitin’ at home and I got to get to it.’”  “That’s the night the lights went out in Georgia. That’s the night they hung an innocent man.”

Pro forma does not make anything right. Not a hundred million yellow-ribbon trunk-lid stickers nor rantings from the right side of the isle can render a gasp of it just. Supper and a lot of other things may be waiting to consume our thoughts and time. But damn! this is just so not right. And an awful lot of our innocent men and women have been hung out to dry by a government and populace that have supper — or American Idol, or the NBA finals — waitin’ at home and gotta git to it.

And what you gonna do next time, when our country gets hit hard, and you say you need some folks to bear the battle, and no one steps forward because those who can remember the truth about how those who did were really regarded?