The Nixon Factor: How War Can Impact a Nation

by Bill Seebeck

In February 1971, I met with then President Richard Nixon to discuss a report co-authored by me on the Progress of Vietnamization.

This was the name given to a program, begun by this President, that provided American styled basic military training to young Vietnamese men who became members of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Once trained, new ARVN units would replace American units that would then be brought home.  In a sense it is similar to the training provided by U.S. forces right now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, that is a picture of the author (above) with the President and then Assistant National Security Advisor, General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., in the Oval Office.  

During the meeting, the President addressed criticism he had received over prolonging the war. He said that he was trying to extract U.S. troops in a way that would give the South Vietnamese a better chance to defend themselves and made the point that he was not a warmonger. The President then turned and asked Press Secretary Ron Ziegler how many men were killed that week.  Ziegler said 32.  Mr. Nixon then said, "It's always a number.  When I came here the number was in the hundreds, always a number."  "Yet, I'm a politician," the President continued, "and if there is one thing I know is that they are not numbers, they are men."

The President went on to say that he had a theory that by the time a man is 18, 19, 20, he has touched the lives of at least 2,000 people --- his elementary and high school classmates, cub scouts, boy scouts, little league, family, friends, neighbors, church members, they all add up.  So while 32 men may have died in Vietnam that week, the President said, 64,000 Americans have been personally and painfully impacted by the war.

Ever since that meeting I have called this observation, the Nixon factor of how war can impact a nation.  When you apply it to the War in Vietnam with 211,501 casualties (58,198 dead and 153,303 wounded), the Nixon factor indicates that 423,002,000 Americans were personally impacted, some more than once.  Since that number exceeded the population at that time, it is fair to say that most every citizen was personally touched by the war.

When you apply the Nixon factor to the War in Iraq and Afghanistan with 38,960 casualties (4,953 dead and 34,007 wounded as of 4/24/2009), the results find that some 77,920,000 Americans have been personally impacted.

Something to ponder when those in power consider sending young American men and women in harms way.

The Stress of It All is Becoming Dangerous

by Bill Seebeck

It seems that not a day goes by during these most difficult financial times when we don't hear a story about people "losing it".  Just this week, a young man apparently took his life.  He was the acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac whose stated mission is to help stabilize residential mortgage markets in the United States.  The Treasury Department took over the company last September.  He was only 41.

That story was followed up by another in which it was reported that a lawyer mother ordered her two daughters out of the car because they were yelling too much and wouldn't quiet down. I checked up on the mother and found that she is a skilled senior attorney whose specialty is law that governs banking and other lending institutions with particular emphasis on the very issues being faced by, we the people, and our Treasury Department.

No matter what else was going on in the lives of these two individuals, I recognized in them, one of the real threats to the health and welfare of the American people.

STRESS.

Every day, in addition to whatever we've had to previously bear, we are now faced with losing our jobs, keeping our homes, feeding ourselves and our children not to mention the loss of dreams of retirement, college education and just a plain better life.  This folks results in stress and it has a profound impact on us.

According to a 1996 article in Psychology Today, "When stresses become routine, the constant biochemical pounding takes its toll on the body; the system starts to wear out at an accelerated rate. By responding to the stress of everyday life with the same surge of biochemicals released during major threats, the body is slowly killing itself. The biochemical onslaught chips away at the immune system, opening the way to cancer, infection, and disease. Hormones unleashed by stress eat at the digestive tract and lungs, promoting ulcers and asthma. Or they may weaken the heart, leading to strokes and heart disease." "Chronic stress is like slow poison," [Jean] King [Ph.D. of the University of Massachusetts Medical School] observes. "It is a fact of modern life that even people who are not sensitized to stress are adversely affected by everything that can go wrong in the day."

This is another reason why I have been so worried about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.   I am not concerned about the professionalism of our armed forces but I am concerned about the constant stress that four or five years of combat, four, five, six 12 and 15 month deployments have had on our service people and their families.  And don't think that bravado will overcome it, it will not.  Examine the increasing suicide rate among the military and you will find that we have a problem that can't be swept under a rug.

Watch the way people drive these days, listen to the concerns we share with one another, we as a nation are worried and stressed. Our institutions have failed us and our social contract has been broken.  Now we can fix it, but there must be more relief given directly to the people in order that the stress of it all doesn't endanger us in ways we have never yet experienced as a society.

What do you think?

Mr. President: Train Afghan Police Forces in U.S.

This morning, Reuters reported out of Brussels, Belgium that President Obama plans to significantly increase the size of the Afghan police force.  The story was attributed to U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.

The usual plan was described in the article which was to send over hundreds of U.S. specialists, etc., etc. to train the candidates in country.

I say, if there are police or army personnel to be trained let's bring them here to the U.S. for their training.  It is a safer, much more efficient method and we can rotate classes at a faster rate.  It would also give these individuals a picture of the U.S. and its people.  We would not have to deal with insurgent attacks and many other issues related to training personnel in country.

In addition, for a period of time, it will create jobs in areas once served by U.S. military training facilities that can be reopened and utilized.  Good for the Afghans, good for the U.S.

Mr. President, this is change for the better.  We should have done it with the Iraqi army, let's do it with the Afghans.

Please sir.

Copyright 2009 WBSeebeck

No Russian Presence in Cuba or Venezuela!

Let there be no mistake, if we don't stand on our heels and growl as Teddy Roosevelt's bear did back in the early 20th century, the Russians will establish air and later naval bases in Cuba and Venezuela.

The Russian government has already held joint naval operations in the Caribbean with these nations and just announced their intention to stage bombers in these two countries.  This is totally unacceptable to the United States.

We trust that President Obama will stand and publicly state that the presence of Russian offensive weapons in our hemisphere is unacceptable and a threat to the national security of the United States.

Those of us who lived through the Cuban missile crisis and other similar encounters with the Soviet Union and now Putin's Russia know that their intentions are not honorable.

Copyright 2009 WBSeebeck