Memorial Day is a time to set aside our differences and join together in remembering and thanking those brave souls who gave their last full measure for their fellow Americans. They deserve that honor even for serving in what some thought to be an ill-advised conflict. Vietnam turned out to be such a war, but that cannot take away from the fact that the 58,220 service personnel who died in that war were answering the call of their country and doing it well.
On Memorial Day, we think of the almost 1,355,000 service personnel who have perished in the nation’s conflicts, starting with the 70,000 who died in the Revolutionary War. Since then, about 655,000 died on both sides of the Civil War. The death toll in World War I was 116,516 and 406,399 died in World War II. The vicious and almost forgotten Korean War saw 36,574 deaths. After Vietnam, 2,325 died in the War in Afghanistan and 4,492 in the Iraq War. May they all rest in peace.
But there are others we should hold in our hearts in addition to those who died in the war theaters. War has a way of inflicting mortal injuries that only take their toll on veterans after the guns are silenced. They include illnesses caused by exposure to toxins, like poisonous gas in WWI, Agent Orange in Vietnam and burn pit fumes in the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq. Those toxins have resulted in untold deaths from a variety of cancers and other diseases. They are not counted on the official death tallies, but they nevertheless are directly attributable to combat conditions.
Many veterans have experienced health problems attributable to wartime conditions or know of others who have. It has been estimated that about 300,000 Vietnam veterans have died because of exposure to Agent Orange. The late Dan Eismann, my colleague of 12 years on the Idaho Supreme Court, received substantial exposure to Agent Orange during two tours in Vietnam. While on the Court, he developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and metastatic melanoma, passing away with honor last year. I was also exposed during my Vietnam service and developed pancreatic cancer in 2017. With surgery, chemo and a great deal of luck, I’ve been cured.
More recently, about 60,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are suffering and dying from medical ailments caused by exposure to toxins emanating from burn pits used to destroy all sorts of trash. Congress finally passed the PACT Act in 2022 to provide the necessary medical care, but the Act has not been funded for the current fiscal year. That is a serious breach of the country’s duty to those veterans.
There are many other serious problems that our veteran community faces on an all-too-frequent basis, including mental health issues, chronic substance abuse, suicide, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. There is obviously a lot of intermingling of these problems, but they present serious issues for many veterans.
While we can only honor the memories of the veterans who died in war zones, everyone concerned about our living veterans can take action to address problems presently confronting them. That could help to prevent future war-related deaths. When we see veterans in distress, we can reach out to them, provide a voice of caring and make a referral to a helpline for expert assistance.
Everyone can provide a service to our community of living veterans by speaking out on their behalf in public. We should inform members of our Congressional delegation, as well as state and local leaders, that we expect them to advocate for preserving and protecting veterans and the benefits they have rightfully earned. The message must be that we will not put up with massive cuts of medical and support staffing at VA medical facilities. The lives and health of our veteran population must not be sacrificed based on unsupported claims of wasteful spending in veterans programs.
Our Senators and Congressmen should take aggressive action to maintain the current level of VA spending and to ensure funding of the PACT Act in the current budget fight. Funding must be restored for important programs designed to halt the war-related deaths of our veterans, including lifesaving cancer trials, mental health care, and suicide prevention. These essential programs, along with many others, must be restored, stabilized and adequately funded, in order to address war-related injuries and illnesses in our veteran population. They deserve nothing less.
On Memorial Day, May 26, let’s remember, honor and mourn those gallant Americans who gave their lives in service to this great country. We should also pay tribute to the veterans who died off of the battlefield because of war-related causes. And let’s resolve to do our utmost to prevent future loss of life for that veteran population.
