>>13337>kontra in systemkontraTyping this on my phone, gonna try to keep it short:
In public discourse, the overarching goal of Ukraine's war effort is presented roughly as Ukraine not being a Russian satellite state, but being part of the collective west
Ukrainian soldiers risk their health and lives for this patriotic (patriotic without definition, also without quotation marks, after long deliberation) cause, which their government orders them to do. I am quite certain that many of them will have some form of shell-shock, PTSD, name it as you want.
What does this article have to say about American soldiers who fought for the cause of keeping Vietnam from becoming a Chinese satellite state, and who came back with some parts in their head slightly loose? roughly: Damn those white people for soldiering while white and not liking every minute of it, then not keeping quiet about not liking every minute of it. They only faked trauma, obviously, to keep non-white and working class people down, the sneaky bastards.
I disagree. In my opinion, making these allegations is rather crappy behavior towards Vietnam veterans, the majority of whom did not ask to fight this war, but were ordered to do so by their government, and lost their health in the process. Now, 6 decades later, in their old age, they get told that they should have kept quiet about their trauma and should not even have sought treatment, because they, being white men, did not have anything to complain about in the first place.
The collective west apparently is a cultural sphere were we first draft people to fight a war, then decide the war is too expensive to win, then decide to tell them (5-6 decades later) that it was pretty racist of them to not keep quiet about being traumatized.
It is not obvious to me that great sacrifices should be made to be part of a cultural sphere where we publish such articles and take them seriously.
Suppose Vietnam vets, like WWII vets had kept quiet. What could we write about? I can make up a line of argument: the white middle-class vets kept quiet about their experiences. They internalized their trauma. Being white and middle class, they had the resources to cover it all up. This led to society having a completely distorted image of war and set the bar for how vets should be able to re-integrate into society impossibly high for non white-and working class veterans. These men would have urgently needed treatment for their war-trauma, but the behavior of white men had made trauma invisible.
And I still believe damning essays will be written about veterans of the Ukraine war, in due time, and they will find that it was, ultimately, not worth it, because what will they have gained from being shelled day and night? Being made the bogey-men.