While you are celebrating July 4th, Independence Day in the United States, there will be lots of flag waving and laudatory things being said about our government.
You have seen stories on this blog about government misconduct and even more the main stream news. With all of the emphasis on the honors that veterans should have on the 4th of July, let’s take time to remember that our government doesn’t honor veterans.
Quite the contrary, it conceals inhuman experiments upon veterans, lies about its efforts to locate them, and ultimately fails to right the wrongs it has done.
Caitlin Dickerson in The VA’s Broken Promise To Thousands Of Vets Exposed To Mustard Gas writes of one such case:
In secret chemical weapons experiments conducted during World War II, the U.S. military exposed thousands of American troops to mustard gas.
When those experiments were formally declassified in the 1990s, the Department of Veterans Affairs made two promises: to locate about 4,000 men who were used in the most extreme tests, and to compensate those who had permanent injuries.
But the VA didn’t uphold those promises, an NPR investigation has found.
NPR interviewed more than 40 living test subjects and family members, and they describe an unending cycle of appeals and denials as they struggled to get government benefits for mustard gas exposure. Some gave up out of frustration.
In more than 20 years, the VA attempted to reach just 610 of the men, with a single letter sent in the mail. Brad Flohr, a VA senior adviser for benefits, says the agency couldn’t find the rest, because military records of the experiments were incomplete.
“There was no identifying information,” he says. “No Social Security numbers, no addresses, no … way of identifying them. Although, we tried.”
Yet in just two months, an NPR research librarian located more than 1,200 of them, using the VA’s own list of test subjects and public records.
The mustard gas experiments were conducted at a time when American intelligence showed that enemy gas attacks were imminent. The tests evaluated protective equipment like gas masks and suits. They also compared the relative sensitivity of soldiers, including tests designed to look for racial difference.
The test subjects who are still alive are now in their 80s and 90s. Each year more of their stories die with them.
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Our government, the one you are celebrating on July 4th, conducted secret and inhumane experiments on its own troops, concealed those experiments for approximately fifty (50) years, when discovered, promised to find these veterans and to compensate them, those promises being bald face lies.
I can’t think of a good reason to celebrate our government. Can you?