There’s an unwritten contract that every service member enters into with the society they serve—not the one where they sign on the dotted line and raise their right hand—but one signed in blood, sacrifice, and duty. That agreement is we will serve the greater good and give whatever it takes to ensure mission success and the security of our nation, and when we are done, our nation will have our back. If we are injured or incur disability in the line of that service, then our nation will bear the burden of care and compensation for that disability, and our veterans won’t have to fight the “long fight” alone.
In the current domestic climate in the US, that contract feels broken—for many veterans, that contract has been broken.
For two decades, our nation was at war; an entire generation of veterans knew nothing of adulthood that wasn’t a product of that war. Many of those veterans joined in the days and years immediately after 9/11. They—we—answered when our nation called upon us. We took our fight to our adversaries’ homes because it was the good fight. It was for the greater good. We endured unimaginable hardships and sacrificed, and at times we did heroic things. Other times, we did or experienced unspeakable things—often placed in life-or-death moral dilemmas. We did what our nation asked us to do, and my personal opinion is that we were successful until a nation that refused to even pay attention to the war we were waging decided it didn’t want to fight that war anymore. And then we—they—surrendered.
With that surrender, negotiated as part of the Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban (and effectively al-Qaida as well), our leaders not only negotiated the defeat of the US and our allies but also abandoned the Afghan men and women who trusted the US enough to risk their own lives and those of their families to fight for a free Afghanistan.
That generation of American service members went from being the “Next Greatest Generation,” a noble comparison to those who fought in WWII, to the “Newest Vietnam Generation.” The parallels between our self-inflicted loss in the Global War on Terror and the loss in Vietnam are striking. While there are distinct differences between the homecoming our brothers and sisters from the Vietnam War and us GWOT vets received (we owe a debt of gratitude to those Vietnam vets who largely shaped our homecoming to be the one they never received), the effects of that loss and the experience of the veterans who served remain strikingly similar: Our nation asked us to do terrible things in your name and then turned their backs on us.
We fought because it was our duty. We did what we were trained to do, even when it meant making choices that tore at our souls. We endured hardship after hardship because we believed the mission mattered and that our sacrifices had meaning. But what happens when the promises made to us for that service are broken? What happens when policies strip away what we’ve earned or deny the reality of what we endured?
One glaring example is the VA Disability Offset policy. Yes, it was reversed for those who served 20 years or more, but not for those whose military careers were cut short by “disqualifying conditions” sustained or aggravated by their service. Imagine being forced into medical retirement because your body gave out in the line of duty, only to have your retirement benefits reduced because you dared to claim the disability compensation you earned. It’s a cruel penalty on those whose sacrifices came at the highest cost—service members who wanted to stay in uniform but were physically unable to.
Then there’s the ongoing debate over “presumptive conditions” and toxic exposure—a discussion that should have ended long ago. After every war, we’ve seen a pattern: veterans coming home with illnesses tied to known exposures, only to face an uphill battle for recognition. Vietnam veterans had to fight for decades to link Agent Orange to conditions like cancer and diabetes. Now, Gulf War and GWOT veterans are fighting the same fight over burn pits and other toxic exposures. The PACT Act was a step in the right direction, but now there are discussions about rolling it back, leaving countless veterans vulnerable.
Instead of expanding the list of presumptive conditions for those with clear medical linkages to burn pits and other toxins, some policymakers want to deny these conditions entirely. They want proof—impossible for most veterans to provide—rather than acknowledging the undeniable patterns of illness among those exposed. It’s as if we haven’t learned anything from history, repeating the same mistakes while veterans suffer and die waiting for an acknowledgment.
These aren’t isolated issues—they’re systemic failures that betray the unwritten contract between those who serve and the nation they serve. They send a clear message: your sacrifices are negotiable. Your suffering is debatable. Your benefits are expendable.
But they shouldn’t be. Policies like Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay and recognizing presumptive conditions aren’t just bureaucratic details—they’re lifelines. They acknowledge that service comes with a cost and that cost shouldn’t fall solely on the shoulders of those who bore it.
Veterans shouldn’t have to fight for what they’ve earned. We shouldn’t have to prove over and over that the toxic smoke we breathed or the injuries we sustained were real. We shouldn’t have to watch as the benefits we rely on are debated away by people who never bore the weight of war. Or worse, by vets who did and somehow found their service without injury as a sign of their “alpha-ness.”
We didn’t hesitate when you called. We didn’t ask for guarantees or question the cost. We answered because that’s what we were trained to do. Now, as we bear the weight of what we were asked to do, we invite you to honor our promises, not out of pity or guilt, but because it’s the right thing to do.
You asked us to do terrible things in your name, and we answered your call. Please don’t turn your back on us now.
James is a combat veteran of five GWOT deployments—and served with GCV when both of them were far slimmer.
Can you point us to some organizations that are working to fix this? I live in liberal Seattle, and every person I know — even people who opposed the Iraq War — would agree with you completely. If everyone agrees with you, we need know how to aim our political power and financial support in the right direction. Thanks for educating us!
I have never understood the gap between the glorification of veterans by politicians and then their giving vets the shaft when it comes to benefits and health care. Is the issue bad laws, rules and regulations plud military red tape? I'm guessing all of those.