Martin Luther King Jr., in his courageous opposition to the Vietnam War, warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
by Terry Hansen
Guest Commentary
I recently listened to an incredibly sad interview on Israel's Channel 5 News with the mother of an Israeli soldier who was deployed in Gaza. Representing a group of mothers of members of the Israeli Defense Forces, she explained that after two years of continual trauma, “Today, they are broken, they are finished." She implored that they desperately need time to heal.
The mother went on to describe a paratrooper who had a panic attack "because the smell of food reminded him of corpses being eaten by dogs in Khan Younis." She further testified that “They don’t encounter terrorists; they encounter IEDs and blow up!”
Guest Commentary
The world's top five arms manufacturers are American companies.
What this distressed mother recounted reminds me of clinical psychiatrist Jonathan Shay's powerful book "Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character." The book is about Vietnam veterans and the psychological and moral wounds of war. Shay wrote that "Time and safety to mourn were built into ancient warfare and were absent in Vietnam." Added to this is the immense, constant suffering of Palestinians. Psychiatrist Dr. Samah Jabr explains that, for the children of Gaza, the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder is a misnomer. According to Jabr, "there is no 'post' because the trauma is repetitive and ongoing." Our leaders should be deeply ashamed of the paths they have so often taken to address our world's problems. The U.S. annual defense budget edges toward $1 trillion, while the Trump Administration slashes funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development and other foreign aid programs. Moreover, the world's top five arms manufacturers are American companies. Martin Luther King Jr., in his courageous opposition to the Vietnam War, warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." His words ring true today — for Gaza and other conflict zones. Let us choose justice and compassion to break the cycles of violence before future generations are also lost to war.
Terry Hansen is an opinion writer who frequently comments on Gaza, focusing on humanitarian issues, U.S. policy and Israel’s actions in the region. He is a retired educator from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
More stories you might like ~
