The moral obligation to know our veterans: Mike Haynie at TEDxUniversityofNevada

so I'm here today to tell you a simple story it's a story about citizenship responsibility and dare I say maybe even morality it's a story that when I shared with some of those close to me before I came out here they said in a very cautionary way that maybe I should not tell this story because it may make some of you feel uncomfortable my response when I when I got that feedback was perfect so here's my story this is what I'd like to share I have one of those jobs that unfortunately requires that I spend

a lot of time on airplanes and not too long ago I boarded a flight like I always do took my seat and I and as I was drifting off to sleep the pilot came over the public address system to young soldiers had boarded the airplane and took seats just a few rows in front of me and the pilot asked everyone in the plane to thank them and acknowledge their service to this country and you know there was a polite round of applause on the airplane and those close enough to reach the two young men you

know gave them a handshake and a pat on the back and I couldn't help but notice as this was going on the woman sitting next to me was making a particular show of her support so much so that I began to wonder if this was as much about her as it was those two soldiers so I am a social scientist by academic training and I have been known to do let's say impromptu social experiments and situations like this so I decided at this point I was going to engage this woman in a conversation and I

told her I was a military veteran myself I told her that today I direct a large academic Institute at Syracuse University focused on the social and economic concerns of this nation's twenty-two 1/2 million military veterans and with that she was hooked I got her and the she travels a lot like me and you know one of the first things she said to me was that whenever she's in an airport and she sees a soldier you know she makes sure to say thank you for your service I thanked her for her gesture but then began to

subtly or maybe not so subtly shift the direction of the conversation a little bit to some of the challenges that are facing particularly this generation of military veterans I told her for example that many of this generation of veterans particularly the youngest have struggled mightily to find jobs when they come home and leave service and that maybe some of those struggles are a function of the fact that many of these young men and women who have served over the last 12 years are leaving military service with disabilities at a rate unprecedented in the US history

conservatively 30 percent of them will live out the rest of their lives with disabilities connected to her service and the more I talked the more agitated she became but what did me in what did the conversation and was when I told her about the suicides when I told her that 20 percent of this nation suicides are military veterans even though they represent less than 10% of our population when I told her that 22 military veterans a day commit suicide in this country one every 80 minutes I told her that by the time we land three

more will have taken their own lives I told her that in recent years more veterans have died by their own hand than service members lost to the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan and at this point she looked at me like I had two heads and she said none of this can be true this isn't Vietnam didn't you see us clap for those soldiers America supports our veterans she proceeded to pull out her iPad pop on her headphones and turn on a re-run of home and garden TV I knew it was a rerun because I like

that I liked that channel I watched those shows all the time but she was clearly done with me and honestly I sat there and thought maybe I had gone too far with my little experiment and then a young man couldn't have been more than 24 25 years old sitting on the other side of the aisle tapped me on the shoulder and looked me square in the eye stuck out his hand and he simply said thanks and it turns out his name was Tim Tim was a military veteran Tim volunteered and enlisted in the Marine Corps

when he was 18 years old served for five years three of those five years he spent in Iraq or Afghanistan he got out just about six months ago and he had a plan he was gonna go to school and he seemed a shame to tell me that he only lasted about two months on his college campus because said I just didn't feel like I fit in I didn't feel like I belonged I had nothing in common with my classmates with my teachers with my administrators he'd been trying to find a job no luck so far

and he told me he's really hoping that the docs at the VA can figure out how to stop the ringing in his ear so he can get more than two or three hours of sleep each night and you know what to be very honest with you because of what I do I've heard all that before none of that necessarily surprised me but what hit me like a punch in the gut is what he said next his eyes welled up and he said Mike worst of all worse than all of that is since I've been home

I feel anonymous and at that moment I I turned and looked at the woman who was sitting next to me and she's lost in her reality TV and you know Tim was not the only one at that moment looking for a tissue to wipe his eyes now home um the very people who sent him to war he feels anonymous I'd ask you to reflect on that for a second in 2012 at the Aspen Institute's ideas festival General Stanley McChrystal became the first senior commander of the post 9/11 generation of military leaders to make a public

call for a return to the draft his argument was never again should the cost and consequences of war be so disconnected from society and its citizens nobody paid him any attention it made the news for about a day so post Vietnam it was America's response to Vietnam that largely served as the impetus for the creation of the all-volunteer force after Vietnam the idea of conscription and mandatory military service for all was widely rejected by all Americans still today it is the all-volunteer force model that has the overwhelming support of Americans and quite honestly most military

leaders importantly however we are coming off the first extended test of the all-volunteer force and as with any test it's my hope and certainly our collective hope that we may have learned something let me tell you what I have learned what I have learned is that the moral outrage that galvanized much of America after Vietnam was subsequently translated into policy and then practice in a way that actually runs counter to the idea that war is something to be avoided at all costs in fact the all-volunteer force makes it much too easy for us to leverage

military conflict as an instrument of public policy since 1973 when the all-volunteer force was enacted our leaders have actually used force as an instrument of policy at an escalating rate in the 40 years since the all-volunteer force has been existence our military leaders have sent our men and women of the military into harm's way a hundred and thirty four separate times in the forty years prior to the all-volunteer force when all of our citizens were responsible for our defense our leaders used force 24 times why is Tim anonymous Tim is anonymous because we have disconnected

the costs and consequences of war from all of you over the course of the last 12 years at war the burden of that war has been shouldered by less than 1% of all Americans because of that fact odds are Tim is not your brother your father your son your neighbor your classmate your teammate he's probably not even your friend and because of that fact far too many Americans are not invested in Tim's future but let me tell you Tim is somebody Tim is these somebody that we all of you collectively entrusted and conferred this nation's

moral compass when you sent him off to find fight and kill our enemies and now he's home and though and just like that woman sitting next to me on the airplane not enough of you not enough of us are invested in his future so here's the thing let me tell you about Tim Tim history and those who have come before Tim have proven to history that he's smart educated resourceful and entrepreneurial he wants to be a leader in your communities on your campuses and in your governments he's mature beyond his years he's honest to a

fault and he's fiercely loyal sure war has changed him but on so many dimensions more for the better than for the worse Thomas Jefferson said that a nation as a society forms a moral person and that all members are responsible for society I stand here and attest to you today that when you made the decision to defer the defense of this country to Tim you made a moral choice that incurs a moral obligation what is that obligation it's a very very simple thing it's the only thing that Tim wants from you Tim wants you to

know him I implore you find a way to know Tim thank you