I’ve Got Your "Red State" Photo Right Here, Assholes

I’ve received it via email. Friends have received it. People have pointed it out on the web. It is, after all, a great photo. Which is why people have used it for propaganda.

I’m talking about the photo of the latest Marlboro Man – US Marine Lance-Corporal Blake Miller with the caption below “red state” right next to a gay pride parade with the caption below, “blue state.” If you haven't received that specific one, you're surely seen this face by itself -------->

As those with blind support for Bush’s war in Iraq (including the Pentagon) used Pat Tillman’s face to help propagandize the glory of war in the Middle East, they’ve used Miller’s image in the same way. If the Pentagon was run by Nike and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were shoe commercials, Tillman and Miller would have received millions of dollars in royalties for their unwitting participation, even though Miller was barely out of his teens when the photo was taken.

The entire thing is unfortunate - this kid never asked that his photo be used to prop up the war in Iraq - it just so happens that a photographer snapped a great photo and the "liberal media," looking to put a positive, masculine face to the war, snatched it up and plastered it in papers across the country.

However, just like the Pat Tillman story, this one, behind the glorious media hype, on the other side of the curtain shielding many of us from realism, is a sad but incredibly real and far too common story about the damaging effects of war that we don't often see in statistics.

Miller, like the estimated 10’s of thousands returning home from Persian Gulf, has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was honorably discharged a few months ago after military psychologists decided he would be a threat to himself or his colleagues if he continued to serve.

And that is exactly what sucks about war propaganda. We take what is inherently ugly and sobering, and turn real lives and real people into symbolic action-figures, often painting with a brush so over-nationalistic, that the real facts and circumstances that surround are masked, and we are unable to reach the conclusions we would have come to had we known the truth. It’s used to impair judgment, and to glorify the gory. It’s used to rally our hearts behind decisions we should be using our brains to make. It is, in effect, a purposeful lie to keep the machine going (To be frank, we on the political Left are not as easily swayed by this nationalistic symbolism, and tend to want to get under the symbols to the real facts, the real costs, and the real picture, rather than just stick a yellow ribbon from Wal-Mart on our car and consider ourselves patriotic for performing that act alone).

As a hyper-media sensitive society, we tend to judge the cost of war by both tax dollars spent and lives lost. We rarely think about the countless thousands who will be returning with lost limbs and other permanent injuries, or the much larger group who are returning with psychological issues. For some reason, the over-masculinized influences of our society are willing to reward and even glorify those with physical injuries (latest estimates are from 15 to 40,000), but PTSD remains stigmatized.

Because of what he’s seen and been through – again like many others returning from the Gulf - Blake Miller is having seconds thoughts about the war and the way in which it was conducted:

The former Marine says he now questions the US tactics and believes troops should have been withdrawn some time ago. He said: "When I was in the service my opinion was whatever the Commander-in-Chief's opinion was. But after I got out, I started to think about it. The biggest question I have now is how you can make a war on an entire country when a certain group from that country is practicing terrorism against you. It's as if a gang from New York went to Iraq and blew some stuff up and Iraq started a war against us because of that…" (read on here)

As one who possesses a degree in psychology, and the son of a psychotherapist who has years of experience working with Vietnam Vets struggling every single day of their lives with PTSD, I can attest to how under-diagnosed and traumatizing this disorder is – both for the individual and their family members.

I’m reminded of this each time I read stories like this one, or see people around Portland holding signs that say, “Homeless Vet, please help.” These are people who have had a very difficult time adjusting to society since having fought under conditions most of us will never experience, and I think the first step in helping them is to understand that PTSD is very real, and very common. The next step is to understand what the government is doing about it, and you can gain a lot from reading this article regarding the political fight over PTSD and how difficult it is to get soldiers benefits to seek treatment.

Oh, and take a wild fucking guess as to which side the “support our troops” Bush administration is on. Go on, see if you can guess.

If you’d like to read more about PTSD in general, click here, or here.