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Writer's pictureKen Larson

A Vietnam Combat Vet And Retired Defense Contracts Manager, Examines The Largest Military Industrial Complex In History


Odyssey of Armaments ” By Ken Larson


“I hope this FREE account of my 36-years in warfare and weapons programs is useful to those concerned about the posture of the United States in the world today. I have learned that the only thing wars decide is how many have died, who is left and who must pay the bills. Academia EDU – Odyssey Of Armaments

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“I am a two tour Vietnam combat veteran and a retired aerospace and defense contracts manager. Vietnam was not a declared war. It was an “Intervention”, developed by the U.S. Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and the “Best and the Brightest” in the Pentagon. It became the defacto model for military actions, not only by the U.S. but also other major world powers. Intervention has a long history.


A similar intervention occurred in Iraq, driven by the same MIC forces.


The Vietnam “Intervention” legacy continued after 911 in Afganistan, with mammoth costs in money, treasure and lives; then on to the Middle East and to Ukraine and now to the Gaza support program, while making billions for defense industries and delivering death and destruction to civilians. What must be learned and what price are we willing to pay to learn it?


Our near term future as a country involves weighty decisions regarding our fiscal and national security.  There will be trade offs during the next federal government incremental funding authorization this Fall. 


We are approaching a National Debt of $36 Trillion with a downgraded fiscal credit rating while carrying the financial burden of ongoing support for NATO and the Ukraine war, the Middle East Gaza conflict, as well as domestic program needs.  

A look over our shoulder at two driving factors of our recent warfare is useful as we consider history when viewing our future while making prudent decisions on the principal contributors to our national debt and security. 


I was in Vietnam for two tours as a combatant; working in US Army Base Development. I observed  Philco Ford CAGV, Pacific Architects and Engineers, Leo Daley and other huge corporations working throughout the country supplying American occupation and making billions.


“David Halberstam’s book offers a great deal of detail on how the decisions were made in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that led to the war, focusing on a period from 1960 to 1965 but also covering earlier and later years up to the publication year of the book. Many influential factors are examined in the book:




THE PAST


A quote many years ago from Major-General Smedley D. Butler: Common Sense (November 1935)


” I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force—the Marine Corps. I have served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to major-general. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers, In short I was a racketeer for capitalism


Thus, I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place to live for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in…. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking   house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican   Republic for American Sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded honors, medals, promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents. War Is A Racket”


THE VIETNAM WAR – THE COSTLIEST TO DATE

View and Search The Vietnam Conflict “Wall of Faces” The Wall of Faces


It’s been 5 decades since the U.S. ended its involvement in the Vietnam War, and yet payments for the conflict are still rising.


Now above $22 billion annually, Vietnam compensation costs are roughly twice the size of the FBI’s annual budget. And while many disabled  Vietnam vets have been compensated for post-traumatic stress disorder, hearing loss or general wounds, other ailments are positioning the war to have large costs even after veterans die.


Based on an  uncertain  link to the defoliant Agent Orange that was used in Vietnam,  federal officials approved diabetes a decade ago as an ailment that  qualifies  for cash compensation — and it is now the most compensated  ailment for Vietnam vets.

The VA also recently included heart disease among the Vietnam medical problems that qualify, and the agency  is seeing  thousands of new claims for that condition.


THE RECENTLY CONCLUDED MAJOR CONFLICTS


If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and  their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.


An Associated  Press analysis of federal payment records found that the  government is  still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War  veterans — 148  years after the conflict ended.


At the anniversary of  the start of the Iraq War, more than $40 billion a  year was going to  compensate veterans and survivors from the  Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And  those costs are rising rapidly.


U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said such expenses should remind the nation about war’s long-lasting financial toll.


“When we decide to go to war, we have to consciously be also thinking about the cost,” said Murray, D-Wash., adding that her WWII veteran father’s disability benefits helped feed their family.


With greater numbers of troops surviving combat injuries because of   improvements in battlefield medicine and technology, the costs of disability payments are set to rise much higher.


So far, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf conflict in the early 1990’s have cost about $12 billion a year to compensate those who have left military service or family members of those who  have died.


Those post-service compensation costs have totaled  more than $50 billion since 2003, not including expenses of medical  care and  other benefits provided to veterans, and are poised to grow  for many years to come.


The new veterans are filing for  disabilities at  historic rates, with about 45 percent of those from  Iraq and Afghanistan  seeking compensation for injuries. Many are seeking compensation for a  variety of ailments at once.


Experts see a variety of factors  driving that surge, including a bad economy that’s led more jobless  veterans to seek the financial benefits they’ve  earned, troops who  survive wounds of war, and more awareness about  head trauma and mental  health.


THE FUTURE


Recent events involving US war “Interventions” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and the Gaza Conflict demonstrate the incredibly out of control nature of the Military Industrial Complexes in the major advanced countries. We are receiving daily demonstrations of their danger, their folly and their contribution to the largest national debt ever to grace the face of the earth.


Alternatives to war in terms of negotiation, scientific advancement and cooperation among world governments not only are required but are the only feasible solution to the present state of our global affairs. The war makers are going broke, subjecting the planet to tremendous risk and operating on world credit subject to world approval.”

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