The human cost of America's forever wars

“Support our troops” is a familiar slogan heard when American troops are deployed abroad.But are returning soldiers supported when they return home? Nearly half of troops returning from post-9/11 deployments report having reintegration problems, almost double the number reported by earlier veterans. Former President Donald Trump tapped into this vein of discontent and won 60% of the veterans’ vote in 2016. Political radicalization among veterans has been a growing problem, and a shocking number of veterans were among the insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Investigative reporter Jasper Craven has been exploring veterans’ and military issues for publications including the New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic and VTDigger. In a 2018 investigative series for VTDigger, he exposed the toxic culture of the Vermont Air National Guard, leading to Gov. Phil Scott to call for a review of Guard policies. This spring, he wrote an expose for Mother Jones on neglect and abuse at Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, a prestigious school that counts among its alumni Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, architect of the first Gulf War. Craven also writes a newsletter, Battle Borne, about veterans’ issues.Craven, who is originally from Vermont, has a new book, “Our Veterans: Winners, Losers, Friends, and Enemies on the New Terrain of Veterans Affairs,” co-written with Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early. The book explores the impact of military service and the challenges that veterans encounter when they return to civilian life. “The full cost of war has rarely been considered, or properly calculated, by architects of the forever warfare that continues today,” Craven and his co-authors concluded.