Our Veterans

“Americans disagree on many things, but we all love and honor our veterans, right? No, according to this eye-opening book. Finally we have an honest account that contrasts our game-day celebration of veterans with the cold realities many of them face in post-military life. Written with compassion and just the right amount of outrage, Our Veterans is an essential contribution to an urgent national debate.” — Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times correspondent and author of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control

“As this book reveals, too many men and women in the military are exposed, callously and carelessly, to a toxic work environment. Their service-related problems can lead to unemployment, homelessness, and high suicide rates. That’s why veterans need more real friends in Congress and in the public who will better defend the lifesaving programs of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Our Veterans is a call to action by everyone concerned about health equity and educational opportunity for all Americans.” — Michael Blecker, Vietnam veteran and Executive Director of Swords to Plowshares

“Our Veterans pulls back the curtain on the military and veteran community, often shrouded and protected by invocations of patriotism. As an institution, the military operates with impunity, wreaking havoc on the future lives of those who serve. When those service members become veterans, rather than discussing the very real implications of that service, they’re often valorized, tokenized, and used by Congress and advocates with personal agendas. The truth of the matter is that military service is complicated, and the veteran community reflects that. This book is a wake-up call for an American public led to believe that our country supports veterans.” — Lindsay Church, Navy veteran, cofounder and Executive Director, Minority Veterans of America

“Our Veterans does an excellent job setting the record straight. It shows how people who have served in the military since 9/11 defy traditional stereotypes about veterans and their organizations. Veterans are far more diverse, overwhelmingly working-class, and very assertive about our rights as workers. We’re also angry about the enormous financial waste of ‘forever wars’ while our communities crumble. The veterans profiled in this book are deeply involved in struggles against racial injustice, militarized policing, and big money in politics—and those movements are growing every day.” — Kyle Bibby, U.S. Naval Academy graduate, former Marine Captain, Afghanistan war veteran, cofounder of Black Veterans Project and National Campaigns Manager, Common Defense

“When it comes to the military, the mantra of many of our fellow citizens is: ‘thank, don’t think.’ The authors of this book are asking us to think long and hard about the costs of war for men and women still dealing with traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, and many other service related conditions. The best way that Americans can show gratitude to veterans is by making sure that their physical, psychological, and social needs are met. And that means strengthening and expanding the services available at the VA, a healthcare system that understands and supports its patients.” — Arlys Herem, former Army nurse, Veterans for Peace member, and “Save Our VA” Campaigner

“Few are more qualified to critically assess the impact of America’s decades-long wars than Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early, and Jasper Craven. Our Veterans is an accessible, thoroughly researched deep-dive into why young men and women sign up for the military, the demographics they come from, and what they experience in uniform and, later, as veterans. You don’t often see a book with this level of seriousness, research, and organization. Our Veterans should be read and shared by everyone looking to challenge America’s war machine.” — Rory Fanning, Afghanistan war veteran and author of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of the Military and Across America

“Our Veterans brings to life the meaning of the cadence ‘They wave the flag when you attack, when you return they turn their back.’ It’s a meticulous account of the many challenges facing military service members and their families, while on active duty and afterwards. The authors shine a light on military sexual trauma and cancer-causing drinking water on military bases, toxic soup burn-pits in combat zones, and helmets lacking padding to protect against traumatic brain injuries. They ask why treatment for the moral injuries of unjust wars is so hard to get and why so many veterans are denied VA benefits because they were discharged unfairly. This is an amazing, timely, and much needed book.” — Nancy Lessin, cofounder, Military Families Speak Out

“The authors offer a rare glimpse of the lives of veterans, from women who risked retaliation for reporting sexual assault by their compatriots to advocates who pushed the expansion of housing and education benefits on behalf of military families to veterans who used the banner of supporting our troops to defend the interests of Big Pharma to those who joined white supremacist militia groups, among others. Many of these stories reflect how America’s forever wars have eroded the American dream for those we claim to honor most—members of our military. Our Veterans suggests that a deteriorating safety net for military families is a warning sign of where this country may be headed if Congress does not start diverting resources away from wars abroad towards our own peoples’ well-being.” — Andrea Mazzarino, coeditor of War and Health: The Medical Consequences of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

“Our Veterans grapples with some hard questions that concerned citizens can’t afford to ignore. How do we deal with Congressional Democrats from military backgrounds who back ‘forever wars’ and obscene Pentagon budgets? How do we challenge the Pentagon-to-police pipeline that puts too many former soldiers and their military equipment on the front lines of local law enforcement? How do we help veterans make healthier transitions from active duty to civilian life so they don’t end up in right-wing militias and white supremacist groups? As Republicans mobilize to retake Congress and the White House, the ‘vet vote’ is once again up for grabs, making the progressive approach to veterans’ issues, proposed by the authors, both timely and relevant.” — Larry Cohen, National Board Chair of Our Revolution and former president, Communications Workers of America

“Our Veterans gives readers a unique tour of the inside-the-Beltway world of veterans service organizations, both traditional ones and their post 9/11 competitors. As the authors reveal, the ‘veterans lobby’ is now subject to far more corporate influence—particularly from the healthcare industry—than is healthy for veterans and their families. This book also usefully examines the record of ‘service candidates,’ who use their military laurels to get elected but then become beholden to wealthy donors and special interests, just like too many others on Capitol Hill.” — Phillip Longman, author of Best Care Anywhere: Why VA Care Is Better Than Yours

“Working with VA union members, I saw firsthand how understaffing, underfunding, and Trump era political appointees undermined their caregiving work. As this book shows, much recent damage to the agency is the product of ‘bipartisanship’ on Capitol Hill—Democrats joining Republicans in the push for privatization of veterans’ services. If you want to find out who in Congress or the White House claims to be ‘pro veteran,’ but actually puts the demands of corporate donors before the needs of former soldiers, read this book. Better yet, use it as a voter guide in 2022 and beyond.” — Ian Hoffmann, former Legislative/Political Organizer, American Federation of Government Employees

“The one million veterans who belong to unions are an underutilized resource for the labor movement. I have seen workers who served in the military on the frontlines of campaigns for higher wages, safer job conditions, and good union contracts. Our Veterans does a badass job of exposing the hypocrisy and duplicity of antiunion firms like Amazon and Walmart who wrap themselves in the flag while violating the rights of working-class Americans who served in uniform and the many who did not.” — David Van Deusen, AFSCME Representative and President, Vermont AFL-CIO

“Our Veterans tells a working-class story, a labor story, and a political story. In the process, the authors have done the near-impossible: written a page-turner about the VA. They nimbly chronicle how the United States created a successful system of socialized medicine only to have members of Congress in recent years try to dismantle it. Our Veterans is an indictment of neoliberalism, since VA outsourcing has been a bipartisan project. While alarming in many ways, this book is also hopeful. It shows how VA-delivered care can be strengthened and improved as a model for health care for all.” — Chris Lombardi, author of I Ain’t Marching Anymore: Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America’s Wars

“Our Veterans is an important new study of military service as work, its place in American society, and the fate of foot-soldiers who, unlike the generals, politicians, and arms merchants, bear the burdens of war for the rest of their lives. Millions of us know that—my own cousin, drafted for Vietnam, later died from Agent Orange. But these authors lucidly explain how active duty, since 9/11, exposed a whole new generation of veterans to illness and injury that was largely preventable.” — Paul Buhle, historian, author, and former Senior Lecturer, Brown University

“Public provision of veterans healthcare fulfills a societal pledge to those who have served. This important book effectively debunks the myth that outsourced federal services are better and more cost-effective, while revealing the dangers of turning VA patients into ‘customers’ of the healthcare industry. Only an aroused citizenry can help veterans and their families resist this trend.” — Donald Cohen, coauthor of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back

“Suzanne Gordon, Steve Early, and Jasper Craven care about veterans and believe that promises made to them should be kept. Their book demonstrates how VA caregivers and their patients, along with allies in labor and the community, can better organize against the powerful private interests which seek to discredit the VA and keep it from fulfilling those commitments.” — Wade Rathke, Chief Organizer of ACORN International and Editor/Publisher of Social Policy