Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Lonestar »

Fuck da Vets. yeah, yeah fuck 'em
Germany struggles with homecoming of Afghanistan veterans

By Michael Birnbaum, Published: April 30

BERLIN — For decades, Germany shied away from celebrating its military, ashamed of the jingoism that helped spark two world wars. But as thousands of the country’s troops return home from Afghanistan, many here are saying that old ghosts are causing new neglect.

One fix, Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere said recently, would be to bring back a veterans day, a commemoration that Germany shunned after World War II. The suggestion is a major departure for a country where, until recently, officials did not call the conflict in Afghanistan a war or refer to “fallen soldiers,” fearful of stirring swastika-studded memories. But soldiers themselves say far more is needed.

As the international mission in Afghanistan winds down, Germany and other NATO countries are confronting the homecoming of forces who have seen some of the toughest fighting in decades. In a time of uncertainty about the future of Europe’s militaries, with spending slashed and capabilities diminished, how governments handle the Afghanistan transition could have deep repercussions on societal support for future conflicts.

In Germany, military topics are so undigested that de Maiziere’s first step was to ask whether the word “veteran” means someone who has served in combat or instead applies to anyone who has been in the military.

“German society is not really prepared for these issues, because there is no tradition of it,” said Ulrich Schlie, director of policy planning at the German Defense Ministry. “Our main concern is that there is not enough interest in our society in the armed forces.”

But the question remains an open one, in a country that has neither an equivalent to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs nor a centralized apparatus to deal with the challenges that men and women face after combat. Germany suspended its draft last year, and some worry that the switch to an all-volunteer army could further erode ties between society and its armed forces.

“In Germany, we are not proud of our veterans,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, the head of the German Military Reserve Association and a member of Parliament for the ruling Christian Democrats.

Few discussions about the military’s status in society can avoid Germany’s Nazi past. But the conflicts of the past 20 years — in the Balkans, Somalia and Afghanistan — have slowly changed the primary focus. Germany is the third-largest contributor of troops in Afghanistan — 5,350 troops were stationed there at the beginning of the year, before the drawdown started, and more than 300,000 German troops have served in foreign operations since reunification in 1990. Since then, more than 100 have died.

The simple passage of time has made discussions about veterans less fraught. Few members of the World War II generation are around to raise awkward questions about how they fit into the broader plans. De Maiziere — the son of a prominent general who was active in World War II and postwar West Germany — has said that he intends honors to go only to members of postwar Germany’s military, which was established in 1955 and whose size is still limited to an internationally agreed upon maximum.

No greeting at the airport

Among regular Germans, the discussion has not provoked the heated debate that might have occurred a decade ago. Instead, many seem ready to accept the plans for more recognition for the military. Still, no one is suggesting military parades down Unter den Linden, the broad Berlin boulevard that was built to accommodate that purpose.

“There’s a need for peace and peacefulness,” said David Habedank, 31, a chef who was visiting the New Guard House on Unter den Linden on a recent afternoon. Once a monument to the German military, it is now a memorial “to the victims of war and tyranny.”

“It’s okay to honor not a passion, but a kind of work,” Habedank said.

But soldiers who have served in Afghanistan say that there remains a stark divide between how their country treats them and the reception that their American, British and other counterparts get upon returning home.

“If you look at the U.S. guys, you look at the day they return from Afghanistan or Iraq. In Germany, there’s no one who is greeting them at the airport. There’s no comparison,” said Andreas Timmermann-Levanas, head of the Association of German Veterans, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and has pushed for a veterans day.

Treatment of veterans in the United States is far from perfect, he said, but the country has a broader awareness of the areas that need improvement.

“You discuss the problem, because you know the problem,” Habedank said. “We still don’t know the whole problem.”

And sometimes, as a result, soldiers fall through the cracks.

“I lost everything: house, car, family,” said Martin Jaeger, 41, who was driving a German military bus in Kabul in 2003 when a suicide bomber in a taxi drove up alongside him and detonated his explosives, killing four soldiers and injuring dozens. Jaeger walked away from the blast, but the devastation had a deep psychological impact. For years, Jaeger battled with the German military to have his post-traumatic stress disorder recognized so that he could receive benefits and treatment. He only recently won his fight.

“There wasn’t any acceptance that I was affected,” he said, even though he was for a time homeless, battled alcoholism and found himself struggling with violent rages and flashbacks, which he attributes to his PTSD.

Just two months ago, he moved into a government-subsidized housing complex of trim red-brick buildings that was built for disabled veterans of World War I. He and a friend are the first veterans of Germany’s modern conflicts to live there; the last World War II veteran died a couple of years ago, he said. For now, the bloody images of the attack are kept at bay, confined to his head and to the hard drive of his PlayStation 3.

Soldiers as victims

But not everyone is comfortable with more recognition for soldiers.

“In German tradition, soldiers aren’t heroes, but rather victims. And sometimes they committed crimes,” said Rainer Arnold, 61, the ranking opposition Social Democrat on Parliament’s defense committee. He has fought against the proposal for a veterans day. Arnold said that the breadth of Germany’s social safety net, with its inexpensive health care, relatively generous unemployment benefits and open access to higher education, means that fewer services are needed specifically for soldiers.

German soldiers volunteer for overseas operations. In theory, those who are seriously injured while deployed are eligible for long-term compensation, although advocates say that it can be difficult to qualify with psychological trauma alone.

Though Germany’s history makes dealing with veterans issues here more difficult than for many of its neighbors, other countries may confront similar challenges in the coming years, analysts say.

“Every country will have an issue, with a far larger number of returning veterans than they have in the past. This was the biggest NATO mission ever,” said Tomas Valasek, a defense analyst at the Center for European Reform in London. And, because of improvements in battlefield medicine, he said, many more soldiers are surviving injuries that not long ago would have been lethal — compounding the challenges when they come home. Countries “are dealing with it badly,” Valasek said, making deep cuts in spending at the same time health-care costs are rising.

Some German veterans say they aren’t asking for ticker-tape parades, just a little recognition.

Christian Bernhardt, 35, served in Kuwait in 2003 at the time of the Iraq invasion and says he has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from the experience. A special day, he said, “would be a chance to say thank you to veterans. Have a bratwurst, a little party in the park. It doesn’t even cost much.”


Special correspondent Petra Krischok contributed to this report.
IIRC, Germany is in the top 3 in terms of # of personnel in Afghanistan. Interesting that the German approach seems to be sticking fingers in their ears and going LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU in regards to their vets. Damn shame.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Aaron MkII »

As a vet, don't celebrate, don't make a big deal, just look after the boys properly. No playing political horseshit with claims to the German VA, no denying them services, no down playing PTSD, get them the help they need.

I'm a Canuck but I and a lot of guys never felt comfortable with the borderline worship that started after Afghanistan.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Juubi Karakuchi »

Aaron MkII wrote:As a vet, don't celebrate, don't make a big deal, just look after the boys properly. No playing political horseshit with claims to the German VA, no denying them services, no down playing PTSD, get them the help they need.

I'm a Canuck but I and a lot of guys never felt comfortable with the borderline worship that started after Afghanistan.
Agreed. Soldiers all too often need a hand, but treating them like gods is the last thing they or society need. Such can be all too easily perverted into militarism (in a general sense) and/or to rally support for wars.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Aaron MkII »

It's also easy to talk big to distract from not doing anything.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Simon_Jester »

The Germans appear to be talking small to justify not doing anything.

Antiwar societies usually do not treat veterans very well, whether the antiwar sentiment is permanent (in Germany it's been around for generations) or temporary (say, the US in 1970 regarding Vietnam vets). When the public would prefer to pretend the war didn't happen, why would they want constant public reminders like PTSD awareness campaigns or large budgets for Veterans' Administration work?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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The problem is that virtually all soldiers end up with a similar subset of problems. Roll their treatment into the general population, and look at it from the doctors' point of view. The Germans only deployed, what, five thousand or so guys to Afghanistan? The number of people who have PTSD from that is going to be in the low thousands. The number of people who have injuries from getting blown up by a bomb or whatever will be in the low hundreds.

If you just roll those people into the civilian system, the average doctor still never sees a veteran with a serious PTSD problem from Afghanistan. How seriously will he take his obligation to be trained and ready to cope with the problem he's not going to see more than once or twice?

The US has dedicated veterans' hospitals which are very busy, because of the sheer number of people coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq who need psychiatric care for combat stress, or who need prosthetics for arms or legs blown up by bombs, or who need treatment for brain damage caused by same. The people who work there see these problems all the time, which makes them specialists and makes them more effective at treating the problem.

If we rolled veterans' hospitals into normal hospitals, and... say, mandated that health care for veterans' problems be covered by normal insurance policies, it would be a lot harder on the veterans.

Since the foot soldiers didn't start the damn war, it seems very unjust to shaft them out of good treatment, even if you think the war itself was a bad idea. That kind of behavior makes the antiwar group look really bad, without actually doing anything to prevent future wars.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:The problem is that virtually all soldiers end up with a similar subset of problems. Roll their treatment into the general population, and look at it from the doctors' point of view. The Germans only deployed, what, five thousand or so guys to Afghanistan?The number of people who have PTSD from that is going to be in the low thousands. The number of people who have injuries from getting blown up by a bomb or whatever will be in the low hundreds.
There are over 5000 German soldiers in Afghanistan at any one time. As the article stated, over three hundred thousand German soldiers have been in various foreign commitments over the last two decades - the vast majority in the last ten to fifteen years.
If you just roll those people into the civilian system, the average doctor still never sees a veteran with a serious PTSD problem from Afghanistan. How seriously will he take his obligation to be trained and ready to cope with the problem he's not going to see more than once or twice?
Soldiers aren't the only people who can get PTSD. Victims or witnesses of violent crimes, accidents, rape, natural catastrophes can all get PTSD.
The US has dedicated veterans' hospitals which are very busy, because of the sheer number of people coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq who need psychiatric care for combat stress, or who need prosthetics for arms or legs blown up by bombs, or who need treatment for brain damage caused by same. The people who work there see these problems all the time, which makes them specialists and makes them more effective at treating the problem.
The US has a far larger number of soldiers in foreign countries at any one time. In addition, conventional US health care sucks, requiring special measures if soldiers' needs are to be met.
If we rolled veterans' hospitals into normal hospitals, and... say, mandated that health care for veterans' problems be covered by normal insurance policies, it would be a lot harder on the veterans.

Since the foot soldiers didn't start the damn war, it seems very unjust to shaft them out of good treatment, even if you think the war itself was a bad idea. That kind of behavior makes the antiwar group look really bad, without actually doing anything to prevent future wars.
The problem in Germany is not that the required care isn't available, it's that this is a pretty new problem (at least in this magnitude) and so the required awareness simply wasn't there. The situation is rapidly improving, with clinics or sub-departments of clinics specializing in PTSD appearing. I recently read a book about a medic serving in the second tranche of troops in Kosovo who suffered (and still suffers) from PTSD. Her case received national coverage and a large positive response at various readings and the like, and condemnation of the ignorance about PTSD at various government institutions.

This is not a problem that is being ignored, or that people are hostile to soldiers, or the like. It is simply that there has been a huge change in the usage of the military in Germany in the last two decades, and that there is still some catching up left to do with regards to dealing with it.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Destructionator XIII wrote:The average doctor probably doesn't deal with specific cancers or trauma either. They can refer those patients to the appropriate specialists.

The specialists might be found in de facto veterans hospitals just due to the kinds of referrals they get and the realities of economics (which might come up through specific planning, not just free market pressures), but they don't need extra pomp and circumstance around it like a government cabinet department, veteran's holidays, or separate budgets.
Veterans' holidays work just as well for remembering why war is a bad idea as they do for calling war a good idea- what does Armistice Day look like in Europe?

A specific department of veterans' affairs... well really, that depends on how many veterans you have, doesn't it? When the US formed its department it still had several million World War Two vets kicking around (all over 60 and in need of a lot of medical attention), a few million more Korean War vets, a million or so Vietnam vets, hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets... and that isn't even counting the guys who were in the military but never participated in a serious war. All told, I think it added up to something upwards of 25 million people in 1989.

When the numbers are that big... Yes. I'd say you really do need a cabinet-level department to handle everything. And a budget.
D.Turtle wrote:There are over 5000 German soldiers in Afghanistan at any one time. As the article stated, over three hundred thousand German soldiers have been in various foreign commitments over the last two decades - the vast majority in the last ten to fifteen years.
I'd been assuming an average of a few years overseas for every actual German soldier deployed in Afghanistan- which makes my numbers low estimates but not ridiculously low. I hadn't been accounting for other deployments.
If you just roll those people into the civilian system, the average doctor still never sees a veteran with a serious PTSD problem from Afghanistan. How seriously will he take his obligation to be trained and ready to cope with the problem he's not going to see more than once or twice?
Soldiers aren't the only people who can get PTSD. Victims or witnesses of violent crimes, accidents, rape, natural catastrophes can all get PTSD.
Methods for handling military and civilian PTSD cases are not necessarily the same.

Referring PTSD cases to specialists (as D-13 suggested) would probably work in Germany, which has cheap widespread state-supported health care and a relatively small number of veterans.

For the United States it would not have worked so well- you'd need a huge army of specialists to handle it all anyway. Which mandates a bigger and more comprehensive solution to the problem.
The US has dedicated veterans' hospitals which are very busy, because of the sheer number of people coming back from Afghanistan and Iraq who need psychiatric care for combat stress, or who need prosthetics for arms or legs blown up by bombs, or who need treatment for brain damage caused by same. The people who work there see these problems all the time, which makes them specialists and makes them more effective at treating the problem.
The US has a far larger number of soldiers in foreign countries at any one time. In addition, conventional US health care sucks, requiring special measures if soldiers' needs are to be met.
I don't disagree.
If we rolled veterans' hospitals into normal hospitals, and... say, mandated that health care for veterans' problems be covered by normal insurance policies, it would be a lot harder on the veterans.

Since the foot soldiers didn't start the damn war, it seems very unjust to shaft them out of good treatment, even if you think the war itself was a bad idea. That kind of behavior makes the antiwar group look really bad, without actually doing anything to prevent future wars.
The problem in Germany is not that the required care isn't available, it's that this is a pretty new problem (at least in this magnitude) and so the required awareness simply wasn't there. The situation is rapidly improving, with clinics or sub-departments of clinics specializing in PTSD appearing. I recently read a book about a medic serving in the second tranche of troops in Kosovo who suffered (and still suffers) from PTSD. Her case received national coverage and a large positive response at various readings and the like, and condemnation of the ignorance about PTSD at various government institutions.

This is not a problem that is being ignored, or that people are hostile to soldiers, or the like. It is simply that there has been a huge change in the usage of the military in Germany in the last two decades, and that there is still some catching up left to do with regards to dealing with it.
There does seem to still be some... gap. I'm not sure how to explain this, but when you ahve people saying this:
“In Germany, we are not proud of our veterans,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, the head of the German Military Reserve Association and a member of Parliament for the ruling Christian Democrats.
Now, I'm not saying Germany won't figure out how to come to terms with this in a humane and decent way. What I'm saying is that it is a good idea for antiwar movements and people to figure out how to come to terms with this in such a way, and that it is easy for such movements to make themselves look bad by poor treatment of veterans.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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I think the rest is clear, so I'll just address this last part:
Simon_Jester wrote:There does seem to still be some... gap. I'm not sure how to explain this, but when you have people saying this:
“In Germany, we are not proud of our veterans,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, the head of the German Military Reserve Association and a member of Parliament for the ruling Christian Democrats.
Now, I'm not saying Germany won't figure out how to come to terms with this in a humane and decent way. What I'm saying is that it is a good idea for antiwar movements and people to figure out how to come to terms with this in such a way, and that it is easy for such movements to make themselves look bad by poor treatment of veterans.
I find it interesting that both you and Lonestar jump so heavily at this (Lonestar bolded it in his quote of the article).

First of all, it is obvious that the person saying that, would be more willing to make a drastic statement in that direction (being the head of the German Military Reserve Association). In addition however, there is a vast difference in Germany with regards to what one is proud of. Roughly ten years, for example, there was a heated national discussion about one politician saying that he was proud of Germany. Not being proud of veterans, does not mean that they are despised and treated unfairly, or inhumane, or whatever.

In that way I wouldn't even really counter his argument too much. Being "proud of our veterans" is simply a far too broad statement - as what people exactly are being included this statement? Are we proud of Colonel Klein - who led to the deaths of over a hundred people when he told NATO to bombard a fuel truck surrounded by civilians? Are we proud of various soldiers who mistreated civilians, prisoners, corpses, etc?

In Germany, you would be able to find a lot more sympathy with regards to honoring particular people, and not entire groups. We don't have a special day on which we commemorate the police, fire fighters, and others who have dangerous jobs and are responsible for a whole lot more good than soldiers are. Why should soldiers - as a group - get special treatment?
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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I fail to see how you can arrive at that conclusion.
In Germany, military topics are so undigested that de Maiziere’s first step was to ask whether the word “veteran” means someone who has served in combat or instead applies to anyone who has been in the military.
This line in the article is....dishonest. I remember that question. It arose over the discussion of whether a memorial day would be dedicated to the military as a whole or rather specific soldiers/deployments. To make this look as if de Maiziere is an idiot or does not know about these matters (really, his name should tell you enough about his family's experiences and memory) is pretty hilarious.

Oh, btw, Veteran in German can mean both things anyway.
“In Germany, we are not proud of our veterans,” said Roderich Kiesewetter, the head of the German Military Reserve Association and a member of Parliament for the ruling Christian Democrats.
Why did you highlight this? And I fail to see why this is a wrong assesment or why a nation necessarily has to be proud of its soldiers per se.

But soldiers who have served in Afghanistan say that there remains a stark divide between how their country treats them and the reception that their American, British and other counterparts get upon returning home.

“If you look at the U.S. guys, you look at the day they return from Afghanistan or Iraq. In Germany, there’s no one who is greeting them at the airport. There’s no comparison,” said Andreas Timmermann-Levanas, head of the Association of German Veterans, who served in Bosnia and Afghanistan and has pushed for a veterans day.
Oh, reallly?
Treatment of veterans in the United States is far from perfect, he said, but the country has a broader awareness of the areas that need improvement.

“You discuss the problem, because you know the problem,” Habedank said. “We still don’t know the whole problem.”
Also pretty much just an admission that the whole problem has not been dealt with yet because there is a lack of experience with it. I have yet to see real numbers suggesting the problem is ignored.

IIRC, Germany is in the top 3 in terms of # of personnel in Afghanistan. Interesting that the German approach seems to be sticking fingers in their ears and going LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU in regards to their vets.
Outside of the radical left I don't really think this is the case. National news media spends a disproportionate amount of time on this issue, devoting far more space on it than the scope of the issue would suggest. Heck, the biggest news magazine Der Spiegel just had over six pages on PTSD of vets a few months ago.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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For treating PTSD, which I have, its fine to hand it off to civvies under contract for therapy. The vast majority of my treatment has been done by civvies since before I got out.

The thing to remember is that the cause is almost irrelevant, the treatment is very similar and its dangerous to treat in a military enviroment, you get all your military vs civvie prejudices reinforced and the "hurr hurr you couldn't do my job" as well as peole putting your condition down because you were a cook or something. Or did a tour in Cyprus instead of Bosnia.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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First of all, it is obvious that the person saying that, would be more willing to make a drastic statement in that direction (being the head of the German Military Reserve Association). In addition however, there is a vast difference in Germany with regards to what one is proud of.
This. This Right Here. Not being "proud" of all veterans is not the same thing as actively despising them. In the same way, germans tend not to be nationalistic, but dont by any means "hate" germany. The reasons why this is true should be rather obvious to anyone who takes the time to think about it. Sooo while specific deployments or particular units or individuals receive honors, they dont fetishize their military and assume They Are All Heroes Who Can Do No Wrong in the same way that we tend to do in the US. Why? They have recent Horrible counter-examples that they are bound and determined to Never Repeat or Forget.

If they have a general veterans day like we have in the US for example, they... well... would by implication be celebrating the second world war. Even if they are NOT doing that, the mere implication is something I imagine germans as a rule might find horrifying. IIRC they did not participate in peacekeeping operations in Lebanon a few years ago for the same reason. They did not want to be in a position where they might have to shoot at jews and even hint at the implication.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Aaron MkII »

They would be better served with a rememberance day style thing I suspect. You can honour the fallen and broken with a solem occasion that also recalls the horror of war.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Aaron MkII wrote:They would be better served with a rememberance day style thing I suspect. You can honour the fallen and broken with a solem occasion that also recalls the horror of war.
That's pretty much what the 11th of November is for here, as well as the 8th of May.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Yeah, that's what we do in Canada.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Wait, Germany doesn't want to honour its vet's but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCtje ... _destroyer

They named ships after generals? Who fought in WWII.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Aaron MkII wrote:Wait, Germany doesn't want to honour its vet's but:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCtje ... _destroyer

They named ships after generals? Who fought in WWII.

Well, Lütjens (contrary to his popular image, like in that sink the bismarck movie) was not a supporter of Nazism but rather the stereotypical officer. Same with Rommel. A similar image persisted with Mölders until recently. So when the new destroyers were to be named after one representative of the three forces (Marine, Luftwaffe, Heer) they picked them.

After them, no German ships have been named after persons and they were a one-off anyway - both the preceding and the succeeding ship classes were named after the states.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

Post by Simon_Jester »

D.Turtle wrote:I find it interesting that both you and Lonestar jump so heavily at this (Lonestar bolded it in his quote of the article).
Why do you think I saw it? Bold type works.

And I get the whole "we make ourselves really nervous when using the word "pride" connected to anything involving the nation or military" idea in Germany.
Not being proud of veterans, does not mean that they are despised and treated unfairly, or inhumane, or whatever.
We may be looking at a translation issue. In English, "I am not proud of X" usually means "I am ashamed of X." I'm not sure what the exact connotation of the German word for "proud" is. It may be stronger than its English counterpart for all I know, or there may be subtle shades of meaning. Or it may just have been the Nazis using it every five minutes and creating bad associations for that particular word, especially in such a context, for all I know.

Or, well. Honestly, I don't think you quite understand what I perceived as the issue here- it's difficult for me to explain in a way that I'm sure will cross the cultural divide; I'll take another try at it later this afternoon.
Aaron MkII wrote:For treating PTSD, which I have, its fine to hand it off to civvies under contract for therapy. The vast majority of my treatment has been done by civvies since before I got out.

The thing to remember is that the cause is almost irrelevant, the treatment is very similar and its dangerous to treat in a military enviroment, you get all your military vs civvie prejudices reinforced and the "hurr hurr you couldn't do my job" as well as peole putting your condition down because you were a cook or something. Or did a tour in Cyprus instead of Bosnia.
Sounds very reasonable. I still disagree with D-13 on the issue of needing a big department over it, mostly because of the scale thing. When the DVA was created there were so many veterans in the country that having a massive bureaucracy was kind of necessary to providing everything the government had promised them, and its sheer size alone arguably justified Cabinet-level representation.
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First of all, it is obvious that the person saying that, would be more willing to make a drastic statement in that direction (being the head of the German Military Reserve Association). In addition however, there is a vast difference in Germany with regards to what one is proud of.
This. This Right Here. Not being "proud" of all veterans is not the same thing as actively despising them. In the same way, germans tend not to be nationalistic, but dont by any means "hate" germany.
I don't want to take this analogy especially far, but hearing you say this causes the following to occur to me:

How do you feel about someone saying "I don't hate gay people, we shouldn't be inhumane to them, but there's no reason for them to be holding all these "gay pride parades." I'm not proud of the gay people in this country."

I do not think I would feel good about hearing that, were I in your shoes.

I'm not stating moral equivalency between that and a culture where prominent politicians say as a matter of course "we're not proud of our veterans." The analogy is not that strong, I am not taking it that far. But I want you to try to think about how this looks from the point of view of the people who go off and fight the state's wars for it.
If they have a general veterans day like we have in the US for example, they... well... would by implication be celebrating the second world war. Even if they are NOT doing that, the mere implication is something I imagine germans as a rule might find horrifying. IIRC they did not participate in peacekeeping operations in Lebanon a few years ago for the same reason. They did not want to be in a position where they might have to shoot at jews and even hint at the implication.
This part I grasp; it's a problem that would demand a lot of sensitivity and effort to do decently for Germany, if they were doing it the way that I'm thinking. So I can understand them doing something entirely different, but I think it has some costs to it.

The unconditional support of veterans in the US is, I think, a cultural reaction to the Vietnam War. The Second World War did not see massive "support our veterans" movements in the postwar era in the US, but the war quickly evolved into a heroic legend for the US. So there was, in a broad social sense, 'support' of the men who fought in it. If you'd been injured in the war you had sympathy, if you'd been traumatized in the war there were a lot of men your age who'd understand even if you couldn't really talk about it due to 1950s taboos.

The Korean War didn't turn into a heroic myth, but there was still a widespread sense among the US population that a man who went off to be a soldier in that war had done the right thing, which helped people come to terms with what they had done over there and what had happened to them.

Vietnam was another matter. There was widespread opposition to the war among the same youth demographics that did most of the fighting. When those veterans came back, they felt much more alienated and unwelcome on average. While stories of veterans returning from Vietnam being spat on are urban legends as far as I know, there's a core of symbolic 'truth' there: a lot of people coming back from Vietnam felt like they were being spat on in one way or another.

As the baby boomers grew up and Americans collectively realized what it was doing to a lot of the vets to have fought in a war society wanted to forget and refused to talk much about, there was a strong reaction against that. Are there costs to this? Yes. Does it mean excessive veneration of the military? Probably. What you buy by paying those costs is a society where soldiers are less likely to feel ashamed and alienated by military service.

For the Germans, specifically, that may not be worth it. They do have a different history and culture from the US; there are no one size fits all solutions to things like that. But I don't think it's a totally one-sided thing where the German way is obviously superior. It's a tradeoff.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:And I get the whole "we make ourselves really nervous when using the word "pride" connected to anything involving the nation or military" idea in Germany.

We may be looking at a translation issue. In English, "I am not proud of X" usually means "I am ashamed of X." I'm not sure what the exact connotation of the German word for "proud" is. It may be stronger than its English counterpart for all I know, or there may be subtle shades of meaning. Or it may just have been the Nazis using it every five minutes and creating bad associations for that particular word, especially in such a context, for all I know.

Or, well. Honestly, I don't think you quite understand what I perceived as the issue here- it's difficult for me to explain in a way that I'm sure will cross the cultural divide; I'll take another try at it later this afternoon.
I get the connotation of "being ashamed of". In this case, the person using the phrase "not proud of veterans" was making an accusation against German society (and politics, etc) for not honoring or valuing veterans enough. However, there has to be a middle ground between being proud of something and being ashamed of something. And that middle ground is where I think most people would be with regards to large groups of people (whether in society as a whole, or in specific jobs). Like I wrote in my other post - saying you are proud of veterans elevates them above a whole slew of other jobs that are far more important for society than soldiering, and there are enough soldiers who do something that one IS ashamed of. Because of that, it is far better to honor specific individuals, small groups, or actions.
I don't want to take this analogy especially far, but hearing you say this causes the following to occur to me:

How do you feel about someone saying "I don't hate gay people, we shouldn't be inhumane to them, but there's no reason for them to be holding all these "gay pride parades." I'm not proud of the gay people in this country."

I do not think I would feel good about hearing that, were I in your shoes.

I'm not stating moral equivalency between that and a culture where prominent politicians say as a matter of course "we're not proud of our veterans." The analogy is not that strong, I am not taking it that far. But I want you to try to think about how this looks from the point of view of the people who go off and fight the state's wars for it.
Politicians do not go around saying "we're not proud of our veterans." Instead they don't go around saying "we are proud of (all) our veterans." They don't go around disparaging veterans, but they also don't go around lifting veterans on a pedestal above other people. Not lifting veterans above other people, does not mean that they are worth less than others or not valued. I think thats the divide to the US, where it seems that not giving a group special attention immediately means that that group is treated as less valuable.
The unconditional support of veterans in the US is, I think, a cultural reaction to the Vietnam War. The Second World War did not see massive "support our veterans" movements in the postwar era in the US, but the war quickly evolved into a heroic legend for the US. So there was, in a broad social sense, 'support' of the men who fought in it. If you'd been injured in the war you had sympathy, if you'd been traumatized in the war there were a lot of men your age who'd understand even if you couldn't really talk about it due to 1950s taboos.
Sorry, but this is total bullshit. I think you know of the GI bill, for example. The US has always treated its military as special, as people serving a "higher cause" and thus worthy of adoration, special treatment, etc. The US is militaristic to a degree that is simply unbelievable in comparison to most other countries in the world.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:We may be looking at a translation issue. In English, "I am not proud of X" usually means "I am ashamed of X." I'm not sure what the exact connotation of the German word for "proud" is. It may be stronger than its English counterpart for all I know, or there may be subtle shades of meaning.
Stolz has a variety of different meanings. It depends on the context.

D.Turtle wrote:Sorry, but this is total bullshit. I think you know of the GI bill, for example. The US has always treated its military as special, as people serving a "higher cause" and thus worthy of adoration, special treatment, etc. The US is militaristic to a degree that is simply unbelievable in comparison to most other countries in the world.
Indeed. To most people, the military is just another job and not even one the people with the most options would necessarily chose.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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I don't want to take this analogy especially far, but hearing you say this causes the following to occur to me:

How do you feel about someone saying "I don't hate gay people, we shouldn't be inhumane to them, but there's no reason for them to be holding all these "gay pride parades." I'm not proud of the gay people in this country."

I do not think I would feel good about hearing that, were I in your shoes.

I'm not stating moral equivalency between that and a culture where prominent politicians say as a matter of course "we're not proud of our veterans." The analogy is not that strong, I am not taking it that far. But I want you to try to think about how this looks from the point of view of the people who go off and fight the state's wars for it.
Well, put it this way. I am not proud of being gay. I am happy being gay. I am content being gay. But there is nothing that makes me feel inordinately special about being gay. That is the difference between german and english. In english, we use Proud to mean a few different things. I am excluding the negative ones due to irrelevance.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proud
Gratified; feeling honoured (by something); feeling satisfied or happy about a fact or event.
--I am proud of Sivu's schoolwork.

Generating a sense of pride; being a cause for pride.
---It was a proud day when we finally won the championship.
(obsolete) Brave, valiant; gallant. (This is how it is meant in old english, but the use is obsolete)


Happy, usually used with a sense of honor, as in
--"I'm so proud to have you in our town." But occasionally just plain happy as in "I'm proud to see gas prices down." This is a widespread colloquial usage in the southern United States.
The english word proud is derived from the old english word prūd, which is derived ultimately from the old french prod.

The german word is Stolz, derived from the middle low german Stolt.

They have different derivations and different particular meanings. Two big ones.

1) As I understand it, the word in german typically (not always) denotes something more individual than it does in english. Pride in individual achievement, being proud of an individual to whom you are associated (such as taking pride in the achievement of one of your children). One might also use the word to denote pride in group membership--but only when membership in that group is itself an accomplishment-- or to denote pride in the achievement of a group to which you materially contributed--such as being proud to be a member of a group that helps the homeless and does a good job. It is not acceptable to take pride in say... being german, not only because of the connotations, but because being german is an accident of birth. They get wierded out by our national pride for the same reason, in my experience.

2) To take pride in something in german is not to simply be pleased or happy about something, but to elevate it. To hold it up on a pedestal. In english, the word has both connotations. In german, it has only the one. Or at least, the one connotation is far more prevalent. If germans want to express that they are happy about being german, they would not say "Ich bin stolz Deutscher zu sein". That would elevate being german. That is poor word choice, and also unacceptable. They would say "Ich bin freue Deutscher zu zein" or, "I am pleased to be german"

Keep in mind, I may have missed something here. I am literate in german and familiar enough with the culture and can make some general comparisons, but I am not german and not fluent in the language. This is my impression and if the local germans want to take me to task, I will happily concede.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Alyrium Denryle wrote: If germans want to express that they are happy about being german, they would not say "Ich bin stolz Deutscher zu sein". That would elevate being german. That is poor word choice, and also unacceptable. They would say "Ich bin freue Deutscher zu zein" or, "I am pleased to be german"
froh.

But you are wrong about this one. There was a big debate about whether one can be proud of being German and iirc it was felt that it wasn't that bad to be proud about the accomplishments of the forefathers etc. However, it was also concluded that it was wrong to then conclude that the accomplishments were in itself superior than those of other nations or something so special no other nation could do the same.

What weirds Germans out about the USA is not the pride per se, it is the insistence that the US is something special and not like all the other nations that went before and will come after.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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froh.
Thank you.
But you are wrong about this one. There was a big debate about whether one can be proud of being German and iirc it was felt that it wasn't that bad to be proud about the accomplishments of the forefathers etc. However, it was also concluded that it was wrong to then conclude that the accomplishments were in itself superior than those of other nations or something so special no other nation could do the same.
Ah. My information must be a bit out of date. It has been a number of years since we went over "things not to say, and why" in german class.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Destructionator XIII wrote:I think an important difference here is the presence of universal healthcare.

America had nothing like it in 1930, not in 1989, and we still don't in 2012, so something new was really necessary. We *might* in 2014 though, in Obamacare.

But Germany (as well as most the richer countries of the world) has a working universal healthcare system today; I'm sure German soldiers are already covered by that anyway.

Now, the VA may have been the right choice for America, since it was filling a total gap, but with existing universal healthcare, what we're talking about is more like patching a hole in an otherwise solid wall than all-new construction.
Well, I wouldn't prescribe a massive veterans' administration for every country. I just think it was a good idea for the US at the moment, for a number of reasons- health care is not the only one. I think the state has an unusual obligation to veterans, which justifies having some unusual organization to keep track of them and... I dunno, help them find a job or give them someone to bitch at if stuff is going wrong. Because they went through a lot of unholy dangerous shit because you told them to, you owe them after that.

Now, granted, if the state is already doing everything like that for everyone, it becomes less necessary.
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Re: Meanwhile, in Germany...

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Simon_Jester wrote:I think the state has an unusual obligation to veterans, which justifies having some unusual organization to keep track of them and... I dunno, help them find a job or give them someone to bitch at if stuff is going wrong. Because they went through a lot of unholy dangerous shit because you told them to, you owe them after that.
What makes a soldier more deserving of such care than a firemen, police officer or sea/air rescuer who go through a lot of highly dangerous stuff every year?

Maybe due to the US love of warfare there is a higher risk for soldiers but I fail to see why the state paying you a lot of money to do highly dangerous work requirers special consideration.
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