So what is my point with all of this? It is to remind folks that the veteran is the man or woman you grew up with, attended high school or college with. We’re the person who grew up down the street from you or that you saw everyday at the drug store or fast food joint. Most of us had a variety of reasons to sign our names and take the oath of enlistment. We weren’t and aren’t making a big production of our service. We mostly served and came home, no matter the time.

The most chilling phrase in The Invisible War, Kirby Dick’s documentary about the ongoing, institutionalized, taxpayer funded rape of military service people by fellow members of the military, appears onscreen at the film’s beginning: “All statistics in this film are from U.S. governments studies.”

A new article at Truthout describes how Paul Wolfowitz issued a military directive in March 2002 that loosened rules against human experimentation and protections for subjects of such research that had been in place since the early 1970s. According to sources within the Department of Defense, the Wolfowitz Directive, “Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research”, was used to support a top-secret Special Access Program at Guantanamo funded through the Defense Department’s black budget involving “deception detection”, interrogation, and other research upon detainees.

Rank creep is almost more pernicious than mission creep.