Veterans are trained in violence

You may not agree with the reasons the two veterans attacked New Orleans and Las Vegas, but probably neither would have done so if we were in a thriving society.

Stephen Russell is a U.S. Army combat veteran and the author of Troublemakers: The Greatest Dog and Pony Show in Iraq, published by Blue Ear Books.

"What happened to the American Dream? It came true, you're looking at it." - Edward Blake a.k.a. The Comedian in The Watchmen (DC Comics, 2019)

2025 has kicked off with two acts of domestic terrorism: one by a military veteran, the other by a serving soldier on leave. The knee-jerk reaction is to condemn the violence and try to make some moral statement that makes us all feel as though we hold some high ground of justice and ethics. But I refuse to engage in such a show.

An avalanche of psyops on major news outlets claims we are not a violent country and have never engaged in political violence. That completely belies the fact that the United States was founded in political violence, and continues to expand and enact political violence on a global scale. The evangelical voting bloc might do well to remember that you reap what you sow. We have spent the last three decades crushing the people who make this country function, with no end in sight, and now we’re surprised there’s a violent reaction.

I’ve seen the outpouring of sympathy from the upper class for the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and a complete misunderstanding of why people have cheered for Luigi Mangione. If you’ve never had a family member die from being kicked off their healthcare, let me assuage your doubts. I worked as an EMT in Houston for three years and constantly saw this occur. In 2011, I was transporting an elderly man to his cancer diagnosis appointment. He had lost his ability to walk and needed medical transport. He had faithfully worked for his company for 25 years, was collecting his pension (one of the last of a generation to do so), and was covered for life by his insurance through his company.

Upon arriving to return him to his home, we received a radio call from our dispatch. This private EMS company was now telling me that I had to cancel the trip because the man’s health insurance was no longer valid. He sat looking at me in the lobby of this medical office and began to cry. He didn’t look like a man who cried often, and I boiled inside. I told him I would stay and call anyone he needed, and make sure he was given a ride home. I relayed this to my dispatch, and they began to furiously tell me I needed to return to base and someone else would take care of it. I turned my radio down and helped the man. Upon returning, I was given a write-up.

That incident alone gives me enough reference to understand why any healthcare CEO should be terrified right now. The rich and powerful in this country have lost the plot and forgotten the lessons that FDR taught them as a class traitor in the 1930s and 1940s. If they want to continue to thrive in America, they have to maintain the social contract. The New Deal was a way to allow rich and corporate America to enjoy their spoils while emboldening the rest of us to buy into whatever propaganda they wanted to sell. The current hypocrisy of the U.S. government knows no bounds, and it is driving us mad. We are the greatest, most valuable, freest, and most peaceful nation on Earth, and at the same time we have over 900 military bases abroad, a “School of the Americas” that literally funds and trains military dictators, a bureaucratic system that criminalizes us for behaviors that are none of the government’s business, and homeless people sleeping under every bridge. Now that people are becoming desperate, they are starting to realize that this country’s social contract is a very thin veil.

All soldiers, including myself, took an oath to faithfully protect and defend the Constitution, both abroad and at home, and to give our lives doing so if needed. As veterans, especially combat specialties, we are not unfamiliar with violence. We were trained and indoctrinated in it. We watched and killed terrorists who deployed their tactics against us. We trained on those tactics, and many of us even engaged in them. This is all to say that, over the last two decades, there is a select portion of American society that understands and knows how to enact terrorism, and understands how and why it should be used.

You may not agree with the reasons the two veterans attacked New Orleans and Las Vegas, but probably neither would have done so if we were in a thriving society. Even the Romans knew that if you give the masses bread and circuses, they will never revolt. The Green Beret in Las Vegas and the attacker in New Orleans were both going through yet another failed marriage, something extremely common to soldiers. I myself have been through family court and understand how weak and hopeless that court can make you feel. The resilience of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) veterans is found only in our ability to avoid suicide and continue to live at the bottom rung of society. Both men had been deployed overseas and used common VBIED (verhicle-borne improvised explosive device) tactics to make their points. If things continue escalating, I wouldn’t be surprised if we begin to see toe poppers, wall-borne IEDs, and well-hidden coffee cans full of explosives and shrapnel. When society gives up on those who sacrificed for this country, it’s only going to be natural that these desperate men and women will act out in the ways they were indoctrinated.

This societal abandonment happened to me both inside and outside of the military. I reentered active duty in 2012, only to watch the military systematically undermine the achievements and value of combat soldiers. They were pushing us out and realigning the type of soldier they valued. And yet, in the civilian world, we were told, “Just go to college, and you’ll get a good-paying job.” We were assured that our military service would enhance our value to society. But I see GWOT veterans who served in combat relegated to jobs such as janitorial services or packing groceries. I’ve personally dealt with this, even with a degree and specialized training. It seems that the value of my service is more for show than a legitimate modifier for my economic situation. This is one reason I began writing and drawing comics. I figured that if the skills I was using for jobs I hated weren’t going to help me achieve economic success, I might as well put time and energy into doing things I enjoy. I can understand the pain and hopelessness these two men were feeling.

Unless the rich and powerful in this country begin to ensure that their trickle-down plan actually comes to fruition, I foresee a great many more of these incidents, culminating in a tipping point. I witnessed this in Iraq. After we invaded the economy collapsed, and people were living just to survive day to day. Imagine the fallout from a hurricane or other disaster, except there’s no government, firefighters, police, or other services to help rebuild. I saw people killing each other for food, resources, and power. I witnessed people understanding that violence was the new language for their country and using it on neighbors for political or monetary gain. Your neighbor might be making more money than you, so you put out a tip to coalition forces that he’s involved in terrorism, or you murder him outright and steal his house and land. Once that level of chaos is unleashed, it will have to burn itself out, and it will get ugly.

I don’t want to witness the horrors I saw in Iraq here in America, but I can’t control the circumstances that create that situation. We might all just have to buckle up and hold out over the next couple of years if the moronic, self-serving, delusional people that own and run this country can’t see the writing on the wall. I listen to evangelical domestic terrorists telling their flocks that we are in an ethnic and religious holy war leading to the end times. Sometimes it’s, word for word, the same rhetoric I heard from imams in Iraq. I watch the hypocrisy of rich and powerful people telling us that if we work hard and do what they tell us to, we will all be profitable and successful, even though the hardest-working people I’ve met have always been poor. I watch politicians tell us lie after lie as we argue over who the worst liars are. We are coming apart at the seams and, unless we adjust now, things are going to get exponentially worse.

Stephen Russell is a U.S. Army combat veteran and the author of Troublemakers: The Greatest Dog and Pony Show in Iraq, published by Blue Ear Books.