By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 27, 2014 – The chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff praised the members of the Dallas-based America’s Future
organization for their efforts on behalf of veterans, but said such efforts
must continue.
Groups like America’s Future will help define how the nation
looks at its veterans, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said yesterday during a
speech to the group in Dallas.
“What image will this generation’s veterans have?” the
chairman asked. “The veterans themselves have less to say about who they are
and how they will be remembered than you do, frankly.”
Dempsey spoke about the images he has had of veterans from
World War II and Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm. “Now we have the veterans of
12 years of conflict in an all-volunteer force, and how they will be remembered
by history will be largely shaped by if America’s people and businesses and
communities either embrace them or convince them that their service was valued
or was not,” he said.
Dempsey brought up a lesson from history. Yesterday was the
77th anniversary of the German-Italian bombing of the Spanish village of
Guernica. “The idea was they were working on advancing this new technology
related to aerial warfare,” he said. “And the big idea on the part of the Axis
was they would make resistance so outrageous, so costly to the Spanish that
they would just capitulate.”
It didn’t work that way, the chairman said, and Pablo
Picasso captured it in the famous painting, “Guernica”.
“Seventy-seven years later, technology keeps charging on and
we learn to adapt with it,” Dempsey said. “But we can’t ever forget that what
really matters in warfare are our young men and women who choose to serve and
put themselves in harm’s way.”
The chairman used a photo to make this point. He showed a
shot from Afghanistan where a young squad leader is on the radio. On the left
is a rifleman protecting him. He’s obviously calling for something – aerial
support, indirect fire, medical evacuation, guidance.
“Whatever it is he’s asking for, he is going to get,” Dempsey
said. “That’s what sets us apart from any other military in the world. That’s a
bond of trust we have with these kids, that when we put them in that position,
that whatever they need, they’ll get.”
The chairman noted the soldier is also wearing a wedding
ring. This bond of trust goes all the way from the front edge of the
battlefield to communities and cities across the United States. “That is a bond
of trust, without which this all-volunteer force would not hold together,” he
said.
The bond of trust has to continue when service members and
their families come home as well, the chairman said. “When they come home,
there is a sense of trust – not a sense of entitlement,” the chairman said.
“It’s not about them feeling entitled. They don’t want a handout, they want a
handshake. They just want a chance.”
What communities like Dallas do to give these men and women
that chance really is important, Dempsey said.
The chairman discussed the U.S. military in transition. The
military is going through a transition after 12 years of war, Dempsey noted.
“This doesn’t mean all conflict will magically cease, but we will have to
rebalance to meet some enduring challenges and new challenges,” he said. “We
have to rekindle some skills that we’ve lost over the past 12 years.”
And it must be done at a time of fiscal austerity. “We will
manage our way through this, but the sooner we have some certainty, the sooner
we gain some flexibility in the way we apply our budget, and the more time we
are given to manage these changes then the better off we will be,” he said. “As
we go through this, we will continue to earn and re-earn your confidence and
the confidence of the American people.”
The bottom line for all Americans is to make the sacrifices
these young men and women have made worth their blood, sweat and tears, the
chairman said.
Dempsey told the audience that he has a box in his Pentagon
office with the words, “Make It Matter” engraved on top. It contains the names
and biographies of all those killed while under his command.
“We have an obligation to make the sacrifices of these young
men and women who have fallen, but also those who have served, those who are
suffering from wounds both physical and emotional – we have a genuine
obligation to make their sacrifices matter,” he said. “And one of the ways we
make their sacrifices matter is by taking this task on board: The task of
helping their teammates.”
Dempsey spoke of visiting Brook Medical Center in San
Antonio on Friday. There have been 1,645 amputees since the wars began in 2001.
In previous wars, they would most likely have died. With medical advances 500
of them have returned to active duty, and 60 have gone back into combat.
“But there are more service members who have limbs so badly
damaged that they contemplated having an amputation,” the chairman said. Enter
a public-private partnership. The joint venture developed a brace that allows
these men and women to carry the weight and eliminates much of the pain.
“What it says to me, is we’ve got to keep learning,” he said.
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