E-mail a friendPaul Rieckhoff
airdate June 13, 2008
Named one of "America's Best and Brightest" by Esquire, Paul Rieckhoff is executive director-founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the country's first and largest Iraq veterans group. He served as an infantry platoon leader and was one of the first Iraq vets to publicly criticize the war. Rieckhoff gave an account of his experiences and activism afterwards in the critically acclaimed book, Chasing Ghosts. The Amherst graduate previously worked as a high school football coach and Wall Street analyst.
Veteran and author discusses the Webb-Hagel G.I. bill and the stances of the presidential candidates. (4:26)
Full Interview (10:49)
Paul Rieckhoff
Tavis: Paul Rieckhoff is the founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America who served as an army platoon leader in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. He is also the author of the acclaimed memoir about his time in Iraq called "Chasing Ghosts." Paul Rieckhoff, nice to have you on the program.
Paul Rieckhoff: Thank you, sir.
Tavis: How you doing?
Rieckhoff: Very good, thank you.
Tavis: Good to see you. This organization, I.A.V.A., started out as I recall in 2004 under the name "Operation Truth." I raise that, Paul, only because I'm curious as to what you think the truth is about veterans that's not being told to the American people starting with the fact that this administration won't even let the bodies coming back to Dover Air Force Base be seen by our Americans on television.
Rieckhoff: Yeah, I think - we started out very grassroots. We started out in my studio apartment in the East Village in New York City with a very basic website that was Operation Truth and that's grown into what is now I.A.V.A., the first and largest nonprofit for Iraq veterans. And we were all focused on connecting the American people with the war, with the people behind the war and with the veterans' issues that we all face coming home. So I think the truth is that America's not ready to receive a generation of veterans.
We've got about 1.7 million people who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11 and they're coming home and they're proud of their service. They love their country, but they've got some issues that they need care and need resources. They need educational benefits. They need employment opportunities. They need mental health care, and they need the country to turn the corner on Vietnam and get back to where we were after World War II. We really honored their service and invested in them after they were out of the military and came home to our society.
Tavis: To your point of Vietnam and World War II, this is obviously and regrettably not the first time we've been in this situation where we had a massive number of U.S. troops coming home. So what did we not get about previous experiences that should have prepared us for this influx of returning veterans back to the country?
Rieckhoff: I think at some point folks started to think that wars were clean and easy. I think a lot of folks in Washington thought the war in Iraq would be over quickly and wouldn't require much in the way of resources. But over time as we're years into this war, we're realizing that folks come home from war different. Not everyone comes home with amputations, not everyone comes home with a traumatic brain injury, but everybody comes unchanged.
We as a country need to understand the war doesn't end when they come home. We need to provide all the resources and all the commitments that we can to honor their service. It doesn't matter where you stand on the war. It doesn't matter if you're for it or against it. We've all got to unite as Americans to take care of the people who've served.
Tavis: Earlier this week, we had Senator Jim Webb who was aggressively trying to push through his GI Bill - I'll get your take on that in just a second - but tell me first what it is that we are not getting about the needs of veterans when they come home? What are these needs? What are they up against?
Rieckhoff: Well, I think it starts with a detachment that exists. You've got less than one percent of the American population that served in Iraq and Afghanistan. World War II was about twelve percent, so we're not getting the fact that these are our sons and daughters. These are the folks from our communities, from our churches, from our jobs. It feels like it's somebody else's kids who are fighting these wars.
When they come home, mental health issues are a top priority for them. About one in five returning veterans are gonna face post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, or other mental health problems. They're facing an unemployment rate that's three times the national average, divorce rates are climbing and their families are really shouldering a tremendous amount of this burden.
So we're really not a country at war. We're a military at war and our military families are at war, and a lot of other folks are shopping and watching "American Idol." So our group and others are trying to galvanize the American public behind an issue that should be a no-brainer. Taking care of veterans should be something we all understand and we can all get behind.
Tavis: What specifically are we looking for, you, your organization, we as Americans ought to be looking for our government to do around mental health and other issues?
Rieckhoff: Well, we need better screening. We need better mental health care screening both in the field and when they come home. We need better mental health care resources. There's a serious shortage of qualified mental health care workers at the V.A. We need the president and others to stand up and say, "Hey, everybody who can take care of veterans, we need you to chip in and get involved." We need that national call that we haven't had and we need major reform at the V.A.
Right now, the average claim takes 183 days to get processed. There are hundreds of thousands of claims that are backlogged and the bottom line is the V.A. wasn't properly resourced to handle a new generation, a new flood of veterans coming home. So we need major reform and we need leadership in Washington. We need the president and the new president, whoever that is, to stand up and say that veterans' issues are gonna be a priority and I'm gonna make it a top issue on my watch.
Tavis: The current President George W. Bush, of course, is opposed to, has said he will not sign, he will veto, the GI Bill that Senator Webb on this program, again, earlier this week is trying to push through past the Senate. We'll see what happens in the coming days. But Bush has said he will not sign it, John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, a veteran though he may be, has said he is opposed to it for his own reasons. What's your sense of the politics around this GI Bill?
Rieckhoff: It shouldn't be this hard, to be honest with you, Tavis. When we started this sixteen months ago with Senator Webb, Senator Hagel and others, we didn't think that the GI Bill was gonna be a controversial issue, but it's become one. But I think what we can say now is, after sixteen months, there's tremendous momentum and this is kind of like a legislative juggernaut. This is moving forward.
The president, Senator McCain, they're in the minority. It went through the House with a ninety vote majority, went through the Senate with seventy-seven votes. You can't get seventy-seven senators to agree on anything. And we've got every major veterans groups in the country behind it. So it's gonna end up on the president's desk likely before July 4 and he's gonna have an historic decision to make. Does he want to stand with veterans or is he gonna stand against us?
The GI Bill makes sense. It's something that there's a moral obligation on the part of America and it makes financial sense. The GI Bill, after World War II, for every dollar invested in the GI Bill, returned seven dollars to the national economy, helped build our middle class and created a generation of leaders. So in a wartime environment, we need a wartime educational benefit and that's what the GI Bill does. So I don't think the president is gonna be able to stand in the way of this.
Tavis: Senator McCain is not here to defend himself, obviously, but as a decorated and well-regarded and respected war veteran, what's your sense of why he's opposed to it?
Rieckhoff: Well, he's claimed that - to be honest with you, he says that if the benefits are too generous, people will leave the military. He's concerned that this is negatively gonna impact retention. That's just not true. It may negatively impact retention in the short run. The Pentagon has said up to a sixteen percent drop in retention, but it's offset by a sixteen percent increase in recruiting, and it's not just a retention tool.
A veterans benefit like a GI Bill is a veterans benefit. It's not a tool designed to keep people in the military. It's supposed to be a transitional tool to help them come back to the country, learn a new life and be able to invest in their society. It's something that we've seen in the past to be arguably the most productive and effective national program that America's ever had, so the GI Bill can be that again and we need John McCain to get on the right side of this issue.
Tavis: To the point of John McCain's opposition to it, how does one go about striking, creating a package, for lack of a better word, a military package, that encourages people to serve their country, but at the same time, to his concern, isn't so generous - it sounds weird to even use that phrase.
Rieckhoff: Yeah, it does, doesn't it?
Tavis: They deserve to be treated with respect. But how do you balance putting together a package that protects military service, that keeps our troop levels where they ought to be in the dangerous world that we live in, but again isn't so generous, to his point, that they run away from the military to go to college or wherever they're gonna go?
Rieckhoff: Well, people are leaving the military anyway and it's not because the educational benefits are so good. It's because they're going back for third and fourth tours. Over half a million people have been there more than once. If you're really concerned about keeping people in, give them a pay increase across the board. Give them a ten or fifteen percent pay increase across the board. That'll keep people in. Find ways to reduce the stress on their families.
Find ways to give them better incentives while they're in, better housing, better training, more rest time. That's how you keep people in and, at the same time, increase the number of soldiers we've got because we can't keep running people like this. They're just really running down. The mental health care issues, the divorce issues, those are signs of a larger problem. We're running our people too hard with inadequate rest. Not only is it unfair, it strategically doesn't make sense. We can't keep this up.
Tavis: I'm not gonna ask you, Paul, in this election because I know you don't have a crystal ball. I'm not gonna ask you who is going to get the veterans' vote. I'm not gonna ask who's gonna get the vet vote, but I will ask what you think those issues are going to be that vets will decide on who they're going to vote for and is military service - McCain has it, Obama does not - a prerequisite for that vote?
Rieckhoff: I don't think it is a prerequisite. I think, you know, we're gonna look at the records. I think military folks are pragmatic. They love their country and they want to see who's gonna lead us in the right direction, regardless of what party they come from.
What we've seen in my generation is that most vets from Iraq and Afghanistan seem fed up with both parties and they're looking for people to focus on the GI Bill. This is gonna be a big issue. If Senator McCain comes down on the wrong side of this, it's gonna impact his standing among veterans.
Tavis: Obama supports it?
Rieckhoff: He does, and he has from the start. Senator Clinton supported it as well. It's not a partisan issue. It's not like it's a Democratic bill versus McCain or Republican bill. It's a bipartisan bill against McCain and a small group. They're also gonna look at their plans on Iraq, their understanding of military culture and their ability to understand the complex dynamics of Iraq, which is not just a simple stay or go argument. It's much more complex than that. We need somebody who understands our community and understands our needs.
Tavis: I'm always curious as to why persons get inspired, get motivated, to do the kind of work that you are doing once they've had the experience of having been there. Tell me the short story of how you became so passionate about this.
Rieckhoff: Well, I joined the military because I wanted to serve and I wanted to give back. I was blessed with the opportunity to lead thirty-eight American sons in combat. When I got home, I couldn't break that bond. I still cared about my guys. I had a squad leader who lost both of his legs in an ambush on Christmas Eve. I had soldiers struggling with divorce, with other issues, and our country wasn't holding up their end of the bargain.
So I wanted to find another way to give back. Other veterans have joined me and now it's really part of a national movement. We always take care of our own and I think that's what inspires me and that's what inspires all of the veterans who are part of our organization to keep driving on.
Tavis: Finally, are you hopeful that the quagmire that we find - for lack of a better word - the quagmire that we find ourselves in in Iraq will be met with a solution by whoever the next president is in a way that can get these troops coming home?
Rieckhoff: I'm realistic and I don't think there is any silver bullet. I think we need a president who's gonna level with us and tell us that there is no magic bullet solution to this very complex problem. The president has said that Iraq is the defining fight of our generation.
I think figuring out what to do next in Iraq, figuring out how to rebuild our military, increase our standing around the world and take care of our veterans coming home, that's gonna be the next fight of our generation that's gonna extend beyond this president and his term.
Tavis: His name is Paul Rieckhoff. His book is "Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective." He's the Executive Director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Nice to have you on the program. Good to see you, Paul.
Rieckhoff: Thank you very much.
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