Subtitled "A Report on How America's Weapons, Medicines, and Bureaucracies of Mass Destruction Harm our Troops and Veterans," Rick Anderson's Home Front: The Government's War on Soldiers is an important book detailing how the United States government frequently abuses and takes for granted soldiers. Anderson weaves together such diverse topics as cuts in veterans' benefits, Gulf War Syndrome, experimental vaccines, weapons contractors, and suicide rates among veterans to argue compellingly that the government--both within the Pentagon and in other agencies--frequently implores the country to "support the troops" while it is often waging what could essentially be described as an assault on veterans and the active duty military.
Anderson explores Gulf War Syndrome--a name given to a series of ailments affecting veterans of the Gulf War via neurological, skin, cardiac, GI, and urinary tract ailments--in detail. Gulf War Syndrome, which was initially rejected by the Pentagon and which continues to be minimized in many circles, may account for the fact that some 320,000 veterans of the Gulf War have sought medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs while 11,000 have died. In some cases, government and independent researchers have explained some of these ailments by exposure to chemical weapons during the war, with soldiers in the Gulf being unprepared when order to destroy chemical weapons depots maintained by the Iraqi military. In one case, more than 134,000 US soldiers were exposed to chemical warfare agents after destroying the Khamisiyah chemical storage depot. Despite a very real set of problems affecting many veterans of the war, the government has been slow to diagnose soldiers and has frequently followed a model where they determine who is suffering rather than responding directly to the concerns of veterans. Anderson further explains to the reader that this exposure was possible because the United States transferred chemical and biological weapons technology to Iraq in the 1980s.
Anderson also devotes considerable attention to the military's administration of the Anthrax vaccine, which according to Anderson, may have killed more soldiers than Anthrax. He cites the story of Army cook Sandra Larson who was injected with an anthrax vaccine by the military--as were some 425,975 service members before 2000--without being informed of the vaccine's potential side effects. Larson immediately developed rashes and experienced numbness in her hands and who was dead a little more than a year later after receiving a sixth injection of the vaccine. Soldiers like Larson are frequently ordered to take the vaccine and are chastised or punished for refusing it, despite the fact that drug began being administered before it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Moreover, the vaccine was approved with limited human trials under pressure from the military; despite widely documented "adverse reactions." Anderson relates a number of stories and studies outlining adverse reactions, in addition to sharing with readers that the company who manufactures the vaccine--Michigan's BioPort--would like to see every resident of the United States receive the vaccine.
Other chapters focus on similar issues, including the military's use of depleted uranium weapons despite their well-known health and environmental effects, giving soldiers drugs in order to better "manage" their "performance" in battle, cuts in veterans' benefits, and military contractors' frequent practice of cutting corners in order to maximize their profits. As he does in his chapters on Gulf War Syndrome and the anthrax vaccine, Anderson brings in the personal stories of those who have suffered under government policies while also examining those policies and independent research on said policies.
Home Front will be useful for antiwar activists as it will help develop a more comprehensive understanding of how the military functions and how soldiers are frequently victims of the same structures of domination and oppression that antiwar activists are trying to undermine. Anderson gives a thorough analysis of how soldiers are neglected by the government, with the only drawback being the book's age. Published in 2004 and compiled in late 2003, many of the Anderson's references to the Iraq War's casualties are out of date, and indeed Anderson's arguments would have been strengthened if he had a more complete discussion of how the war has gone.
Rick Anderson, Home Front: The Government's War on Soldiers, (Clarity Press, 2004).
