288 RüdigerKunow
disabledorkilledinaction("Mission"n.pag.).Asifincorroborationof
this,KennethMacLeishhasshownonthebasisofinterviewsconducted
on the home bases of U.S. military personnel, the prospect of being
severely hurt does in fact capture the minds of soldiers and impacts on
theirbehaviorlongbeforetheyareactuallydeployed(53-54,61).Thisis
an example which proves the point of Althusser's materialism of the
imaginary, namely that independently of its factual status, the fear of
being disabled is part of the world soldiers live in, even before they
enteractualcombat.
The many wars the U.S. has been engaged in, Vietnam, Iraq, and
Afghanistan being the most recent examples, have left many soldiers
impaired in body and mind.^119 The sheer numbers of disabled persons
have(beenmadeto)perform(ed)importantsocialandpoliticalwork by
bringing the message of soldiers' vulnerability home to the civilian
population. And such a message is certainly an unwelcome, even
embarrassing one, especially for countries with an all-volunteer army
such as the United States. John M. Kinder has pointed out the
contradictions involved here: "While disabled vets continued to be
singled out for public praise, many in the United States came to
associate war-related disability with a host of social ills: pathological
dependency, compromised masculinity, and the crippling legacies of
foreign intervention" (3-4). Even while disabled veterans may in
principle be unwelcome news, their presence and experiences are these
daysnolongerbeinghushedup,perhapsbecausetheycannotbehushed
up. Today, the public is much better informed than in previous times
when military censorship effectively blocked public awareness of the
psycho-somaticdynamicsofrealoranticipateddisability.
And so, federal, state, and local governments as well as a large
number of activist groups and volunteer organizations, such as the
Disabled Veterans National Foundation or the Wounded Warrior
Project,areseekingto meettheneedsofdisabledveterans.Atthesame
timeandinspiteofthepoliticalrhetoricproclaimingthatonlythebestis
good enough for military heroes, there is an acrimonious debate going
on in the political culture of the United States right now about disabled
(^119) For details concerning the Iraq War cf. the independent data baseIraqBody
Count.IraqBodyCount,2017.Web.21May2017.