March 12, 2009 – At a family wedding, I had the chance to catch up with a cousin who has decided to join the military in lieu of unsubsidized education, blaming lack of personal direction and available work. This reason is sound, as the gap between rich and poor has widened to the worst of any industrialized country in the world. The criminal nature of this institutionalized gap is exemplified by our country’s ranking as the most financially prosperous for more than a century now.

As more working lower-class men enter the world without direction from single-parent, labor-oriented family situations, the benefits of becoming a soldier will drive many to risk their lives becoming a killer for our country and possible prosperity or purpose.

More veterans returning from the wars of the past have caused the familial milieu deprived of traditional nuclear families, or middle-class two-parent households. Previous returns from war have complicated the economy as unemployed skilled men flood the military-oriented economy that has a hard time absorbing them and the cost of the benefits promised by the G.I. bill.

Soldiers bring more than economic complications with their return from service. Heavy journalism has been presented, largely under the radar, about the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a serious maladaption to life as a killer of men, women and children in war.

PTSD denies easy reintegration into society as soldiers experience war-like reactions to everyday stimuli around their civilian lives. In the documentary, “The Ground Truth,” soldiers in Iraq repeatedly identify scenarios in which they grow depressed, alienated and eventually suicidal with untreated symptoms resulting from PTSD.

Soldiers are offered the possibility of being treated for PTSD before leaving service, but the offer occurs after the term of service ends and before returning home. The soldiers must choose between staying in a specialized facility to treat PTSD, or return to their homes, families and friends. The soldiers invariably choose to return home and many cases thus go untreated as red tape prevents many soldiers from receiving medical benefits post-service.

Bureaucratic red tape can often be biased against the soldiers as their PTSD symptoms are often classified as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Since schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are personality disorders, they can be explained away as conditions attained prior to military service and then the benefits for treatment of PTSD are not given out. Many veterans are also denied treatment by military-backed psychologists who refuse to assist “conscientious objectors,” described as those soldiers who have problems as a result of killing someone they didn’t want to: women, children and other non-combatants.

Support for PTSD is often provided by civilian and ex-military-based protest groups. Soldiers dissatisfied with their and others’ treatment form organizations such as Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA, optruth.org) and Veterans Against the Iraq War (VAIW, vaiw.org) to protest the negative effects of the war. Their protests cover domestic and foreign mismanagement that has adversely affected soldiers. Their support for PTSD treatment is paramount as well, forming support groups and funding therapy for many returning soldiers.

The rise of PTSD is attributed to mismanagement of the war from recruitment to deployment and ending with soldier to civilian reintegration.

Recruitment is often gilded as recruiters seeking bonuses introduce all the possibilities of military life without ever mentioning the killing. Basic training is the opposite.

Basic training is the process of breaking the individual personality to form group ideology and remove the aversion to killing. Ethology describes this process as imprinting. The previous ethical and personal identity is removed through extended periods of exhaustion during which they are encouraged to kill dehumanized subjects while cultivating hatred, all in the pursuit of removing the aversion to kill from a young man or woman. The new imprint of a killer replaced the previous identity of the new recruit.

After this reorientation, the soldiers are placed in urban environments that can frequently be classified as “hostile zones” wherein soldiers are under orders to treat all in the area as hostile. With such orders—including often having to lay suppression fire on crowds of people, though there may be only one shooter—civilian casualties often occur. Soldiers walk through “hostile areas” and see children’s shoes and toys on the floor, or the dead children themselves, along with all the other death, and develop psychological coping mechanisms.

Coping with killing, during which one may be a conscientious objector but unable to deny orders, and under the auspices of protecting one’s fellow soldiers, is harder when one has to carry memories away from the battlefield and interact with civilians that might have been those same “casualties” were they living in Iraq.

Recognizing the problem of making men into killers who were once morally against it, the military turns to its most prevalent answer: anti-depressants and sleeping pills. Instead of treating the moral implications of a soldier’s role with the psychological care required, pills are a quick substitute that maintains the mental function of troops and allows for extended tours of service without the need to remove the soldier from the battlefield at all.

TIME magazine reported at least 20,000 troops on medication such as Prozac, Zoloft and sleeping pills like Ambien in the fall of 2007 alone. With war support waning at home and the amount of troops being withdrawn from the battlefront increasing, the medications undoubtedly have risen in popularity amongst the effort to keep the war front moving.

Killing is not the only exacerbating factor in PTSD. Soldiers often return from the war in Iraq jaded, frequently questioning their role in Iraq and the role of corporate interest. Soldiers have a front-row seat to injustice on the war front that they are also the victims of. The initial invasion of Iraq began with a fervent order to secure the oil fields, which were held before the order to attack the capital was given.

Support services for troops were frequently below standards of basic sanitation. Halliburton, awarded no-bid pay plus contracts for providing troop support and securing oil interests in the area. Pay plus contracts award the cost of supplies to support the troops to Halliburton, but then also awards a percentage of the price as extra pay to the company. Under this policy, contractors would often burn perfectly good vehicles that got flat tires or other simple mechanical problems since the loss could be written off, and Halliburton simply makes more money as more money is spent to replace the vehicle.

Due to the profit-seeking motives of the company, essential services are often mismanaged with reports of refrigerator trucks used to transport dead bodies being used to supply troops’ ice. Reports of infected water supplies, cheap meals, substandard shelters and lack of body armor mar the support for troops that should be foremost for military spending.

Corporate involvement is exemplified by the scandals surrounding private security contractors. Security contractors, such as Blackwater, are mercenary organizations frequently reported to have fought alongside normal troops, engage in missions, and fire upon unarmed civilians—the cause of the scandal. Since the United States government classifies the mercenaries as “private contractors,” laws for conviction of mercenaries do not apply and are thus under no legal restrictions for their actions.

The scandal is proof of corporate involvement in the war process if nothing else, and soldiers saw this every day. If they accept their role and seek better pay without restrictions, ex-soldiers can join these private militaries after service. Such a transition is psychologically pragmatic, as their honor is worthless when the government keeps soldier deaths secret by preventing unescorted, unedited journalism in the war zone. Without the honor that comes with having one’s role as a killer for the country upheld and respected in its passing before the national eyes, the role of the soldier closely mirrors that of a mercenary, receiving money for their killing ability.

Since the military invariably prevents free journalism wherever it can and disallows images of returning coffins and the honored dead, the war’s toll on people is largely invisible. For those soldiers who have been through hell and back, coming home to people who have no idea the toll the Iraq war has taken is the worst part of their reintegration, with or without PTSD.

Betrayal of soldiers as much as civilians necessitates the organizational support for Iraq soldiers that protest Plutocratic—government by the wealthy, of the wealthy, and for the wealthy—mismanagement.

As boys are made into killers, kill and return home, the society must change to absorb them and the soldiers try to change to prevent depression, despondency and, most monstrously, suicide.

March 10, 2009 –  This isn’t the script the directors of a San Diego film school had in mind when they opened their doors in January 2008 to train wounded troops in what was hailed as a nationally innovative program.

The husband and wife team of Kevin Lombard and Judith Paixao, founders of the Wounded Marine Careers Foundation Inc., said their goal was to transform lives.

Lombard said he and his team wanted to teach service members “how to tell their own stories, and in the process helping them learn new skills as they prepare to get out of the military.”

But now Lombard and Paixao are the targets of a lawsuit and accusations of financial and employment deception by members of their first graduating class.

Some of the graduates said they would have passed on the 10-week film class had they known the directors would tap nearly $89,000 of each student’s veterans benefits for vocational training – instead of the $10,000 listed in the school’s initial promotional brochure and what they were allegedly told by Lombard and Paixao.

“They just didn’t live up to their promises,” said graduate Joshua Frey, a former Camp Pendleton-based lance corporal who lost most use of his right shoulder because of a combat injury in Fallujah, Iraq. “I feel betrayed by people who used our wartime sacrifices to make a pretty buck. They gave us false hope.”

The film school, which operates out of the Stu Segall Productions lot in Kearny Mesa, was initially billed as a free program funded by donations.

It did turn out to be free for the 11 students who refused to sign off on giving their vocational benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their tuition was covered by private philanthropy.

But eight students agreed to the VA reimbursement, and some said they did so because they thought the tuition was $10,000.

The VA ended up paying $88,550 directly to the school for each of the eight students. It’s unclear whether those graduates have exhausted their VA money for employment training because such benefits vary from case to case.

Lombard and Paixao said they had sunk $250,000 of their own money into the foundation when VA officials approached them with the idea of using students’ vocational rehabilitation funds. They expect to receive a combined salary of $130,000 this year after not taking any previous pay.

The couple said all expenses were explained to the students before they volunteered to have their VA funds used.

But Frey, three other members of the first graduating class and a teacher said the film school’s directors misled students about the cost of the program, the equipment they would get to keep and the type of jobs they could land.

Frey said Lombard and Paixao touted their school as offering world-class, hands-on training not available at any university. He and other graduates said they were assured they be able to land well-paying jobs in their chosen film specialties.

The only job offer Frey received was an entry-level position as a film loader, he said.

Frey has moved with his wife to Reno, Nev., and is waiting to start work as a stand-in actor for the movie “No Better Place to Die,” which one of the program’s teachers told him about.

“I thought 10 weeks of training would be a lot of experience, but I’ve since realized that it’s not much for someone new to the film industry,” he said.

Former Lance Cpl. Brent Callender, who fractured his pelvis and broke four vertebrae in a September 2006 roadside bomb attack, jumped at the chance to gain career skills for free.

Shortly after enrolling in the film course, he said, Lombard and Paixao told him that his cost would be $10,000 drawn from his veterans’ vocational benefits.

“On graduation day, I learned the VA had paid $88,550 for my tuition. I couldn’t believe the school’s deception,” Callender said.

Levie Isaacks of Los Angeles, who taught cinematography during the 10-week class, said he was so disheartened by the experience that he wrote a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Isaacks said he knew Lombard and Paixao were getting VA funds, but didn’t know the per-student amount until the end of the course.

“Nothing that I’ve been involved with, ever, cost this much money for what the students learned and the inadequate equipment at the facility. I had to bring my own lighting gear,” he said. “I don’t know what they did with all the money they collected. It’s sinful.”

The troubles started early on, former Cpl. Philip Levine alleges.

Levine joined the foundation’s board as a co-founder. After several months, he began questioning why an organization funded with donations was planning to tap VA vocational money. He said he was voted off the board and barred from joining the film class.

In his lawsuit, Levine is seeking nearly $3,000 in unreimbursed expenses and about $80,000 in damages. The Superior Court case is scheduled to be heard in late April, said Levine’s attorney, Dick Lynn of San Diego.

Levine provided a copy of the foundation’s 2007 brochure for the film school, which listed the tuition as $10,000 per student. A revised brochure currently posted on the foundation’s Web site still has the same figure.

Several film schools in Southern California said $88,550 is excessive for a semester of training.

“It’s outrageous. That’s a lot of money,” said Joe Slowensky, head of the film division for Chapman University’s school of film and media arts.

Chapman charges about $34,000 for one year of film school and roughly $90,000 for its three-year, graduate program in fine arts.

The Los Angeles Film School charges almost $42,000 for its associate’s degree in film science, while the University of Southern California said its annual tuition for the School of Cinematic Arts is approximately $37,000.

“I haven’t heard of any rates like the foundation’s. I can’t think of anyone who would dare to charge that much,” said Jean Sherlock, director of the New York Film Academy’s branch at Universal Studios Hollywood.

His school charges $5,800 for an eight-work course in film and digital media.

Sherlock said beyond the tuition issue, it would be immoral to promise or even imply that graduates can secure good jobs after a few months of classes.

“The film industry is a very difficult vocation. It’s intensely competitive,” he said. “You usually start out as interns so you can pick up experience before landing a paid job.”

Paixao tears up when she hears her former students’ accusations.

She uses the word “pure” to describe the couple’s motivation in helping wounded troops and the word “family” when mentioning the Marines and sailors she and Lombard have taught.

She said the VA has twice combed through the foundation’s records and each time agreed that the tuition was reasonable.

Lombard acknowledges the tuition is quite a sum. But he said the training delivered by the foundation and the staff of filmmakers, photo directors, writers, editors, camera and sound experts, graphic designers and other industry-leading technicians is worth it.

He also mentioned the benefit of receiving a union card from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees upon graduation. The membership can otherwise take years to attain, he said.

Lombard disputes claims about graduates having difficulty finding jobs. He said 11 members did find work, and some quit for reasons of their own.

The couple said their second class, which began in January, will be much more successful because of the lessons learned. The VA is paying $64,426 for each of eight students in the 14-week course.

“Every single person in the class embodies the spirit of adapt and overcome,” Paixao said. “I invite you to some back when they graduate in April to see how successful we’ve been.”