{"id":1594060,"date":"2022-08-08T09:07:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1594060"},"modified":"2022-08-08T09:07:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T13:07:53","slug":"matthew-betley-war-burn-pits-resentment-and-grace-a-natural-imbalance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/matthew-betley-war-burn-pits-resentment-and-grace-a-natural-imbalance\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Betley: War, Burn Pits, Resentment, And Grace: A Natural Imbalance"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmatthew-betley-war-burn-pits-resentment-and-grace-a-natural-imbalance%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1594060&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"article-header\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-xs-12\">\n<div class=\"contributor-img pull-left\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/columnists\/matthewbetley\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Matthew Betley\" class=\"img-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/media.townhall.com\/townhall\/reu\/contributor-sm\/authorimages\/\/b714f005-a2b2-46ed-ad50-3a5d8ebb0f96.jpg\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>|<\/p>\n<p>Posted: Aug 07, 2022 12:01 AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<p><em>The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<aside id=\"aside1\" class=\"left aside-wrapper aside-wrapper-950\">\n<\/aside>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Last week, our incompetent and functionally broken congress passed the PACT Act that expands VA health care and benefits for Veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances. I\u2019ve been using my platform for 4 years to raise awareness of this issue. I wrote a series of <a href=\"https:\/\/townhall.com\/columnists\/matthewbetley\/\">national columns<\/a> in 2019 about my battle with the VA to get my lung damage from burn pits covered; I appeared on Fox News to discuss the issue; and I\u2019ve talked about it in every \u00a0media and book tour interview. It\u2019s the least I can do to use my voice for others who can\u2019t or don\u2019t want to speak out. And every time, I felt like I was screaming into the wind because congress wouldn\u2019t act on an issue that was first identified back in 2004,\u00a018 years ago.\u00a0Our politicians failed us, refusing to listen to veterans or the family members of veterans who already passed away from cancers and illnesses caused by toxic exposure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s why I find it hilariously and tragically ironic that it took the veteran advocacy group Burn Pits 360 to recruit the help of comedian and activist Jon Stewart to create the public pressure to get congress to act, and even then, incompetently so in the final days. Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 I\u2019m grateful for Mr. Stewart\u2019s intervention and support. Small voices like mine were never heard, and he has the well-deserved credibility and record to make things happen. But I\u2019m disgusted and infuriated to the point of physical rage that it took a celebrity to get our insidiously corrupt politicians to act. It shouldn\u2019t be that way. They should understand when a cause is so righteous that the only thing to do is act, but their years of failure illustrate how detached, selfish, and out of touch politicians are with the citizens they serve. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In 2006, I volunteered to go to Fallujah. The insurgency was in full-effect, and the Marine in me couldn\u2019t wait to get into the fight. As a captain, it wasn\u2019t my job to question why we were there \u2013 it was my job to fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities. And I did, nearly at the cost of my life with a few close calls thanks to rockets and mortars, and then permanent lung damage that started within a month of redeploying home. But I willingly made that choice, and I\u2019d make it again with what I knew at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Now, 15 years later, with all that we\u2019ve learned about the lack of WMD, the thousands of Americans killed, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, billions of dollars wasted, and the instability that resulted, I\u2019m filled with such utter contempt towards our senior leaders \u2013 whom I supported at the time \u2013 who should\u2019ve known better. But it seems our elected and appointed leaders never prioritize the welfare of the ones that have to sacrifice and pay for our leaders\u2019 mistakes. That\u2019s the part that really burns me \u2013 the fundamental lack of accountability. You\u2019d think we\u2019d have learned by now to stop putting our trust in failed leaders, but we haven\u2019t. War is nothing but the imposition of one nation\u2019s political will on another\u2019s, but our problem is that we\u2019ve entrusted the worst of our society with starting and ending it. And that hard truth makes me sick and furious on a near-daily basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I don\u2019t mind having sacrificed for my country, especially when I have friends who didn\u2019t make it back and others who lost limbs. It\u2019s an honor to have served, but it\u2019s frustrating to have served for those with no honor. And I\u2019m reminded of it every time I run and start coughing, every time I\u2019m sick and knocked out of commission for weeks on end, and every time I see another horrible failure by our senior leaders that ends in the death of honorable men and women. But the part that I can\u2019t get my head around, can\u2019t find the\u00a0grace\u00a0to accept, at least in the case of Iraq, is that it was avoidable. Unfortunately, certain people in power were hellbent on invading at all costs, costs that they didn\u2019t have to make sitting thousands of miles away in DC office buildings. That\u2019s the part that I resent, and resentment is never a good thing for a recovering alcoholic 13 \u00bd years sober. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I thought that as I got older (I just turned 50, and I\u2019m fighting Father Time all the way to the grave), I\u2019d mellow out, become more accepting. I see people much younger than I like Johnny Joey Jones (who lost both legs) seemingly at peace with what happened to him. But I\u2019m not at peace. I\u2019m still angry, and I despise the corrupt leaders who ruined lives for their own purposes. And last week\u2019s PACT Act passage hammered\u00a0all of it\u00a0home once again\u00a0\u2013\u00a0the failure of congress to take care of those who serve, the resentment I harbor because of it, and the fear that the incompetence will continue in an endless cycle that will sacrifice the next generation of warriors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Grace is an ideal, and I hope I find it one day. More importantly, I wish our corrupt leaders had just a fraction of the idealism that I and my fellow Marines once shared. Maybe then I\u2019d have hope for our military\u2019s future because right now, our leaders only have traits that begin with the word \u201cself,\u201d and those are dangerous character defects to have when they\u2019re the ones running the military. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Semper Fidelis. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>Matthew Betley is a former Marine officer, a recovering alcoholic, an advocate for victims of toxic exposure to Burn Pits, and an internationally-published and award-nominated thriller novelist and a screenwriter. \u00a0His latest thriller, THE NEIGHBORHOOD, about a gated community under siege in the middle of the night, arrives tomorrow 9 August 2022. \u00a0Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewBetley or find him on Facebook and Instagram. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>| Posted: Aug 07, 2022 12:01 AM  The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1594221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1594060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1594060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1594221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1594060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1594060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1594060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}