I read on NY Mag this morning that Super Bowl 2010 beat the 1983 season finale of M*A*S*H (and its 27-year-old record, a dinosaur for television records) to become the most watched TV program in U.S. history.

I tend to wonder about historical retrospectives when I read about record-breaking numbers—which is all the time, thanks to Twitter.  For instance, where did this record originate?  How significant is it?  So, being a film girl and an Altman fan, I started doing a little research on the film and the television series.

Both narratives take place during the Korean War but both are considered allegories for and are commonly associated with the Vietnam War.  When M*A*S*H (the film) was released, America was losing the Vietnam War and the American government was struggling for domestic support.  This may explain why a caption mentioning the Korean location was added to the beginning of the film at the request of 20th Century Fox.

I uncovered a few more interesting facts about M*A*S*H— including the fact the American astronauts landed on the moon during the filming of the iconic loudspeaker announcement scenes— finished my coffee, ruminated on Robert Altman’s genius, briefly pondered the relationship between the government and studios, and hopped in the car to drive downtown.  It didn’t take long for me to pass by a homeless man with a cardboard Vietnam Vet sign.  Reality check.  Real, live, forgotten.

The afternoon rolled around, and with the homeless vet still on my mind, I searched for any recent news on veterans affairs.  I came across the following news segment, which in turn inspired my first “Dear Government” post:

“Some recent changes implemented by the VA include a modification to their presumption of whether or not a veteran was exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. This change applies to Navy veterans who served on certain ships during spans of time when those ships traveled on inland waterways and those servicemen on board would have presumably been exposed to Agent Orange. According to the January 2010 U.S, Department of Veterans Affairs Compensation and Pension Service Bulletin regarding the expansion of the presumption of exposure to certain navy veterans, “If a veteran’s service aboard one of these ships can be confirmed through military records during the time frames specified, then exposure to herbicide agents [agent orange] can be presumed without further development.”

—Kathleen Jimino, February 8, 2010

Then while I was writing “Dear Government”, I heard the news about Joshua Tabor, a solider accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she couldn’t recite her ABC’s.  Joshua Tabor is also 27 years old.

The coincidences and the history lesson of the day all became much more profound than I had anticipated, but we all need our reminders.  It’s time to wake up this discussion.  Let me know what you think.

Dear Government,

I can’t decide if the writing or the reality is more obscure.  However, I can tell you a good place to start in finding the men who were poisoned by Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  Many wear orange vests now, and they’re standing at intersections in every city in the country, homeless and mentally ill.

The VA estimates that 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, but in fact those numbers are impossible to come by because no one keeps national records on homeless veterans.  No one.

Despite the government’s passion for enormous, meaningless digits, I don’t think it’s out of the question to assume the VA’s estimate is conservative.  That’s a lot of homeless wanderers to count.

You guys have got to start a dialogue about the veteran problem.  Educate the public, and we’ll do something, together.  Charitable spirit and innovative problem-solving are everywhere.  This country, flawed as it may be right now, is still free— and the people you send to maintain that freedom deserve better.  Most importantly, the generation that they’re bringing up deserves better.

Mental health is a good place to start.  These stories just keep getting more disturbing.  Yesterday, a soldier was arrested in Washington for waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter after she couldn’t say the alphabet.  He used the same technique he used on terror suspects in Iraq because he knew she was afraid of water.

There are few things more disturbing than the torture of a child.  The military certainly does not affect every person enlisted to the point of mental illness, but there are thousands and thousands of people who do lose their sanity, their basic sense of wrong and right in response to military service.  And not discussing it will not make it go away.  Not discussing it is essentially handing it over to the next generation.  And that is not good enough.

There is no easy solution to this problem.  But a good place to start is with questions.  Stop distracting people.  Let’s talk about it and find a way to help people before they get to this point.  They deserve better, their families deserve better, and the future deserves better.  Get your asses together and join the 21st century.  It’s easier to communicate today than ever before, and the time is now.  Get open, get innovative, get it done.

MissMallibu