“In a nation much devoted to hero worship of veterans, too little attention is paid to actual life in the military and its aftermath. Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon offer the most comprehensive and honest accounting of what my fellow veterans have experienced post-9/11 and the challenges we face today. Their new book is sweeping, authoritative, and bold. As more Americans stand up against the politicians and corporations falsely claiming to be on our side, the authors show how military veterans can join the charge against them.”
—Matthew Hoh, former marine captain and State Department officer, Iraq War combat veteran

“As this timely book reports, the unlawful use of National Guard units in a nationwide assault on immigrants and DOGE-driven attacks on federal jobs and services has led to a new wave of labor, community, and political activism by former service members and military families. In their dispatches from the frontlines, the authors chronicle the role of veterans and their organizations in this critical defense of democracy against authoritarianism.”
—Joanna Sweatt, Marine Corps veteran and national organizing director, Common Defense

“Early and Gordon provide us with an urgent guide to understanding how and why the ruling class has turned and always will turn its back on veterans. Veterans looking to harness their sense of betrayal to the struggle for a more just world should read this essential book—and then spread the word about it.”
—Rory Fanning, Afghanistan war veteran, former army ranger, and author of Worth Fighting For

“This book chronicles the struggles of veterans whose disillusionment with traditional advocacy organizations led them to form new networks, more labor-focused, grassroots oriented, and engaged with social justice issues. The result is a new generation of incredible warriors whose presence in unions and progressive movements is needed more than ever before.”
—RoseAnn DeMoro, former executive director, California Nurses Association/National Nurses United

“If you’re a student thinking about joining JR ROTC or talking to a military recruiter about what to do after high school, you need to read this book, before signing up!”
—Kim Scipes, Marine Corps veteran and emeritus professor of sociology at Purdue University Northwest

“Courage or Complicity describes the use of past military service by politicians from both major parties. As the authors show, most who are elected to Congress champion bloated defense budgets that are now bigger than the total expenditures of the next nine largest military spenders in the world. The authors provide a useful scorecard for assessing candidates whose brand of patriotism includes little solidarity with fellow veterans in need of jobs, healthcare, and workplace rights.”
—Larry Cohen, cochair of Our Revolution and former national president of Communications Workers of America

“In recent years, few nonveterans have done more reading, writing, critical thinking, and public speaking about veterans’ issues than the authors of this collection, which highlights the past and present role of former soldiers on the left, in labor unions, electoral politics, and antiwar campaigning.”
—Jon Melrod, attorney, labor activist, and author of Fighting Times

“Combining deep research and first-rate journalism, this book deftly exposes the machinations and terrible results of corporate militarism. Early and Gordon expertly cut through the fog of class war, showing how the profit-driven system of the US warfare state routinely shafts veterans, workers, and society as a whole.”
—Norman Solomon, author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine

“The authors are longtime advocacy journalists who reveal how corporate profiteering is cannibalizing both Medicare and the VA, thus undermining the possibility of real healthcare reform in the US. Reading this book will make you want to march, organize, and lobby to defend the single-payer financing and public delivery of veterans’ healthcare, which provides such a good working model for what the broader systemic change.”
—Ana M. Malinow, National Single Payer Steering Committee

“Gordon and Early expose the great injustice of VA privatization and union busting, which has an adverse impact on veterans as federal workers and patients. Their reporting and commentary tells our story and uplifts our voices, as we carry on the fight!”
—Aimee Potter, VA clinical social workers and AFGE Local 789 Steward in Chicago

“The Trump administration’s billionaire-backed push to hollow out and privatize large swaths of the federal government is an attack not just on critical public services but also on the many veterans who deliver them. At the VA, former service members who signed up to continue serving their country have faced unlawful firings, mass reductions in force, ongoing understaffing, and the gutting of their workplace rights and protections. This book shows how federal workers are fighting back—by building power through rank-and-file organizing on the job and in cross-union formations like the Federal Unionists Network. Veterans in FUN are helping to lead the charge.”
—Mark Smith, president of NFFE-IAM Local 1 at VA in San Francisco

“Once again, Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon are providing a rare worker-centric perspective on veterans’ problems, which the Trump administration claims to care about but actually doesn’t. I look forward to sharing their well-researched new book with veterans in my community, union coworkers, and other labor activists trying to save the VA from further privatization and eventual dismantling.”
—Betsy Zucker, retired VA nurse practitioner, member of AFGE 2157 and FUN supporter in Portland

“Anyone who has worked on difficult strikes and organizing fights knows the kind of rank-and-file leadership that military veterans can provide. This book tells the story of former soldiers, like the late Tony Mazzocchi, who campaigned for job safety and health, union democracy, and a labor party. We meet younger veterans who are now frontline resisters to Republican union busting and defunding of essential public services.”
—Rand Wilson, union activist and organizer, CHIPS Communities United

“Courage or Complicity exposes how bipartisan support for outsourcing VA care has undermined, rather than improved it. Let’s hope this book will spur collective action among my fellow caregivers in our rank-and-file fight to restore workplace protections and contract rights that benefit us and our patients.”
—Latisha D. Thompson, organizer with Federal Unionists Network and rank-and-file member of AFGE at the VA in Philadelphia

“The book is an excellent introduction to the politics surrounding military labor and veterans’ affairs. It provides a timely reminder of the long history of left organizing and dissent from within the US armed forces and among military veterans. For a socialist left looking to rebuild links with the US working class—and vying with right-wing populist appeals to labor—it’s a vital read.”
—Derek Seidman, contributing writer, Truthout

“In this wide-ranging and important collection, Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon document how VA care is the canary in the coal mine of a broader corporate drive to undermine and privatize all public goods and services. They argue that veterans can become a bulwark against the divisive and corrosive politics of the MAGA right and a force for progressive social change. Anyone looking for hope in these difficult times should read this book.”
—Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single Payer

“Courage or Complicity asks how a country always ready to spend billions more on war can’t find money to meet the basic social needs of millions of poor and working-class Americans, including those who served in the military? As the authors document, veterans who challenge ‘forever wars’ and fight social injustice are helping to build a more broad-based progressive movement today.”
—Gene Bruskin, poet, playwright, and labor solidarity campaigner

Introduction: Thank you for your service?
Part I: The Military Experience
1.ROTC Redux
2. I Am Vanessa Guillen
3. The Friends of Eddie Gallagher
4. When Warriors Put on A Badge
5. Prisoners After War
Part II: Veteranhood and its Discontents
1. A Gangster for Capitalism
2. Pathways to Dissent
3. A Working-Class Vet for Peace 
4. Leaving the Soldier Box
Part III: Wounds of War
1. The PACT Act and its Problems
2. An Invisible Storm
3. Suicide by Rental Truck
4. Workplace Wellness, As Delivered by Amazon?
5. A Real Culture of Solidarity
Part IV: Veterans in 
1. When Soldiers Become Workers
2. The GI Bill, Then and Now 
3. Can the National Guard be Organized?
4. Defending, Not Defunding, Public Service Jobs
5. Labor and Vets, Unite and Fight
Part V: Why the VA is Worth Saving
1. Parallel Privatization Threats 
2. The Illusion of Choice
Part VI: Officer Class Enemies
1. The Entitlement Reformers
2. A Princeton Tory
3. An Air Force Chaplain from Georgia
Part VII: A Common Defense Against the Right
1. Can ‘Service Candidates’ Save the Republic?
2. Federal Workers Find Their Voice
3. Progressive Vets vs Trump and Vance 
Epilogue 
Author Bios
Author’s Note and Acknowledgement 
Notes
Appendix: Resources