Cutting VA funding is not an option

If you were wounded in Vietnam you had a 70% chance of surviving. Due to advances and improvements in battlefield medicine, if you are wounded in OIF/OEF you have a +90% chance of surviving. When you come back and you complete your service and you separate from the military you may have wounds, physical or mental, that still need treatment or care. Some may even get a 100% disability rating for wounds they received in combat that were never physical at all. That’s the problem with war it’s messy. The war for the warrior doesn’t end on a date set by politicians and world leaders. The war will always be with them and me. It will be with us until the day we die. You called us to duty and we answered. Some of us answered the call multiple times and are suffering compounding injuries. The VA was created to take care of these injuries. It angers me to hear, as we are bogged down in two wars supposedly fighting for the American sheeple, that they want to cut VA funding as a solution to the deficit “crisis.” As a matter of fact it’s two wars I didn’t even hear mentioned by any, not one, of the fucking candidates for office. None of them that gained national attention even had the audacity to mention it. They don’t care about the wars because 1) these candidates, like Christine O’Donnell don’t know very much about them and 2) it’s longer than an episode of Dancing with the Stars so the wars have passed the attention span of the American people. But you would think in an election that was supposedly about deficits we would discuss the occupation-nation-building operations in two foreign countries costing the American taxpayers $200 million per day. Nah, they were more worried about raising the marginal tax rate on millionaires 3%.

The hypocrisy of the flag-waving patriots who speak out of both sides of their mouths is astounding and angering. Supporting the troops is more than a yellow ribbon magnet on your SUV. Partriotism requires more than lip service. It’s more than waving the flag and screaming about some imaginary Marxist boogeyman. You might want to discuss that at your next tea party. If the VA is underfunded, raise taxes to fund it. If you don’t want to pay for us to fight these wars then don’t fucking send us to fight these wars. True patriotism is about selfless service and sacrifice. Why don’t you just ask us, the veterans?

“Don’t tread on me,” is their battle cry. Well, don’t tread on us. Don’t wipe us veterans under your boot and think we’ll stay there. We’re fighters, we got these scars fighting and we won’t stay there long. Don’t brush us under the rug in chasing some imaginary white rabbit of deficit reduction. Don’t again make us casualties of a war of ideology. I’m tired of being in the shitty end of the stick in right wing delusional thrash cycle.

The VA is important. This is not a debt that is owed to me, this is a covenant from America to be kept. How can we fight for our country with the thought in our heads that we are expendable, that we are consumed in use overseas. That when we come home our sacrifice means nothing because the billionaires that benefit most from our fighting have decided they don’t want to pay 3% more in taxes. I’m sorry their patriotism doesn’t extend past their checkbook and can only be found in hackneyed platitudes of press statements from right wing think tanks that work for them and on the misspelled, offensive posters of supposed Tea Party “Patriots.”

Fund the VA every penny it needs. Tax every American that reaps the benefits of the security gained from the sacrifice of veterans to pay for it. Tax defense contractors that have reaped a whirlwind of profits from these two wars enough to make the war unprofitable to them just like we did in WWII. Take away the loopholes and shelters for corporations like GE, largest defense contractor in the US, and BP, largest US defense oil contracts, that paid $0 in taxes last year. Tax them until it hurts and it’s paid for.

Grow a spine, man up, put on some man pants and let’s be the country we once were. One that respected and appreciated the sacrifice of the warrior enough to ensure the wounds they received in defense of their country were treated, cared for and healed. Let’s be the patriots our grandparents were and not the faux-patriots the right-wing prides itself on being as guise to dupe people into voting against their best interests.

Let’s be the country we were under FDR. I for one don’t understand the brand of patriotism exhibited by people like Sewell Avery, CEO of Montgomery Ward in the 1940s. Mr. Avery didn’t want to pay his fair share of taxes to pay for WWII. The difference is that when he didn’t pay, FDR sent the national guard down to his office to arrest him and made an example of him and his faux-patriotism that puts profits before country. He was required to pay $30,000 and to put it in perspective in the 1950s he retired with a fortune worth more than $300 million, much of that from war profiteering. Don’t you think he owed a little back to the country that gave him the security, opportunity, roads to make that fortune possible?

So don’t wave your flag and yell about supporting the troops until you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is, or to make hold your corporate overlords accountable and have them do the same.

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No Mosque Senor

No mosques near ground zero.

Then no Christian churches near Native American reservations that have been terrorized for 600 years by Christians. Christians killed 90% of the Native population of the Americas between 1492 and 1892 using the same convert or die strategy as the Muslims use today. Christopher Columbus was the first religious terrorist in the Americas.

Nor near the Oklahoma City bombing, nor anyplace where the Ku Klux Klan has terrorized people (pretty much takes out the south and Indiana).

No churches in Wichita, Kan. or anyplace an abortion clinic has been bombed, no churches in Atlanta, Ga. (1996 bombing by Christian "Patriot" Group).

You see how ridiculous your petty your war over which imaginary friend can beat up which imaginary friend can get. We are more moral than this fictional character called god created by stone-age man. All of your beliefs are archaic and retard mental, emotional and social growth. So I have a simple call no mosques, churches or places of worship anywhere. Let’s turn them all into buildings of science, thought and reason.

A thousand high fives a day quota

One of the great things about attending the Jamboree was being surrounded by the young men and women that find patriotism not to be passe or a trend, but inherent in their everyday lives. Their support, admiration and affection of the military was inspiring and humbling. As I was walking down the hot paved road against the wall of Scouts and leaders pushing the other way I would be awakened from my heat-induced, walking slumber with the near cry, “high five,” only to get my hand up, most times, just in time to slap the sweaty hand of a young Scout.

If you attended any of the Arena Shows it would be apparent from the beginning what their stance was on the military. A speaker didn’t get up without first thanking the military for their support of the Jamboree or sacrifice to our country in this time of war. The fact that these young people are raised to support and respect the military with unfettered infatuation, honestly, puts pressure on me to act appropriately as we walk the grounds of the Jamboree taking photos of the military supporting this great event.

We are demi-gods in our own right to them because we are the end personification of the goal of the Boy Scouts. We, in flesh and uniform, are the the commitment of service to one’s community and country that is the keystone of scouting. “On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty, to God and my Country,” is the beginning of the Scout Oath.

“I want to be an Army Ranger,” said many of the young men. “I’m going to join the [insert branch here],” was heard many times over the course of two weeks. While the admiration and support is great, the innocence of it disturbed me until I saw something at the opening Arena Show. I can’t remember the speaker but the man at the front of the 50,000 Scouts and leaders asked them all to give a hand in support of the military supporting the Jamboree and protecting them overseas. Then, as if that wasn’t touching enough, he asked that all of those who have a relative currently serving in the Armed Forces please stand, and with that nearly 3/5ths of the audience rose.

That’s when I realized most of these young people not only get it but they live it. They live the sacrifice of missing a parent for a year or more at a time. They live the sacrifice of a parent missing life’s minor and major events. Some are even living the pain of dealing with a family member returning from war scarred physically or mentally. Their admiration is unfettered and made stronger not out of a lack of consciousness of those sacrifices but because of them. Their is no innocence in that admiration. They aren’t just drinking the Kool-Aid their parents gave them. At the end of the day, if I count them all up, I gave maybe a hundred or more high fives to kids who need it or deserve it more than me, and accepted them on behalf of my brothers and sisters in the Armed Forces, many of whom, certainly, need or deserve one more than me, then so be it, sore hand and all. “High five!” Smack!

Boy Scouts and supporting the National Scout Jamboree Part I

An informal AAR of the event that my unit, the 14th PAD and it’s seven Soldiers attended. This is not the official opinion of the JTF-NSJ, the U.S. Army, or the DOD. Unlicensed reproduction or distribution without the express written consent of the NFL is strictly prohibited.

So, I got to spend two weeks at Fort A.P. Hill, Va. from July 20th to August 5th supporting the National Scout Jamboree. It may come as a surprise to most people that there is actually a military Joint Task Force with a Brigadier General as commander, assigned to support the BSA with this event every 4 years since it has been held on a military installation. The JTF is about 2,000 service members comprising of everything from firemen, military police, logistics, medics, entomologists and yes, of course, public affairs.

It’s a large event with more than 50,000 scouts and leaders in attendance and 20,000 visitors expected. This year is the Centennial Celebration of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910, so it only compounds the issue with the number of people that would be interested in attending this event. The Jamboree which is usually held every four years was delayed one year to allow for it to take place on the centennial.
The military support to the event is a joint operation. All services and all components were represented from the active duty Marines and Army to the Air Force Reserve and Coast Guard Auxiliary. Much like Captain Planet these forces only combine when rings are held together and magical words are incanted.

So, basically one week before the event there is an exercise to ensure that everyone is on the same page concerning consequence management, reaction drills and most importantly powerpoint slide format. Heaven knows that the military would stop operating without Outlook and Powerpoint. If Powerpoint stops then we essentially stand up walk out of our offices and don’t return. It’s in the contracts, read it sometime.

Exercises are great when done with realism and when designed to test the limits of the system. The JTF exercise was pretty impressive with every thing from moulage, fake damaged body parts and blood, to on-post shooting incident exercise, to protests, and the introduction of a certain pushy, hard-nosed, NBC affiliate reporter, Chip Chipperson. Let me tell you, Chip Chipperson is a real asshole. His slogan, “Chip Chipperson doesn’t report the news he makes the news.” Chip is my newsman alter-ego with the quick-wit of Keith Olbermann and the paranoia and delusion of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones.

Here’s the deal though, when you bring 2,000 people together from 5 services, 4 components of those services, and about a hundrity bajillion different units no one really knows what they are supposed to do or what the other guy isn’t supposed to do for the first couple of days. Cue Yakety Sax. That’s what should be playing for the first few days. Because really it’s just people running in and out of doors being chased by a half-naked, middle-aged man.

But with the help of a good, realistic exercise those kinks are worked out and create at least a functional unit and eliminates the need for Yakety Sax or Benny Hill.

So, the first two days we were there we both documented and participated in the exercise. Plane crashes, media engagements, on-post shooter incident, out of control protestors, out of control fire. I think at the end of the two days of the exercise the JTF could say they were prepared for anything short of the alien abduction of a Boy Scout and even then I’m sure NORTHCOM and NORAD have some sort of contingency plan they fall to for that sort of thing.

...More to follow...

Up Next...
“A thousand high-fives a day quota.”

Fucktards II: A rant...

The Tea Party is the largest group of near-sighted assholes I have ever had the privledge of witnessing. Fueled ideologically by the idiotic rants of failed shock-jock, opportunist, and moron-cult leader Glenn Beck, founded by a man who lobbied for terrorist organizations in the US, Dick Armey, and funded at the grass-tip, not roots, by ... See Morecorporations.I was at the 9-12 protest in D.C. and they have nothing but hate. It was a bunch of angry, spoiled almost all white people bitching about something they knew absolutely nothing about based on conspiracy theories and Fox News propaganda. They are sheep. I say give them what they want. Put their leaders in office and let them burn the country down around them.

Their platform is full of holes and contradictions. If you're against spending where were you when Reagan TRIPLED the national debt and Bush doubled it? If you're worried about jobs where were you when Bush lost 1.5 million jobs over the course of two terms? If you're concerned about oil spills where where you when the MMS was literally in bed with the oil lobby doing cocaine in a Denver hotel room with the same lobbyists and when Dick Cheney held actual SECRET meetings to establish US energy strategy with the oil companies? That's the exact definition of Fascism. Confronting these morons did no good then and does no good now. They would just go back to their retarded talking points about birth certificates and Saul Alinsky. They are stupid, ignorant, paranoid and delusional...all of them. If it's not about race, if it's not about party affiliation then where were they for the 8 years of Bush violating their supposed "platform" 100 times worse than Obama? None of them, and none that I've confronted, talked to, argued with can answer that simple question.

Fucktards

I mean is there a better word to summarize a movement of fat, self-righteous, racist, nearly all white, Chrisitan people, naming their political movment after an act of sodomy all the while sucking the government tit for medicare and social security complaining about big government. God, I hate these people I wish they would just go away.
The reason America even recognizes them is because we always feel bad for retarded or slow people. It's kind of like saying, "Awww ain't that precious. Look at the flop and flail around out there." That' s all their doing is flailing and saying, "Nuh-uh" to everything Obama does and says between their Socialism-Tourettes where they just spew words they don't know the meaning for and string them into a diatribe of insults. "Commie-Social-Facsist-Muslim lover." What the hell does that even mean? Most of them attended the Sarah Palin School of Debate for Tourettes Syndrome. That's it. Sarah Palin doesn't make sense because she has Tourettes Syndrome. When she's speaking it's just a epileptical Tourettes Syndrome tick.

I feel much better now that I have that out of my system.
That's just some of it. It's been piling up for awhile.

Theses

Well, looks like taking command of an 8-person unit is not nearly as easy as you think. Thanks to all the support functions company-level units have to perform having more people is actually better. Fortunately, the PA soldiers are just as capable as artillery soldiers when it comes to working outside your MOS and just getting the job done because really that's all we can do at this point. HAHA!
We just did the change of command a little over a week ago and I feel like I've been here for months.
Got a lot to do in very little time for upcoming missions but my procratination is getting the best of me because really who wants to practice going to MOPP 4 when it's 100 outside. Not me. Blah.

Baggers in the Sky with Diamonds

Tea Baggers to Arms, to arms, they want to end a NASA program. First, I doubt that a majority of Americans can tell you what NASA means. There are just a few problems with the Tea Party outraged for the continued funding of the space program. First of all, the Tea Party doesn’t like science and space travel is all science. A majority of the Tea Partiers are Christian and a majority of those are young-earther’s which is the modern equivalent of flat-earthers. People who believe, like Sarah Palin, that the Earth/universe is 6,000 years old and dinosaur fossils were planted by Satan to trick us. I only say that they are mostly Christian because as stated by Palin the real America isn't east-coast secualrists. I can only assume that means mid-western atheists by association. I find it hilarious that these mostly scientifically-ignorant people, who don’t believe in science are so aghast at the end-run of a space program that was defunded under the Bush administration. Their best guess is that the spaceship is powered by magic Jesus dust and astronauts pass God and angels sitting on clouds as they shoot into space. Space, which was created 6,000 years ago by their almighty God, you remember, is the final frontier. Now it’s about the technology and the jobs. But, do you really want a government agency to be a jobs program? So, if they don’t want the science, since all scientists are liars beholden to their god Darwin, and they don’t want government creating jobs what do they want from NASA? I guess really when it comes down to it they just appreciate a good memory-foam mattress to kneel next to as they talk under their breath to the omnipotent, imaginary father-figure-in-the-sky.

Republican'ts

May I present the monarchy of anarchy...

First, they are the party of no government and self-proclaimed party of “no.” So, why vote for them to have a government job if they don’t like the government? Go get one of those private industry jobs that are so easy to find nowadays. I mean, afterall, you are just inflating the unemployment numbers by being employed by the government. They would rather shut everything down than have a debate about what is actually going on and what needs to be done. So, when they lose instead of becoming the reasonable minority adding to the debate, they close down debate and offer nothing but their backs; throwing fits like my four-year-old. Yelling out obscenities, not able to wait their turn to speak, not respecting the decorum and comity of the Congress or Senate. And I’m not talking about the protestors, they can do whatever the hell they want, I’m talking about the ‘leaders,’ the elected representatives.

These are the same people who whined,“Reagan [-Christ] never even took his jacket off in the oval office.” Then their elected representatives, not once, but twice have breached common etiquette and protocol in the Chamber. They are like an uncontrollable four-year-old throwing fits and tantrums, who can’t wait their turn in line or to speak. They can’t follow simple rules we learn in Kindergarten.

Next, the party is full of nepotism. It’s passed from one dynasty to the next. First the Bush’s now the Cheneys. There is always an heir apparent and it seems to always be in the bloodline of one of the former party leaders. Republicans are the party of monarchies and dynasties. Not to mentions Struass and the Kristols the fathers of neo-conservativism, more properly called neo-liberalism, but that is for another day.

Next, they defend the undefendable and sell America out at any cost. Liz Cheney has decided to defend her father’s oil cartel buddy Karzai after he made comments saying that he might join the Taliban. If anything they should be calling for his head not defending him. But oil is worth more than the American soldier putting his ass on the line to prop up that puppet regime so Halliburton can put their pipeline in Black Sea. They are essentially selling the American soldier down the road out of their loyalty to a drug-oil cartel. What do you know? Their foreign policy is exactly the same as their domestic policy. Prop up the drug-oil cartels at any and all costs. Drill, baby, drill. Kill, baby, kill.

I guess you have to ask yourself, do you want to be a member of the party of crying four-year-olds who didn’t get their way so they’re taking their ball and going home? Well, do you?

The whole debate from liberal to conservative, dove to hawk, pro-choice to pro-life, isolationist to neo-con (neo-lib) can be had in the Democratic Party. What use do we have for a bunch of whining crybabies who just take their toys and go home when we have some serious ‘playing’ to do?