The above subject title is the forth addition in a week long series at Salon.com by Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna on the returned Soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan called “Coming Home”. It’s the open window into what happens to some after serving in man’s hell on earth, Wars and Occupations of Choice!
Tag: veterans
Feb 12 2009
“You’re a p- – -y and a scared little kid”, 3rd Installment of “Coming Home”
The subject title above is the third installment of a week long series of reports being run at Salon.com.
The first two installment reports can be found in links below or with this link of what I posted previously
Feb 10 2009
“The Death Dealers took my life!”
Feb 05 2009
Army: 24 Suspected Suicides in January ’09
This is just being reported,
Army reports alarming rise in suicides last month
There has been a small sprinkling of reports about the Military Suicides in the last couple of months, most of those found only if one is hitting a number of news outlets but not making National News, even as those who serve do so for the Country not a Community located near a base or where their from.
Feb 04 2009
Soldiers Get Shafted, Again and……………………!!
I was trying to write something more about this report I just read, but after these last eight previous years my rage keeps me from thinking straight in trying to add words to the total apathy, arrogance, and incompetence found in this country and it’s elected representatives.
But I want you to meet Melissa Sterry, a Gulf War I National Guard Veteran, from New Haven Connecticut, and read the cuts I placed below also visiting the Hartford Advocate and read the rest, not only about Ms. Sterry but as to the rest of the Veterans of Connecticut, and what the state reps have to say.
Jan 21 2009
Obama to Vietnam vets: Welcome home
He had me at "my fellow citizens."
But of the many remarkable things Barack Obama said as he assumed this office of president, this simple phrase spoke volumes to me, and no doubt to many of my fellow Vietnam veterans, numbering some 2.5-million with another 6+ million who served during the Vietnam era:
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.
I'll leave the analysis to others. I know what hearing that from the lips of our new President meant to me.
Vietnam, like Iraq, was a terrible mistake. But, as Vietnam Veterans Against the War have said for 40 years, it is possible — and fitting — to honor the warrior, not the war.
By mentioning Khe Sahn in the same breath as Lexington, Gettysburg, and Normandy, Obama has done that.
Jan 18 2009
Change of Culture at VA Called For
From: Veterans for Common Sense
During Confirmation Hearing for New Veterans Secretary
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) questioned Retired General Eric Shinseki, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs, about challenges facing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Senator Murray, a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and an outspoken leader in fighting for veterans’ benefits and care, discussed changing the overall culture at the VA, improving care for women veterans, and working to make the VA a more proactive agency. Secretary-Designate Shinseki”s nomination is expected to be voted on by the full Senate as part of a package of Obama administration nominees on January 20th.
Jan 10 2009
THE WAR BEHIND ME:
Coming to terms with the reality and the lessons ignored for far too long, which ultimately by ignoring led us into the Deja-Vu of invasion and long term occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the failed leadership exposed!
Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes
Inside, the book, the Army’s Secret Archive of Investigations.
Atrocities, on all sides, are only a part of the story of the Tragedy of War and Occupation.
The rest we are once again observing and those serving and sacrificing in these theaters are living, along with their families.
Jan 04 2009
Veterans of george’s War Want a Bailout
The following is a Twofur of Information:
392,000 Pending Appeals to VA for Help
It’s not easy to get the runaround when you have a traumatic brain injury from george’s war.
Did You Know 200,000 Vets Are Sleeping on the Streets?
America’s promise to “Support the Troops” ends the moment they take off the uniform and try to make the transition to civilian life.
Demand O’Reilly apologize to the “non-existent” homeless vets he attacked ?
Dec 26 2008
Distress: December 26th 1971 and December 26th 2008
Back on December 26th 2006 I put together a post, for my site and a few others, in remembrance of an anniversary of a day my fellow Vietnam Veterans made a statement to our country, a statement of a Country in Distress, Our Country!
A shoutout about not only our War of Choice but what our society was going through, Civil Rights Movement, care of the returning Vets, civil disobedience for the many failed policies, and more, the statement wasn’t really taken seriously except by the minority, as is usually the case, the country itself just dug deeper into it’s apathy and never came to terms with our War and Occupation and still hasn’t!
December 26, 1971
Two dozen members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War “liberated” the Statue of Liberty with a sit-in to protest resumed U.S. aerial bombings in Vietnam. They flew an inverted U.S. flag from the crown as a signal of distress.
Dec 22 2008
In Their Boots: Holiday Special
Topic: Care Packages for the Troops; Jacob’s Light
Originally aired on December 17th, 2008
Dorine Kenney lost her only child Jacob to the Iraq war. Eleven days after Jacob’s death, on his 29th birthday, Dorine sent a care package to one of her son’s friends still serving in Iraq. This single act spawned The Jacob’s Light Foundation, an organization to honor her son and care for those still fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dec 18 2008
Veterans Disability Lawsuit Tossed, Again
Yesterday another Class Action Lawsuit was presented this time at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the previous was presented a few months back in California federal court on complaints from Veterans of OIF and OEF, and others, as to disability payments delayed and or denied.
When we returned from Vietnam many of the Vietnam Vets, needing care at Veterans clinics and Veterans Hospitals as well as attempting to file and receive disability benefits of already diagnosed Occupation Theater physical and mental ailments went through much of the same treatment. Those coming back and developing very serious ailments from coming in contact with heavily sprayed area’s of the Defoliants, mostly Agent Orange, were not only denied benefits and treatment the Government and Chemical Companies Denied they were hazardous to humans. We are going through the same All Over Again.