Tag: Military

Feb 05 2008

Tribute to those who held Sancho Press up since 12/28/07.

cross posted from Sancho Press. I hope nobody here at Docudharma is offended by this shameless pimp. Sancho Press is a completly different type of site than DD. It is solely dedicated to uniting citizens with the troops and veterans. http://sanchopress.com/

Since our first article on 28 Dec 07, it has been a slow growth. During that period there have been a handful of people who held Sancho Press’ head above water. They should be recognized. (I truly apologize if I miss anyone).

I believe we are turning a corner. More are hearing about Sancho Press. More are joining. Our visits per day and our page visits have continually gone up.

I have commitments from a half dozen professional journalists who have worked at places such as Army Times, USMC publications and more. These individuals should be on within a few weeks and should really get things rolling.

Sancho Press will have some exclusives with “dirt” on the military and their publications.

The real point here is to recognize those who got us to this point and in a position to really take off and do some good for our troops and Veterans.    

Jan 29 2008

Tune Into NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’

This is going to be quick and short.

I just caught a link to a report that will be airing on NPR Morning Edition

Army Blocks Disability Paperwork Aid at Fort Drum

by Ari Shapiro

Audio for this story will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET

It starts out thus:

Morning Edition, January 29, 2008 ยท Army officials in upstate New York instructed representatives from the Department of Veterans Affairs not to help disabled soldiers at Fort Drum Army base with their military disability paperwork last year. That paperwork can be crucial because it helps determine whether soldiers will get annual disability payments and health care after they’re discharged.

And we get this from one of Drums soldiers:

“To be tossed aside like a worn-out pair of boots is pretty disheartening,” the soldier says. “I always believed the Army would take care of me if I did the best I could, and I’ve done that.”

For now Visit here to read, than Tune In to listen to this!

Jan 04 2008

HELP! Good cause needs writers, members and help.

I currently have a bare bones web site/blog called sanchopress.com with which I desperately need help and writers. It is going to be designed to unite the left and the troops/veterans as well as many other features I will explain further along.  Why it is bare bones, when it once was not, is a long story and not needed here.

http://sanchopress.com/

Articles can be written on it now as well as making comments, but that is it for now.I have an excellent web designer who is very busy now and comes highly recommended. She has 87 clients all over the world. She can not start on sanchopress.com for about two weeks.

I am a veteran and my passion and dedication has been trying to help the troops/veterans. I have tried to unite the left and the troops/veterans. I have written diaries about the terrible plight of the troops/veterans and their families. The horrendous treatment and wait times at the Veterans Administration hospitals. I posted many diaries about troops/veterans issues.

Below are some of my troop/veterans diaries tat were posted on DailyKos, Docudharma, Turn Maine Blue and VetVoice.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

My diaries had not gotten the left inspired enough to make a big difference in helping the troops. I blame nobody. Maybe they were not good enough diaries or maybe I did not have enough of a reputation established in the left community. With the fact that this method was not working, I knew I had to think of another way to get my goal acheived. I decided on my own blog. I knew I had to have a very good reason for people to come to my blog/site if I started one.

I gave a great deal of thought to the project because there are tons of web sites out there. I HAD to have something different and unique to merge these two groups. Otherwise, why come to mine?

Using my skills from my successful 20+ year career in corporate marketing/sales/management I began to develop what I believed to be a win/win idea that I have not seen anywhere on the web. If someone can show me a site/blog with the veterans/troops working in unison with the left, I would like to take a look at it.

I am also setting SanchoPress as a corporation with paid employees, a second in charge etc. Of course I can not pay anyone until we are successful and begin to receive moneys from donations and from advertisements.



ALL blogs operate on this system of income. There is even a web site showing most blogs income from advertisements only (below). Since I am looking to the future, I must make a plan for this. That is only wise and logical. When we are successful, it WILL happen. Advertisers WILL come and offer money to be on the site.

http://web.blogads.com/adverti…

Eventually I want to pay Editorial Page Contributors (front pagers), Web designers, graphic designers and others who make a substantial contribution to the corporation and cause.

I know many troops on the front lines from my involvement in VetVoice. I know many veterans from the VA where I have health coverage. I know Brian Mcgough who did the rebuttal film to Rush Limbaugh. I even have a chopper pilot of a medi-vac unit who has committed to writing a daily diary each evening about what happened in his day and to contribute it on sanchopress.com (beginning in March).

I know “owners” of veterans wives for change organizations and changes for veterans families organizations. They are on board with this.

I know many others from this war who are now out of the military.  I also have gotten to know some members on Dailykos, Docudharma, Turn Maine Blue and VetVoice. I need more than the few I have gotten to know on each blog to help this endeavor work.

I have TBI (like many vets), which caused depressive disorder, mental health issues and I also fractured three vertebrae in the auto accident that caused all these issues. I am disabled. With some similar problems to those returning from combat, I can relate better to them. I have also had nine years to learn to live with my problems and can help some adapt. We all have our cross to bare. I am not complaining. I wouldn’t trade my problems for yours.

I spend a great deal of time on the blogs and the internet. Much of it researching troops/veterans issues. The situation is horrendous. Our military is decimated. They are stretched beyond limits. They are exhausted and weak and have tours that are far too long and stays home that are far too short.

The House subcommittee On Veterans Health estimates that 65% of troops returning from this war will have some degree of brain damage (TBI)!

I finally came up with the idea to get both groups on one site. My vision was to make a newspaper type blog with links to every left blog and every troop/veterans blog. Also every non profit charitable organization and animal rights site and global warming sites, Native American sites, every news feed and more. This idea/vision became sanchopress.com.

A one stop shop with everything a blogger needs in one place and also what the troops/veterans need too. This in no way will hurt blogs like DailyKos or Docudharrma or any of the others including troops/veterans blogs. It will in fact help them. Some coming to sanchopress.com will see sites they didn’t know about and go to different blogs than they have ever visited before.

SanchoPress will have some unique features. When one of the links has a petition going, it will show up in red on the screen so all know. There will be a daily quote, a daily trivia question, a daily unknown fact, a daily Don Quixote picture and several more similar items to at least add a little bit on the lighter side.

If the citizens of the left hear first hand about TBI, PTSD, mental health problems, divorce, spousal abuse, child abuse, homelessness, inadequate medical care, GWS and a troop/veteran suicide rate of 18 per day, they will be more inclined to help.

OUR troops/veterans are in dire need of our help. The military and their structure are not prone to react to soldiers complaints. It will take our voices along with theirs to get things fixed.

We will operate as a team, united, as one group, demanding action and results for both the troops/veterans issues and our issues. The power of this larger group will definitely have more of an impact than each on their own.

They need us to do things to help them, like write senators and congressmen about their poor health care. Ending this war! The 3-6 month wait for mental health problems at VA hospitals. The housing that has been outsourced and many have lead paint and mold problems. Diagnosing soldiers with personality disorder instead of PTSD so they don’t get benefits and are then told to vacate the military housing and base within 10 days (22,000 since the war started). The 200,000 homeless veterans. More and more.

The troops/veterans are beginning to see the right for what they truly are. They know the right vehemently pushed to send them into this useless war. Now, when they and their families are in need, the right has abandoned those they sent there to carry out their dirty deeds.

Dec 13 2007

Why Do We Pay So Much in Taxes?

Canada is vilified in the US as a country with high taxes. Sure they have universal health insurance, but look how much they pay in taxes!! Not like here in the good ol’ US of A.!

Right?

Actually, maybe not. According to a recent study from the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, Paying Taxes 2008: A global picture, Canada ranks 99th out of 178 for total tax rate. (Top-ranked are low-tax havens like Vanatu, the Maldives and the United Arab Emirates; bottom-ranked are a number of sub-Saharan countries where taxes actually exceed 100% of commercial profits – ouch.)

Canada at 99th beats out the US at 102nd.

Nov 21 2007

Just Whining or Just Tattling

Grrrrr…….I’ve started all the paperwork needed to be reimbursed for the traveling expenses surrounding my sons last surgery.  I requested a change of who his PCM is and was granted that change from the commander of the Lyster Health Clinic at Fort Rucker.  Normally when you are part of an active duty family there is an existing mostly military operated healthcare structure close by that you must originate from on your healthcare journeys.  Most of the physicians who are part of that system right now are also soldiers.  There are a few doctors who are contractors involved as well but I haven’t been really happy with those that I’ve seen at Lyster because they only seem to want to punch the time clock and let’s face it…….if you are a kickin unowned physician you are kickin in your own practice.

I’m not anti military doctor either.  Some are good and some not so good but Dr. Campbell who is the creator of the titanium rib device and procedure that saved my sons life started out as an Army doctor.  He told me that he always desired to be a doctor but his family couldn’t even begin to pay for that schooling so he did what a lot of impoverished future doctors do and sold himself to the military for awhile and they got him the schooling.  My son has been passed onto Dr. Simmons now.  Dr. Simmons is an orthopedic surgeon who put together wounded soldiers coming out of Iraq.  Dr. Campbell knew this Simmons character while in the service and knew that he rocked as an orthopedic surgeon so told him that when his time was up in the military he needed to work with him helping these kids with horrible scoliosis be able to live and Simmons did.  So how could I sanely be anti military physician?

Oct 24 2007

Depleted Uranium Debunker – Lies & Deceipt for the Dark Lords.

Note: Originally cross-posted to Daily Kos last week. A later post on Kos resulted in one or two suggestions that I sign on to Docudharma and begin posting here. I like what I’m seeing and have reposted the DU article here. There is more published in this article here.
  Additional information was sent my way revealing to me more information about this trolling online defender of the use of Depleted Uranium.  Originally reluctant to name the individual (thinking he was a local member of our Washington State Google Group and would respond with an email to me) I’m no longer concerned about his privacy.  I’ve added updated information about the troll to this essay as well as pasting an entire article (Fair Use) published about him in 2005 by Axis of Logic.

My wife and I have included a concern about depleted uranium in our writings now going back almost five years. Recently – as members of a Google group that focuses on Veteran Health issues in Washington State – we received an email  from another military veteran group member which included the following:

Since you are a former AF brat, wife of a Viet Vet and mother to soldiers still serving, I would appreciate it if you would contact me. You have been gravely mislead by a bunch of frauds about DU.

What made you even go looking for them (or did they come to you) — you are the perfect person for them to make a dupe as they have made Congressman McDermott who was sent a forged document that is purported to be from 1943.

Oct 16 2007

People Power in Burma: Part III

Cross posted at the Daily Kos under betson08

When the military junta in Burma began its outrageously brutal crackdown on the monks, students and other pro-democracy activists last month, I had a feeling that this time it had gone too far. For one, Buddhist monks are way too important in Burmese society for the population to acquiesce to the junta striking out at the very soul of the society.

In this light, there is an interesting news report today in Truthout based on an interview with a pro-democracy activist, whose identity is being kept a secret for his own safety, that shows some interesting things about the extent of the internal organization of the movement and how its nonviolent nature will be the final downfall of the junta.

Oct 02 2007

Let Blackwater Stay Bring Home The Troops

subtitled: America, the militia with corporate sponsorship.

We all know that Blackwater is made up of American militia members, often addicted to crystal meth, known for their racial hatred and itchy trigger fingers.  We also know that Exxon and other oil firms have been using Blackwater for some time now.  So I say let a few guys from Exxon and all of Blackwater stay to guard their precious oil and let everyone else come home.  This is the Exxon War after all, so let’s let a few tweakers go down in flames in Iraq and bring back our honorable soldiers.

Now let’s take a look at a few other corporate sponsors of the Exxon War below the fold.

Sep 30 2007

An insight on US strategic thinking – why so much cowering fear?

Earlier last week, I wrote a diary (What the west means and what roles NATO plays therein) that used a recent Financial Times editorial as a springboard for a discussion on what the “West” was, and what the use of NATO was – questions that  left-of-center Europeans tend to see quite differently from most Americans, including left-of-center ones.

The editorial, by a well-respected British pundit, was insightful and interesting, and led me to conclude what many on the European Tribune have long suspected: that NATO is simply an instrument for Europe to support US strategic priorities, and that the “West” exists only when Europe (and in particular France) aligns itself unconditionally on US positions. The UK, as per that senior British commentator, has as its main role that of disrupting and dividing Europe when it is insufficiently respectful of US interests.

Since I’m French, you may be tempted to conclude that this is just sour grapes by a citizen of a supposedly declining country; however, what I found more interesting in that article was the dominant tone of fear – about the west being under siege, and needing security against various threats – in the form of coordinated military power and little else. It was a narrow, downcast, closed vision of the world, with little about values, progress or hope.

The comment thread is worth reading too, and one of the last comments, by Loefing, pointed me to another article on the same topic, this time by a graduate of the US Naval War College, Tony Corn. The article, (The Revolution in Transatlantic Affairs, has the same dominant tone of fear, but a much more detailed examination of the world. Given the credentials of its author, it is likely to have serious influence on the thinking of the strategists in the Pentagon, and it is thus worth deconstructing.

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