This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Veterans for Obama

    JP sends us this picture from Obama For America in which “Jocelyn” who says she’s a veteran and she’s voting for Obama because he keeps his promises.

    The picture sits atop this caption

    Jocelyn knows President Barack Obama is looking out for veterans and their families—join Veterans for Obama today.

    As JP said, I thought there was still a war going on and some of our troops are still in it, but I guess because Jocelyn isn’t there, it doesn’t matter.

    Obama also promised that he was going fight the Taliban with all of the resources available to the most powerful president in the world, but he only half-assed staffed the surge, greatly undermanned in the estimation of his generals and the CIA.

    Obama also promised to close Guantanamo, how’s that working out, Jocelyn? He promised veterans that he wouldn’t balance the national budget on the backs of veterans while his Secretary of Defense was planning to do just that. The president and his Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs promised to straighten out the DVA, but the list of veterans waiting for disability has doubled. Can we talk about how the VA couldn’t pay veterans’ education benefits that Obama voted for as a Senator in a timely manner? How about how the first thing Obama tried to do to veterans was to make us buy health insurance to pay for our service-connected injuries. And who can forget that the Obama Homeland Security Department labeled veterans as a dangerous threat to our national security.

    But, yeah, he’s man of Bush’s word to withdraw from Iraq on time – but only because he couldn’t send competent people to negotiate with Iraqis to allow us to stay. And Iraq is being torn apart by violence in our wake undoing everything the troops did during the 2006 surge. So, yeah, vote for him again, Jocelyn, because you don’t have to deploy to Iraq, if you ever did.

  • May Issue or No Issue? A Veteran’s Path to Getting a Legal Gun in NYC

    First, I’d like to give all the credit for this idea to Emily Miller of the Washington Times, for her very well-written series “Emily Gets Her Gun,” [1][2][3][4][5], (for a start), about her attempt, as a law-abiding citizen, to get a permit and a weapon in the nation’s capitol.

    Like Emily, with rising violence and crime in the streets, I don’t feel safe. My neighborhood had a serial rapist that the police never caught, and I’ve witnessed three muggings in the last year, all from too far away to help even when I started running to get up. I had to break up a fight between two machete-wielding homeless guys on a train armed with…my words, not the best choice. (For future reference, apparently if you ask “Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” they think you’re a cop.)

    I’m an Army veteran with an honorable record. I have numerous firearms qualifications and training. I’ve never been convicted of any crimes. I was arrested once as a juvenile for being in a park past curfew: charges were dismissed. I’ve had a few tickets for speeding, which I paid. I’m a decent shot. I know gun safety. And now, I’d like to obtain a firearm for my home and to carry with me to protect myself and my family.

    Only one problem: New York City, and Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg has never been a fan of guns, but in the wake of the Aurora shooting he’s gotten even more nuts.

    My goalposts may move, but here are my starters, which certainly don’t seem unreasonable to me:

    Would like to acquire (but do not currently possess):
    legal permits to have one rifle and one handgun in a NYC residence,
    NYC concealed carry permit for a handgun.
    rifle: M16 or something similar – it’s what I know.
    handgun: 1911, widely acknowledged as the finest gun ever made.

    For those who are easily amused, I’m the “token lefty” on this site. I was a precinct captain for Kerry. I have only the barest familiarity with the process of obtaining a gun in this country.

    So hold onto your beer and watch this shit.

  • Cheap talk

    According to Stars & Stripes, Ric Shinseki and Leon Panetta made a joint appearance in front of their oversight committees; House Armed Services and House Veterans Affairs committees; to smile and wave away questions about why their clerks can’t talk to each other about veterans’ health records;

    “Collaboration and cooperation between VA and DOD have never been more important, and I think for the next two decades … this will be the work of the nation,” Shinseki said.

    The agencies represent the two largest bureaucracies in the country, in terms of personnel and funding.

    Panetta said the VA health care system is already “overwhelmed” with claims from troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and he expects problems to get worse as the Afghan war winds down and the military starts reducing its personnel numbers.

    Shinseki said he and Panetta have met regularly, sorting out ways to ease transition out of the military.

    Like I’ve said before, when I left the military in 1994, my records were sent to the VA after I turned them in at outprocessing and within a few months, I had appoints scheduled for me and jumped through the hoops to get my care finalized. So what the hell has changed, well, except that technology should have made it easier than the days that they sent actual paper records between agencies?

    I’m sure there are some critics out there with more knowledge of the problem than me, but to me this is just sloth on the part of bureaucrats when there used to be a completely acceptable system that worked admirably and now there’s not.

  • What the hell is this?

    Yeah, so here I am in the middle of the day blogging about the election again. But, Country Singer sent us this link to an article about the President who chanced upon three veterans in a diner and had an impromptu chat with them;

    the Portland lunch reinforced the message that president cares about vets. In addition, the local vets — Thomas Foeller of Oak Grove and Mark Peterson and Dean Dilley, both of Portland — are retired white males, a demographic the Obama campaign would certainly like to do better with.

    Whatever the politics behind the luncheon, however, Foeller, Peterson and Diller said it was an experience they’ll always remember.

    “I can’t emphasize how easy the president is to talk to,” said Foeller, 65, a former Navy officer who later spent most of his career at the Bonneville Power Administration.

    Foeller said Obama listened sympathetically as he talked about the problems rural veterans have getting access to health care and was quick to knock down a rumor Foeller had heard from his son-in-law — an Iraq War veteran — that members of the National Guard would get a pay cut.

    There won’t be any reduction, Obama told them.

    Where did that rumor come from? Trust me, I deal with rumors every day, and I’ve never heard that anyone was going to cut National Guard pay. So I guess if you wanted to toss a softball to your guy, ask him to solve a non-existent problem.

    I think if the president sat down with me at a diner, I’d have more important shit to discuss with him than some rumor about space aliens coming to cut National Guard pay,

    Oh, and according to Gateway Pundit, those vets were plants anyway.

  • Shinseki: Backlog at DVA is good news

    Yes, you read that right, back during the last Administration a backlog of enrollment in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs meant incompetence and evidence that the Bush Administration didn’t care about veterans, But, now, Shinseki, in a Rick Maze piece at Army Times, sent to us by Chief Tango, says it’s good news that the backlog has grown.

    Appearing before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in an election-year address aimed at showing the best side of the Obama administration’s policies, Shinseki said the total inventory of veterans’ claims was 400,000 when the administration began and is about 880,000 today.

    The growth, he said, “is what happens when we increase access.” While it has meant some veterans are waiting longer for their benefits to start, “it was the right thing to do,” he said

    Really, the Obama Administration “increased access”? How exactly? If I’m not mistaken, the last expansion of access to VA benefits came from the Bush Administration and they had half of the backlog that the Obama Administration is currently dealing with.

    Of course, the Army Times doesn’t address that little fact. Yes, the Obama Administration is funding the DVA at a higher rate, but that’s only because they plan on pushing those of us on Tricare into the VA system and it’s so Brandon Friedman can tell tell me that this administration is expanding spending on veterans while Leon Panetta is actually jacking up our Tricare premiums, which, by the way, doubles on October 1st.

  • Basic Training to leave the Army?

    It seems that there is a idea that is going to be used to help Veterans leave the Military. Just in the same way that one has to go through Basic Training to enter service, there would be a Basic Training for preparation to leave the Military.

    Troops leaving the military will go through a five- to seven-day reverse boot camp covering job skills, personal finances and veterans benefits under a new initiative to be announced by President Barack Obama on Monday.

    At a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Nevada, Obama will outline the program — dubbed Transition Goals Planning Success, or Transition GPS — as part of a wider effort to help curb veterans unemployment and the difficult integration into civilian life for many troops.

    The overhaul is the first significant change in the military’s Transition Assistance Program in more than 20 years. It comes in response to criticism that the current three-day voluntary program is outdated and too superficial.

    At face value it seems like it would be something that would work. But we shall see if it works.

  • Ranger on the loose

    A couple of you have sent us links to this story about John C. Buckley IV in Lexington, KY who is on the loose while he was out on bond after being convicted of raping his girlfriend. Apparently, he cut off his ankle monitor and dashed off into the wilds.

    Buckley’s training as an Army Ranger “gives him the ability to engage in defensive and combative tactics at a very high level,” Roberts said. “As such, we do not want citizens to independently approach him or try to take him into custody. If you see him, call 911 immediately.”

    When Buckley was arrested, Bradbury said, police confiscated multiple weapons, including a handgun, an assault rifle and a shotgun. Buckley also had body armor and a stockpile of ammunition, he said.

    Court documents say Buckley suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Court documents say Buckley kept a scrapbook with photos of the people he had killed “over there” and showed them to friends.

    The good folks at the Ranger Training Brigade have verified to us that he is indeed Ranger qualified, in fact, they were impressed that he hadn’t failed any of his patrols at the school. So this probably isn’t going to end well at all for anyone. Just reading the article gives the impression that the police are rightly concerned about what will happen if they run into him. According to Kentucky.com;

    Because of his violent past, authorities were concerned Buckley might try to harm victims, detectives and prosecutors who were involved in his case.

    “He blames the police department for his criminal acts; he blames the commonwealth’s attorneys office,” Bradbury said. “He blames everyone but himself.”

  • Lost letters delivered to family

    43 years after he was killed, Sergeant Steve Flaherty’s letters were returned to his family in a ceremony at Viet Nam Memorial Park in Columbia S.C. according to Columbia’s The State;

    Sealed in an unassuming white envelope, the letters were presented by members of the 101st Airborne Division to Flaherty’s uncle, Ken Cannon.

    “It is a miracle that these letters have shown up after all this time,” said Cannon at the ceremony, which included about 20 members of Flaherty’s extended family, members of the military, representatives of veteran’s groups and the general public who had come to pay their respect.

    I mention this because that evil valor vulture, Mary Schantag, helped to locate the family so they could take possession of the letters after the letters were returned to Leon Panetta by the Vietnamese government while he was in Vietnam last month.