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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Austin Anderson saving the world one person at a time

    RBB sends us a link to a local news story about how 27-year-old Austin Anderson, a former Marine pulled 22-year-old Hannah Luce from their small aircraft which had crashed soon after take-off from a Tulsa airport on their way to a Christian youth camp in Iowa;

    Austin Anderson, a 27-year-old former marine who completed two tours in Iraq, had just graduated from Oral Roberts University with Luce on May 5. Anderson reportedly pulled Luce out of the burning plane, and the two were able to walk to a nearby road for help.

    Anderson later died in the hospital, suffering burns over 90 percent of his body.

    “It would totally be like Austin’s character,” friend Lauren Rocket told ABC News. “He was such a tough guy, but once you got to know him he was so much a teddy bear.”

    “He served two tours in Iraq, and he was willing to give his life for his country,” he said. “He was willing to give his life for a friend. He was always willing to go that extra mile.”

    What can I add?

  • GOP moves to spare defense, Democrats whine

    Fox News reports that the House Republicans are finally stirring their lazy asses to spare the Defense Department from shouldering the entire burden of the $1/2 trillion in cuts they’ll endure because the super committee couldn’t be super last year. And of course, the Republicans are targeting “entitlements” – you know the same kind of things that veterans are expected to take in the ass from the Defense Department’s Panetta Hatchet Brigade. And just as expected, the Democrats are popping smoke to protect their constituency;

    “They have a totally lopsided approach,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., accusing Republicans of protecting special interests at the expense of the poor. “The result is they whack everybody else.”

    So I guess now veterans are a “special interest group” and the Democrats want to pit us against the people who are expecting their benefits having accomplished nothing except successfully navigating the birth canal.

    And the White House has issued a veto threat over the Republican bill.

    An administration statement released Wednesday evening said the bill “would impose deep budget cuts that cost jobs and hurt middle-class and vulnerable Americans.”

    But, what about the ‘deep budget cuts” in our defense budget in a time of war? Not to mention the veterans who are subjected to increased costs on fixed incomes so someone who hasn’t worked a day in their lives can afford their cable bill for their big screen TV? Of course, having not seen anything from the Republicans, I have no doubt that they’re willing to subject veterans to those increases anyway – the difference being that I don’t hear anyone coming to our defense like that shrieking moron Van Hollen is rushing to the defense of welfare checks and food stamps.

  • “Got Your 6” skepticism

    StrikeFO sends us a link to the story of the latest Hollywood campaign to “support” veterans called “Got Your 6”. You can see their video at this link between mindless yammering by gadflies and script readers. Guys like Michael Douglas and Alec Baldwin who declare that they have veterans’ “6”. But it’s all a slick ad campaign to make us think that Hollywood really cares about us – despite the crappy movies and television shows that have come out of the vacuum of common sense and selfish purpose the last several years. Of course, you know it has something to do with the President, right? From the “Got Your 6” website;

    Inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Joining Forces initiative and formed as an entertainment industry commitment at a Clinton Global Initiative America convening, Got Your 6 launches today with tremendous strength.

    “The entertainment industry captures our imaginations, opens our eyes and touches our hearts, and I’m proud to work with them on our Joining Forces initiative,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “By sharing the stories of strength and resilience that define our military families, we can motivate even more Americans to honor these courageous individuals in new ways….
    (click to expand full release and continue reading)

    Yeah, well, where was the entertainment industry when we needed them in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007? Now because the right guy is in the White House, they support veterans and service members. Nice try. Why did the vacuous trolls need to be “inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama” – why couldn’t they be “inspired” by the service people who selflessly sacrificed so they could prattle on mindlessly for a decade under the protection of those service members?

    And, by the way, I smell the Paul Rieckhoff ass-stench all over this thing. Scroll down the page at the “Got Your 6” website and sure as shit, there’s IAVA – the Rieckhoff Publicity Agency.

  • Auto industry adapts to disabled veterans

    Suzy sends us a link to a USAToday article about how the after-market auto industry is adapting to a younger population of disabled people, most of whom are veterans who suffered war wounds.

    [After-market vehicle converters] are using innovation and design savvy to create vehicles for a new group of customers, veterans, mostly men in their 20s and 30s, determined to live life as much as they can without concession to their disability — including in their choice of vehicles.

    “Independence is the key, being able to function as normally as possible,” says Dave Hubbard, CEO of the National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association trade group.

    Younger buyers “are looking for alternatives,” he says, driven in large part by a desire not to be seen as disabled. They want vehicles that look like those typically driven by others their age, without obvious signs of modification to handle disabilities.

    According to the article, the VA picks up most of the cost of conversions up to $18,900. I’m up for anything that gets those folks out here among the rest of us – we need them.

  • McChrystal in the classroom

    TT sends a link from the New York Times‘ Elisabeth Bumuller who decides to take a look into General Stanley McCrystal’s Yale classroom to see how he faring among the pointy-headed crowd. It seems he’s doing better than an American general of the Vietnam era might have done;

    “The first day I came here, they were expecting a demonstration,” General McChrystal, who is retired from the military, said in an interview after class, shortly before heading out to a New Haven bar for beers with his students. “And I was mad because there were only nine people” protesting his appointment.

    But that isn’t the end of it. The students seem to be more mature than their teachers;

    At Yale the military is, for most students, a great unknown, and many in General McChrystal’s class say they signed up out of curiosity. “I would never have imagined myself three years ago in a course taught by a general,” said Erik Heinonen, one of General McChrystal’s students and a former Peace Corps volunteer.

    Some faculty members at Yale remain opposed to a retired celebrity general who does not hold their union card, a Ph.D., teaching at a civilian university, and say they are uncomfortable with his history of driving the secret commando raids that killed so many people in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also point out that the wars of the last decade have been unpopular on campus.

    But faculty members who support General McChrystal say that students distinguish between the warriors and the wars, and that Yale should include an option to learn firsthand about the military as part of a college education.

    “There is almost no antimilitary bias among students,” said John Lewis Gaddis, a Yale history professor and the recipient of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for biography, who has welcomed General McChrystal to Yale. “I wouldn’t say it’s true among the faculty.”

    I envy and admire those students for seeking knowledge from people who actually wrote history instead of just succumbing to the usual liberal drivel from people who only write about history. Yale is lucky to have McCrystal and I hope they continue to ignore the filthy 60s hippie beasts who are clinging to their tenure and sequestered behind the Ivy-covered walls safe from the realities of the world.

  • Washington Times: Defense budget casualties light on civilian side

    The Washington Times reports that after an increase of about 61,000 DoD civilians during the Obama Administration, only about 1% are facing cuts in an age of slashing the number trigger-pullers and their armaments.

    Some defense analysts say this was not supposed to happen.

    In the summer of 2010, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced a series of cost-saving initiatives that included keeping civilian employees to that year’s number of 778,000. The services started issuing press releases on the number of civilian jobs they had erased.

    Two years later, civilian employment has risen by 23,000 personnel.

    “While the fighting force is coming down, the overhead continues to grow,” [Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps Reserve major general ] said. “It was an adverse ratio to start with, and it’s getting worse. You want to put your money in the tip of the spear, not in the rear with the gear.”

    So, I guess the only thing the Defense Department is tasked with defending is the unemployment rate. In the article, the Defense Department defends the increases because they’re improving acquisition and health care with civilians, they call it “InSource” – converting contractor jobs to civilian employees. But if there’s nothing to acquire and they’re slashing healthcare for veterans, why the increases in manpower to service those areas?

    Looked at another way, the Pentagon’s 801,000 civilians exceed the combined size of the active-duty Navy and Air Force.

    Congressional Republicans are proposing that the civilian workforce at DoD be cut by 10%, still a smaller cut than total force will suffer, but a much more realistic reduction. But, Leon Pannetta who makes $32,000 trips to his California home every weekend at the taxpayers’ expense is fighting to keep the civvies on the payroll;

    The issue came to a head as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta appeared, with Mr. Hale, before the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense.

    “Frankly, I don’t think you should de-trigger sequester on the backs of our civilian workforce,” Mr. Panetta testified. “I mean, I realize that savings could be achieved there, but the civilian workforce does perform a very important role for us in terms of support.”

    But, it’s fine to balance the budget on the backs of the veterans and on the back of our national security. Yeah, Panetta was a brilliant choice for the guy we need in charge of defending our country. I’m sure that the unions love him.

  • There’s going to be a riot at the Milblog Conference; You might want to attend

    I wasn’t going to attend the Milblog Conference for a couple of reasons. They scheduled it for Mothers’ Day weekend for one reason, not that it matters much to me, but when people started raising objections, the folks at Military.com in essence said “Tough shit”. So that pissed me off. And last year they scheduled the reception in the bowels of DC, miles from the hotel where the conference was being held and I didn’t like the logistics of traveling to see the friends I’d come to spend time with. But, I’m an old man and I don’t like change.

    But, anyway, my editors at Business Insiders wanted to go, so I acquiesced for their benefit. And now I’m so glad I did, but there are going to be some unhappy people when they find out my reason. They released the list of panels today, and this one caught my eye;

    Benefits: Promises Delivered, Delayed or Dismissed?

    After a decade plus of combat operations the issue of how we care for our veterans is taking center stage. From changing retirement time frames to medical care and wounded warrior programs, this panel will examine if the promises made to our fighting forces are being delivered, delayed or dismissed.
    Moderator: Rick Maze (Military Times Newspapers)
    Panelists: VADM Norbert R. Ryan, Jr., USN-Ret (MOAA), Tom Tarantino (IAVA), Brandon Friedman (VA), Terry Howell (Military.com), Kristle Helmuth (Author: The Story of a True American Hero, His Princess, and their Struggle with TBI/PTSD), Chazz Pratt (USAA), Mike Brinck (House Veterans Affairs Committee for the Economic Opportunity subcommittee)

    Yeah, Rick Maze is the head cheerleader for Obama at Military Times, he hates the VSOs and got so mad at me when I caught him manufacturing quotes and trying to start a war between the VFW and The American Legion that he blocked my email address.

    And then there’s Brandon Friedman, known to my readers as Beeker from the days he worked at VoteVets. I caught Friedman making excuses for the Obama Administration when the president was trying to force service-connected veterans to buy insurance and he told us not to worry that the Obama Administration didn’t intend to screw veterans. Well, we all know how that worked out, don’t we? Oh, and now Friedman, for his loyalty to the Obama Administration was rewarded with a job at the VA.

    And finally, I’m so happy that IAVA will be there. Maybe I can finally get some answers as to how they can live with themselves after telling veterans that one of the guys (McDermott) who stood on Saddam Hussein’s palace roof and declared that Hussein was more trustworthy than President Bush rated higher on their veterans scorecard than John McCain.

    Yeah, I’m a dick on the internet, but the whole (Milblog) world is about to find out how much of a dick I can be in person. You should go and bring a bucket of popcorn. And since I know that some of those guys monitor the blog, I guess I’m showing my hand, but they can sweat for a week or so, or they can pull out at the last minute (…that’s what she said). But I think they all owe veterans an answer as to why they perpetrated their malfeasance on the veteran community and what they plan to do in this election year to rectify it.

  • Ortego backpedals from slight to veterans

    Bulldog 22, 1/10 Cav. made a comment that he was on TV last night on the local news at KATC about the Ortego comment about “why would we want to attract veterans to Louisiana”. So I went looking for the interview.

    So, as always, Ortego says his comments were taken out of context. I don’t know how – he was fairly clear on how he felt that veterans were going to be a burden to the State because we’re all a bunch of nuts. His non-apology makes it sound like we’re all ignorant, too;

    “Honestly, the first thing I think is that I could’ve been a lot clearer,” he said. “My point was that we need to expand services for veterans, they’re serving our country, they come back and too often we cut the vital services that they need the most, that being health care.”

    No, sir, I think you were plenty clear, ya snot-nosed half wit. I moved the video below the jump because I couldn’t turn off the autoplayer;
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