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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • Peacetime vet beats herself up in the NYT

    It’s sad that a veteran who never saw war during her enlistment has to begin her piece in the New York Times by telling us that this isn’t a case of Stolen Valor, but that’s how Kristina Shevory begins her opinion piece, “Thoughts of a Peacetime Veteran“;

    Still, there’s a growing sense that I’m not a full veteran. I didn’t suffer hundreds of mortar attacks. I didn’t roll over an I.E.D. on patrol in a Humvee. I didn’t watch a buddy step on a land mine and turn into “pink mist.”

    Well, that’s just bullshit, dear. The VA says you’re a “full veteran” after 180 days of active duty service. We’ve been fortunate that there have been long periods of relative peace, but in the world since World War Two, the military’s most important function was to be ready, and if you stood in the breach, you’re a “full veteran”.

    What’s more important is what you did for other veterans or the currently serving members of the military after you finished your term. Kristina laments that she can’t join the VFW, but I’ll bet she qualifies for the American Legion. She didn’t have to watch a friend get blown up in a fine pink mist, but did she bother to help out a wounded soldier who returned from the battle?

    We share a common uniform and a common bond. No one understands duty and commitment better than a veteran, whether they were shot at or not. If you rolled out of bed at one in the morning to answer the call of an alert, no matter what your personal state of readiness, you understand – and you’re needed on the frontlines of warrior care.

    Rather than lament the fact that history didn’t provide you with the opportunity to render your last full measure of devotion in service to your country, step up and offer your devotion to your brothers and sisters who stepped up when you couldn’t.

  • Hey, dicksmith, what’s up with Harry Reid?

    Yesterday, we wrote about VetVoice and Votevets complaining that the new Republican Congress hasn’t been able to create favorable employment conditions for veterans. Right after I wrote that TSO found an instance that the new Congress had indeed passed a bill to improve the employability of veterans in the form of the “Veterans Opportunity To Work Act” almost a month ago;

    The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act Wednesday evening.

    The House legislation, passed by 400 lawmakers, wouldn’t actually create jobs. Rather, it would overhaul the military’s Transition Assistance Program, creating a job retraining program for older veterans who have been unemployed for 26 weeks or more.

    However, Harry Reid is holding up a vote in the Senate. Harry Reid, a draft dodger to whom VoteVets contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars because of his supposed support for veterans wants to attach a tax break for employers who hire veterans…a good idea, but since the House hasn’t voted on it yet, that move would delay activation of the other provisions of the bill.

    But my point is that if VoteVets is so concerned about Congressional inaction, why aren’t they trying to influence “their” candidate to pass the bill as it is and get immediate relief for veterans instead allowing Harry Reid to dick around with popular legislation that’s just sitting on his desk?

  • Veteran steals $186k from vets

    Average NCO sends us a link about a Vietnam veteran who was sentenced to prson for stealing over $186,000 as a leader in three Vetern Service Organizations.

    Sixty-three-year-old Ralph VanAlstyne was sentenced to two to six years in prison, plus restitution, for robbing his fellow veterans, but the veterans are not happy. Not enough jail time, they say, and they want their money back.

    The former commander of the Gloversville American Legion Post, where members believe that VanAlstyne should have gotten a lot more than two to six in state prison.

    I nominate him to head the well-established Order of the Blue Falcon. He could be the Commander Emeritus. The worst part is that the organizations will probably never have a penny of that money intended for veterans who don’t steal from their brothers returned.

  • McCain & Levin support higher costs for your free healthcare

    ROS sends a link from PNJ.com which reports that either way veterans voted in 2008, we were screwed. Apparently, the guy who lost the election, a veteran, I’ve heard, has sold veterans down the river like a real maverick.

    Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain, R-Ariz., its ranking Republican, endorse President Obama’s call to establish next year a $200 enrollment fee on TRICARE for Life, the prized supplement to Medicare for 2.1 million elderly military retirees, their spouses and survivors.

    Isn’t that great? When the Senate decides to be nopartisan, it’s to screw the shit out of veterans? But that’s not the extent of it;

    The first-ever TFL fee would climb to $295 in 2013 and, under the president’s plan, would be raised annually thereafter to keep pace with health care inflation.

    That’s not the end of it, either;

    Levin and McCain also back, with caveats, Obama’s other cost-saving initiative for TRICARE — charging sharply higher co-payments on drug prescriptions filled through the TRICARE network of retail pharmacies.

    So just remember that when our elected officials praise ou service on friday. they mean it so much that they don’t mind fucking the living shit out of us while they protect their own retirement packages, and those of their bloated staffs.

  • Bronze Star confusion

    AGeorgia town is embroiled in controversy over commemorative bricks in a local park according to the Dalton daily Citizen. Apparently, the xommittee charged with approving the inscriptions on the bricks are unmitigated morons because they can’t tell the difference between bronze servie stars and the Bronze Star Medal;

    “I warned them (the memorial park committee) about putting the Bronze Star on the application, because I knew it would cause confusion,” said [Bruce] Kendrick, an Army vet. “I made a presentation to the committee last year in November showing them the difference in the actual awards and what they were giving credit for in awards.”

    He said the response — that they would not change the inaccuracies — caused him to resign from the committee.

    So, everyone gets a Bronze Star Medal, huh? I guess that doesn’t affectine at all does it? Honest mistake, right? Wasn’t there a mayor near Chicago who got a pass for making the same mistake claiming four Bronze Star Medals when they were really just service stars? I think TSO wrote about that one.

    Why have a committee designed to ferret out errors if they’re not going to ferret out errors? I’d blame the families, too, but generally famles are just idiots who never paid attention to anything they were told and don’t know the difference between a handjob and a hand grenade.

  • IVAW at Occupy Wall Street

    To, sends us a link to a YouTube video about some IVAW members who can’t help but wear mixed parts of their uniforms to announce their support for the Occupy movement.

    Ya know, if I looked around the group that I’m with and see Bill Perry standing next to me, I’d start questioning my ideas. Bill Perry testified at Winter Soldier the First. He admitted to me that his testimony was “Bullshit”, using his word. More than one refugee fom IVAW has told me that Bill Perry screwed them out of their veterans benefits by not following up on their paperwork as their advocate. Yet, there he is in the video, marching alongside other veterans who don’t know his background.

    Some of you may have noticed that whenever I mention IVAW on this blog, some of their members usually swoop in and defend the organization…but that hasn’t happened in the last few weeks. My ninjas tell me that there is a split occuring in IVAW, like during the flag-burning a few years back. Some less-vocal members don’t think the IVAW should be wasting their time being mannequins for the smelly hippies.

    I have news for you (I know you’re reading), if you belomg to IVAW and someone wearing an IVAW T-shirt does dumbass bullshit – you support him. That’s the way it goes. Perceptions aren’t lways fair. Welcome to the real world.

  • Another Veteran injured in Oakland

    The Guardian reports that another veteran of both AFghanistan and Iraq, Kayvan Sabehg, was injured by police in Oakland the other night;

    “There was a group of police in front of me,” he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. “They told me to move, but I was like: ‘Move to where?’ There was nowhere to move.

    “Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying ‘Why are you doing this?’ when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me.”

    I did an interview the other night with a young lady from Columbia Journalsm Review. My interview probably on’t make her article because I refused to allow her to lead me into her talking points about unemployed veterans taking to the streets. I tried to get her to pay attention to the VVAW/VFP, IVAW connections, but she wasn’t really interested in that aspect. She wanted me to tell her how the government is mistreating veterans, but not in any way that really concerned me.

    WHen she tried to lead me into a discussion about the economic conditions vterans find themselves, I took her back to VFP and IVAW and their motivations for having martyrs to serve their hippie masters and remain relevent in the Occupy movement.

    As far as Kayvan Sabehg goes, I can’t find a connection between him and IVAW, however, Moilitary.com, which also says he was an Army Ranger, reports on quotes from VFP in their article, so there’s an appearance of some sort of association. If he isn’t a member of VFP, it only reinforces my contention that VFP is glomming on to every injured veteran so they can wave a bloody shirt at their prospective donors.

    Kayvan Sabehg is not unemployed, so that must dissappoint the reporter at the Columbis Journalism Review who I talked to the other day.

  • No Wine Left Behind

    Some film makers sent us a trailer about a groupof veterans who are taking on the wine industry. The film is entitled “No Wine Left Behind“. I’ll let them explain;

    We have just completed a short documentary about the experiences of Iraq War veterans and are enlisting the help of bloggers to get it out into the world!

    The film is called NO WINE LEFT BEHIND and is about an Iraq War hero leading a ragtag group of veterans as they try to conquer the wine industry. The film follows them as they build their new winery, which has become an informal place where returning veterans can find a job, camaraderie, and a sense of purpose.

    We think the film has an important message and others agree. The film has been endorsed by the Coalition for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans, Swords to Ploughshares, Farmer Veterans Coalition and more.

    “No Wine Left Behind is a film that can inspire other veterans to harness the power of peer support and motivate the public to do their part to support returning veterans.” – Amy Fairweather, Policy Director, STP