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

Category: Veterans Issues

  • VetVoice and the homeless vet issue

    Thank goodness that the Republicans took over the House last year or VetVoice’s dicksmith wouldn’t have anyone to blame for the report yesterday that number of homeless veterans are on the rise – well, actually the number has fallen by 55,000 recently, but the total number rose as the number of veterans increases since the beginning of the war.

    I did a search of their archives and the only things I could find in regards to the homeless before January when this Republican class moved into the House, was praise for the Democrats raising spending on homeless vets and a guest piece by John Edwards promising to house the homeless.

    Oh, there was piece listed written by Rick Duncan/Strandlof blaming “neocons” for the homeless vets, but of course, they removed all of his posts to disassociate themselves with him, but his posts still show up in the search function.

    So overall, more homeless are off the streets since 2009 by more than a third, but the remainder are somehow the fault of Republicans in the House, not the Democrat in the White House and the Democrats running the Senate. Or the House Democrats who ran that joint from 2006 until 2010.

    Oh, yeah, the number of homeless veterans is down from a peak of 400k to 131k in 2009 – was that the fault of Republicans, too? How about doing something instead of pointing fingers and ignoring statistics, there, dicksmith. You guys throw money at Harry Reid, a draft dodger by your own standards, why not throw it at homeless veterans instead.

    And I’d like to see their accounting methods for determining who is a homeless veteran and who is not. If we’re busting them left and right here at TAH, is the VA even asking them if they’re really veterans?

  • DAV’s virtual march on Washington

    In the Washington Post is an article about the veterans’ organization, the Disabled American Veterans, which plans a virtual march on Washington tomorrow, primarily from their Facebook presence.

    “What we’ve heard is that if the debt limit isn’t raised, the government may not have enough money to pay its obligations, including veterans benefits checks,” said Garry Augustine, the DAV’s national service director. “Whether it’s accurate or not we’re not sure, but it makes people nervous when they hear it.”

    “It is outrageous that disabled veterans have become political pawns in the fight over how to increase the government’s borrowing authority,” DAV National Commander Wallace E. Tyson said in a statement.

    I see that some of you are already registered there and although DAV seems more concerned with current payments and not so much with the long term effects of the budget fight, it’s probably a good idea to participate in it – just to let Congress know how many of us they’re pissing off.

  • The “Gang of Six” is coming for defense money – and retirees

    Yeah, that plan that the “Gang of Six” (or Seven) Senators who are proposing an alternate to the spending bill which passed the House yesterday are relying heavily on cuts to Defense and restructuring payments to military and Social Security retirees. in the National Journal is a report that Buck McKeon, Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee isn’t very happy with their proposals;

    Seizing on an analysis of the bipartisan Senate group’s plan released on Tuesday by the House Budget Committee, McKeon said the proposal would cut $886 billion in security spending over the next 10 years.

    A summary of the gang’s proposal circulated on Tuesday contained little detail on defense or other security cuts. But the gang has said its plan is consistent with suggestions made by the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, which recommended trimming security accounts by $886 billion over the next decade.

    Defense is easy to cut, it takes no real skill to cut the pay, benefits and war fighting material for a minority of Americans, as opposed to slashing eligibility for SSI or welfare…or slashing operations costs for Congress.

    And they’re coming for your retirement checks, both military and Social Security;

    In his memo, McKeon said the proposal would require changes to military retirement and other benefits – a difficult issue on Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers are reluctant to scale back compensation and benefits for current and retired service personnel.

    “It is our belief that this proposal raises serious implications for defense and would not allow us to perform our constitutional responsibility to provide for the safety and security of our country or keep faith with men and women in uniform,” McKeon wrote.

    And in the Marine Corps Times, they report that that the Cost-of-Living-Allowance (COLA) that you haven’t got the last two years, well, it’s been too much, so the Gang of Six (or Seven) wants to cut that, too;

    A bipartisan group of a half-dozen senators Tuesday presented a deficit-reduction proposal that would mean smaller annual cost-of-living adjustments for federal and military retirees.

    The so-called Gang of Six said the government should switch to the so-called chained Consumer Price Index to set all inflationary adjustments, including COLAs, for federal and military pensions and Social Security payments.

    I suppose it’s because we’ve always just sat back and taken it in the ass whenever they want to save money on the political cheap. It’s never cost them anything, so why not take a whack at the old fucks again – those of us who’ve already paid off our part of the contract.

  • Those nutty vets

    Olga sent us a link last week about James Hackemer, the legless iraq veteran who fell to his death from a roller coaster in my old stomping grounds at Darien Lake amusement park. I thought that it was a tragedy, but there wasn’t much I could say about it. Until today when our buddy David Bellavia linked a Democrat and Chronicle article on Facebook. the title of the article is “Roller coaster death shows risks of veterans’ thrill-seeking”;

    Combat veterans are known to come home from war hungry for adrenaline, taking up things like motorcycle racing or sky diving to satisfy their cravings. And some who come home without arms or legs are simply determined to do the things they did before war redefined normal.

    James Hackemer’s family insists the father of two who lost both his legs to a roadside bomb in Iraq was no thrill-seeker, but his fatal fall from a roller coaster highlights the challenge of balancing the desire for excitement and even normalcy with the reality of new disabilities.

    Yeah, it’s because of the Iraq War that he was on the rollercoaster. And why were the other people on that same ride? And why do hundreds of thousands of Americans ride roller coasters every year in this country despite the fact that most of them have never been to Iraq? Why couldn’t James Hackemer have been on that roller coaster because he wanted to be normal and spend time with his family? Why does it have to be because he needed an adrenaline rush to replace the one he had in combat? Why couldn’t he just want to be like everyone else in spite of his injuries?

    “Going on a high-speed roller coaster is not the same as getting shot at and the danger involved with it is next to nothing, but it’s just the intensity of the high speed, the curves and everything else that are just so exciting,” said Dr. James Tuorila, a psychologist who’s worked with veterans and their “adrenaline addiction.”

    Fuck you, ya ignorant asshole pseudo-intellectual fuckstick. Why can’t we take our kids on an amusement park ride without being accused of being nutty rush-junkies who can’t put the war behind us? I’ll bet James Tuorilais is one of those faggots who won’t ride a roller coaster because it’s too scary for his pussy ass.

    I used to deliver the Democrat and Chronicle during the days of the Vietnam War when it was good newspaper that reported the facts, but I wouldn’t line a bird cage with it now. If that’s the kind of tripe they print now, letting a bird or a dog shit on it would be redundant.

  • Some New Advice On How To Play The College Game

    Last year I made a post giving out some advice on how newly-discharged veterans should play the college game. A lot of our readers added their own advice and it turned out to be a pretty helpful post for some people.

    However, some things have changed over the last year that make some of the advice I doled out invalid. Accordingly, I thought it would be productive to create a new post that gives out new advice based on experiences I have had and of course changes to veterans benefits. As with the last post, if you have anything to add please do so.

    1. The GI Bill is undergoing some major changes in August and they probably won’t be good for many student veterans. Accordingly, make sure you know how the changes effect you.  Both Jonn and I have discussed the problems with the new-new GI Bill and hopefully those of you who are going to school now have at least heard about those changes. The biggest changes are for active duty veterans who go year-round. This group of veterans will no longer have break pay and along with other groups of veterans will face new compensation caps on tuition for private universities (both non-profit and for-profit).  They are complicated and I can’t comment on each individual veterans’ situation so the best thing to do is to talk to your university’s veterans services office to find out how your school and your degree plan is effected.

    2. Stay away from for-profit schools…for now. I am sure most everyone here has seen an veteran-oriented advertisement from a for-profit university like University of Phoenix or Kaplan attempting to lure you into applying to that school so that you can use your GI Bill benefits. Some of you have maybe even talked to a military recruiter from one of these universities. However, I highly recommend you stay away from these universities for the time being for the simple fact that at this time most employers don’t view degrees from these institutions as equal to ones from public universities. Additionally, some corporations won’t even consider you for a position if you have a degree from one of these institutions.  I am not going to get into whether or not this is right or wrong. I believe some employers have been influenced by propaganda from the public education propaganda complex. I also think public universities have many of the same problems as for-profit universities right now, its just a matter of severity. To me, hearing supporters of public universities criticizing for-profit universities is like hearing a car thief call a rapist a criminal.

    3. Don’t join a fraternity/sorority. I debated whether or not to put this one and I am sure there are people here that will be pissed off by my feelings here. The simple fact is that today fraternities aren’t anything like how they were portrayed in the movie Animal House or even the movie Old School. They are worse. First of all, they usually cost a lot of money to join, upwards of a couple of thousand dollars a year in many cases.  Some may have scholarships to join or maybe even waive the fee because your a veteran but that is not usually a case. On campus, fraternities usually have high incidences of drug use, alcohol abuse, and, most disturbingly, sexual assault (both male and female my friends). Accordingly, many colleges have been pushing back against the excesses of Greek life. For years, a fraternity used to be a good networking tool but with the recent public problems with Greek life in addition to the quality of people that Greek life attracts on many campuses these days it probably isn’t as great a tool as it was years ago. Additionally, I know many veterans want to eventually work for law enforcement, especially at the federal level. The backgrounds checks for those organizations are pretty intense so do you think its going to help or hurt your employment opportunities if you are identified as a member of an organization whose members have a history of drug abuse and sexual assault? If you want to be part of something, join a professional society, veterans club, political club, or hell even a recreational club.

    4. There will be people on campus who are terrified of you because you are veteran. Even if you were a food service specialist who spent your entire deployment in a DFAC on a big FOB and who never heard a shot fired in anger the minute certain people hear you went to Iraq or Afghanistan they will assume you killed more men than cancer. Its stupid, silly, and stereotypical (hey alliteration) but it is a reality. This will change the dynamic in regards to how you interact with your professors and certain students. There isn’t much you can do about it but you still need to be aware and conscious of it.

    5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are resources available for veterans who might be behind in math or writing skills. Don’t be too prideful to use them. I almost made that mistake myself.

    6. Internships. Do them. It doesn’t matter if you are a political science or an organic chemistry major, internships give you professional experience and in some cases job opportunities when you graduate. Additionally, you can usually get credit for doing internships which means you can still get your BAH through the GI Bill.

    7. Go to job fairs and don’t look like a bum. I went to a job fair this last semester and I was worried about the fact that I wasn’t wearing a full suit and only a shirt and tie. However, I wasn’t too concerned after I saw many people in pajamas or gym clothes….after they had gone to the gym and smelled like shit.

    8. For the sake of all the other veterans on campus, don’t act like an ass and give one hundred percent to your education. The more veterans succeed in college the more respect we will earn on campus and in society. We already kick ass in terms of GPAs and graduation rates but we can also do better.

  • White House sends condolence letters to suicide NOK

    Tman sends us a link to a Stars & Stripes article which announces that the White House has begun sending condolence letters to military suicide next-of-kin after being prodded by Senators Boxer and Burr, the chairs of the Senate Military Family Caucus.

    Previously, the White House would send presidential condolences to the families of those who died either in combat or as a result of noncombat incidents in a war zone. Condolence letters were not sent to the families of those who commit suicide, either at home or at war. A White House official said Tuesday the new policy was adopted this week.

    Yeah, OK, good, but this is a bandaid to make voters feel better about voting for the President. If they really wanted to do something about it, the White House would do something about preventing suicides in the first place.

    Parachute Cutie/Tankerbabe credits me with saving a young soldier from committing suicide. I don’t know if that’s true or not because all I did was talk to him comparing our experiences and saying the same things to him that COB6 told me after our war. Do I think the White House should pay me for that? No, but they need to provide more veterans the opportunity to talk to soldiers who are at risk.

    I think this is the idea behind this video that Medal of Honor awardees made last year;

    But, I think there needs to be a direct channel from veterans to at-risk soldiers and only the White House and the DVA can provide that channel. I’m sure there are thousands of us who would volunteer our time and experience if it meant saving a few lives, but the resources spent on letters to grieving families could be spent on bringing the real experience to bear on the problem.

  • Lazy Day Roundup

    Because of the July 4 weekend, the mainstream media and the interwebs seem a little more interested in the military and America than they normal are.    Here’s a compilation of some interesting things going on out there.

    The last draftee retired from the Army after 39 years of honorable service.

    Who doesn’t know someone who married for the benefits, or just to get out of the barracks, and maybe even got caught?   The news finds this newsworthy because they’re lesbians.

    And an Ohio Vietnam vet got the OK from his HOA to fly his flag from a 15 foot pole.

    I borrowed this link,  written by the father of a soldier from Kanani Fong, of  Kitchen Dispatch.

    And if you haven’t, yet, catch up on the twenty-something posts Jonn made before he left!

  • Congress to overhaul Federal retirement pay

    Don’t be ridiculous – they’re not overhauling ALL Federal retirement, just military retirement pay. You didn’t expect them to cut the retirement of those fat Federal bureaucrats, did you? Stars & Stripes writes;

    One cut would annually lower the calculated cost-of-living adjustment by an average of one-quarter of a percentage point, which could apply to military and federal civilian retirees, disabled veterans and survivors.

    OK, maybe a little bit it applies to federal employees, but you can bet that Congress’ retirement won’t be affected. If they REALLY want to save money, and since they can make any changes to retirement that they want to change, they should do away with retirement for members of Congress.

    I’m sure the founding fathers would be majorly upset that there’s a retirement plan for Congress since they never intended for public elected service to be a career.

    Do away with Congress’ retirement and we wouldn’t have to institute term limits – they’d limit their terms themselves.

    The second option involves replacing the current system in which a servicemember is eligible for benefits after 20 years of service with a new plan that could provide some retirement benefits for as few as five years of service — with payments not starting until at least age 60 for any servicemembers who do not retire on a full military disability, the article said.

    So you’d have to wait until you’re 60 to get your retirement benefit – and by that time, your purchasing power would be eaten away by about 20 years of inflation.