Veteran’s Day Thoughts
1. Stop comparing the sacrifices of our men and women in the military or what the citizens of New York went through to New Orleans and Katrina.
– I was in Iraq when Katrina hit, I watched in horror as my fellow Americans were failed by a government that THEY had put their faith and trust in. The local and state governements failed them miserably. But the tragedy was a misplaced faith and trust in some entity providing everything. Hurricanes are tragic, as are tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. But they do not compare to being attacked by an enemy or facing death in a country far from home for 300 million strangers just because that is what you do. You want to create a Katrina victims memorial day? Go ahead. I would love the extra day off of work, as I am sure the post office and banks would. But, don’t water down the sacrifice of veterans. It is bad enough that the media wants to keep talking about all of our “mental health” as if every Veteran is one step short of an asylum. Which leads me to…
2. Veteran’s Day is NOT the time to talk about Mental Health
I am tired of people talking about the mental health of veterans and how we have been failed. Maybe we have, but the media is too intent on making out every veteran to part loon because they served in a combat zone. Or, are about to be deployed to a combat zone. Have we really got that soft as a society? Or is PTSD just a way to marginalize our veterans. I think it is becoming a margnialization. Pretty soon, we will say that someone is unfit to serve in office because they are a veteran and we al know what that means…cuckoo. Even IF PTSD is a huge issue, the media treats it as a gleeful way to market against the armed forces. “Support our Veterans” lets build more asylums. You want to support our veterans…
3. Supporting the Current VA Health System IS NOT Supporting Our Veterans
You want to pass national healthcare…we already have it. It is the VA healthcare system, where Doctors are underpaid and do it as a “service to their country,” where 90 year old Veterans have to ride a bus that a volunteer is driving to get to the local VA hospital to get surgery when they live two blocks from a hospital that pound for pound provides better care, where bureacracy lives and some guy in a cubicle decides whether you even get access or not.
Solution, give these veterans access to Tricare for Life, an insurance option that would allow them to go where ever they want or need to go. I don’t believe one DANGED Dem who says we can choose our own doctors under their plan. Why? If you won’t give a MOH winner the ability to choose HIS own Dr., you expect me to believe that you will let me or my neighbor choose? And if you will…doesn’t that speak to your priorities…
Thank a veteran, besides me, I did what alot of better people did. Answer a call. Now, I am fighting that we don’t hang up on those others who did.
The Return of Cincinnatus 
Thank you for your service, and all the best to you.
And, if you don’t mind one additional comment: in many ways we HAVE gotten that soft as a society.