I Hate Veterans Day

Over the last few days I have been riding the proverbial emotional roller coaster as I have attended one Veterans event after another. Everything from pride to gratitude to complete sadness has gripped me as I spoke to fellow vets and listened in on many conversations between my brothers and sisters, as we took annual advantage to drag out the old stories of past battles won and innocence lost.
Once again this year as I move from event to event, I carry with me the fact that, as usual, I have a son in harm’s way. Carl (our middle boy) is in Iraq for the third time and while things are currently, thankfully quiet, you never know what tomorrow will bring.
So, Happy Veterans Day to all and a special Happy 235th Birthday to my fellow Marines, Semper Fi.

I hate Veterans Day a little more every year.
Now it’s not that I have anything against veterans, I am one. Not only that, but I’m the son of one and the father of three. My family is one of those families that stock the military ranks, we always have been; uncles, cousins, fathers and sons and in-laws across almost every war America has fought. So Veterans Day has long been significant to us.
I remember the parades of my childhood with the old men in old uniforms marching down Main Street with the sounds of Souza following them courtesy of the high school band, speeches, music, picnic suppers and the stories told by the old warriors, and us wide-eyed kids who wanted to grow up and be just like them.
It was one of the best days of the year when I was a kid. I didn’t notice then the underlying sadness in the eyes of those old men who told their tales. I didn’t understand them until many years later.
Now I’m one of the old men, and as the years have passed I have seen Veterans Day diminish as a holiday. Many businesses and schools don’t recognize the day and it slowly started losing its importance as a social gathering, not everywhere but in most places, until we went to war again and it once more began to be important.
What a quandary the day is for some of us. We feel pride that our service is remembered, but we are also sad that the numbers of our ranks are once again growing as our children and grandchildren return from the horrors of this latest war. And another generation begins to pray that they are the last one to know what the term “veteran” really means.
I hate Veterans Day because I hate the fact that the need still remains in the world to have to make new veterans. I hate Veterans Day because we still have not found a way to live together. I hate Veterans Day because my generation didn’t find a way to end war. I hate Veterans Day because my sons are fighting and being changed forever. I hate Veterans Day, mostly, because I don’t think the world’s desire to fight wars will ever change.
My sons will be those old men one day, and barring a miracle that I no longer believe in, their sons will as well, and on and on and on.
I do not mean to sound ungrateful for being remembered and I know that those who remember us do so with warm and true hearts, but wouldn’t it be fine if there were no more veterans because there is no more war? Yea, it’s a crazy idea, but wouldn’t peace just be nice for a change? Maybe someday. I guess that’s really my point.
Below is a poem my son Carl sent me. He wrote it during his second tour of duty in Iraq.

BROTHERHOOD

Sitting in a truck that stops bullets and rockets I am glad to do patrols, I am a grunt 
One of the proud amongst few
We walk the streets and drive the roads
To one another is where our loyalty goes

You might miss the man beside you when you get back to the states

You might stand at his funeral, and then cry at his grave

Maybe it’s your life he saved
This is the test of a man’s courage

To fight until the horrid end

To stand up to the enemy and never back down

Knowing your life rests in his hands and his in yours

A brotherhood that few have 
A bond that cannot be broken or severed

We were friends who became family, doing anything for one another

We all miss the brother we lost

We cherish the ones we still have

SSgt. Carl R. Fitzwater B-Co. 1/504 P.I.R.
82ND ABN DIV, Iraq

A Winning Plan

I was listening to the news on the radio the other day and I heard that people are all mad about the enemies of our country and way of life currently being housed with our tax dollars at tropical Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be getting the H1N1 virus vaccinations even before many citizens of the U.S. get theirs.
Across the country, health care providers are dealing with an unacceptable shortage of vaccine to combat the new pandemic causing virus reported to be as much as 75 percent below expected available doses. Not even the demographics that are most at risk—young children, pregnant women—can get the shot in most places, but the terrorists at Gitmo are going to get theirs.
The funny thing is that a good many people who are up in arms over our enemies getting the shots before many American citizens are the same ones who have been raising hell about the poor terrorists not being treated well and how we should bring them to the continental United States, give them all the rights citizens have and so on.
Well here’s your chance to put your tree-hugging, peace-loving principals to work for real and support shots for Gitmo detainees.
It isn’t like they aren’t getting top-notch service now. I mean, they are in better shape than the 20 percent of Americans (around 47 million people) who are without healthcare, and don’t even get me started on dental care. But with over 143 million Americans having no dental coverage (2.8 times the number medically uninsured), I’m starting to think that it is more beneficial to be the enemy of this country than to be a citizen.
Hey look, I’m on the side of the folks who don’t think we should needlessly torture (yes, I call it what it is) these twerps no matter how much better it makes us feel, after we have rung out all useful information that is. I’m even all right with not keeping them at Gitmo, except for the really bad ones.
Hey they were dumb enough to get caught, I say send them on back to the caves so that they can miss the infidel’s prison camp with the clean water, toilet paper and freshly prepared food where they are living better than the 12.5 percent of Americans (37.3 million people) who live in abject poverty in this country everyday.
But it’s the shots that are making people mad. Prison populations and kindergartens are breeding grounds for diseases, and if the plan really is going to be to bring these scumbags here to put them on trial, probably with capital punishment off the table, then we need to be sure they aren’t carrying any nasty little bugs that could really cause an outbreak.
You know, there might be one other option. Just follow me here. We always hear how good the health care system is in Cuba. They have been keeping Brother Fidel going like a Walt Disney animatronic president much longer than should be natural, so they must know something useful. Okay here goes, Cuba hates us, at least their government does, and they have this reportedly great healthcare; the terrorists hate us and by all indications need great healthcare, that they have gotten up ‘till now from us. Why not put the two together? Just open the North gate and push them on through. The Castro boys will get new America hating allies, the America hating allies get that great Cuban healthcare and semi-freedom. We get to close Gitmo and stop the drain on the national treasury, thereby freeing up money to finance a national healthcare program. Everybody wins!

Quit Foxing Around Mr. President

Far be it from me to tell the President what he should do, or who he should talk to but, frankly, if somebody doesn’t point a few things out to the man, he is just not going to make many new friends.

You see once again, just as I have said he would continue to do, Mr. Obama has shown his lack of good judgment in going into an all out war with Fox News.

Now I am not here to defend Fox. I agree that as a whole the network is extremely right wing. Their programming is right wing; their talking heads are right wing and the only thing fair and balanced about them is that they equally present both right wing and extreme right-wing positions while offering up a token Liberal for public debasing. But that is what their audience wants.

And they have the audience; for there to be so many people not in tune with conservative and GOP policy that the Democrats won such a resounding victory in 2008, the lion’s share of cable news viewing goes to the Righties. Is this a sort of silent majority coming on again, or something entirely different?

Those that watch the other networks do so because, just as with Fox viewers, people want to hear news that leans the way they see the world. While that isn’t news reporting, it is what people watching the cable networks think news is. The audiences who watch MSNBC and CNN are watching to see and hear the same shtick Fox plays, just from their side, complete with token conservatives for sacrificing.

Give me one example, [other than a week or so of reports surrounding 9-11] from the 2000 election forward, of a time when President Bush wasn’t ripped to pieces daily on the Liberal news channels for being an illegitimate president or accused of being incompetent. Sound familiar? Now be honest, did you ever hear that the Bush administration was cutting off the access or cooperation with them? No, you didn’t.

But just as we learned long ago, when he was picked on about the size of his ears, our President can’t take any heat from the other side about anything without getting all pouty.

We have seen this before you know? That’s right, another Nixon analogy* has come up. Nixon was a media paranoid who knew, for the most part, how to manipulate the media. The ones he couldn’t he put on an enemies list. Which is more or less what Rahm Emanuel and Robert Gibbs are doing with Fox News. They just don’t call it that, it’s not politic you know. And we all can agree that in Obamalot, they control the media. Except for Fox that is.

What Mr. Obama seems to not get is that it didn’t work for Dick and it won’t work for him. I mean, if there was any place he should be saturating exposure of himself and his team and thir policies and plans, it is on Fox.

Unless you don’t care about changing the opposition’s minds and only are happy preaching to the choir, you sort of have to go out into the wilderness to preach the word. But alas, that doesn’t seem to appeal to the President, it seems that he is telling Fox “you’re with us or against us.” Hey wait a minute, where did we hear that before? Didn’t Keith Olbermann say you couldn’t give those sorts of ultimatums? Oh yeah, that’s right, it was Bush, it was only wrong then. Now I remember.

So come on Mr. President, toughen up and hit the Fox airwaves. I know you would be welcomed with open arms. Unless, of course, Glen Beck is in studio. If he is, just stay away until they get him medicated.

*Previous Nixon / Obama analogies include Vietnam /Afghanistan and Cambodia / Pakistan.

. . . and the Winner is. . .

As I drove over to Johnson City last Friday morning to visit my Veteran’s Administration doctors, I found myself having to pull off the highway because I couldn't breathe. What brought on this near-stroke was the news that President Obama had been given the Nobel Peace Prize. While this is no longer breaking news, I couldn't let this one pass.
Now I'm not saying that someday Mr. Obama wouldn't have earned one on his own, but something is amiss here.
First of all, in order for. . .
. . . Wait, this just in from Cooperstown New York; In recognition for his stellar pitching exhibition with the Washington Nationals opening day, President Barack Obama will be presented the Cy Young Award for both American and National leagues.

Anyway, as I was saying, in order for him to have won, he would have to have been nominated in February. Feb. 2, to be exact. That means he had been in office for less than two weeks. Now the Nobel folks tried to cover that, but failed. First they said that the committee was impressed by his speech to the Muslim world, but that happened on June 21st. That’s three months and 19 days after his nomination would have been made. So then they turned to his vision and . . .
. . . Breaking news from Hollywood California; Given the popularity of President Barack Obama’s prime-time news addresses, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, has awarded him the Prime-time Emmy for best male reality star.

As I was saying, the Nobel Committee turned to his vision to make their decision to give him the award. Apparently, they felt that his plans and thoughts about a more peaceful existence in the world for everyone outweighed work done by others such as Dr. Denis Mukwege, a doctor dedicated to helping rape victims in the Congo. Today, in this tortured piece of the planet, assaults have reached heights of 27,000 rapes reported in a single year in a single province.
There is also Wei Jingsheng: The father of Chinese democracy. For Wei Jingsheng, this year’s nomination is the seventh he has received for his work fighting for democratic rights in China. Now 59, Wei was once a convinced ideologue, who served as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. That view changed as he saw the reality of Chairman Mao Zedong's China, and he became a committed democratic activist who was jailed for 18 years until international pressure forced his release in 1997. Just to name a couple.
You know, if just planning to do great things now brings high honor. . .
. . .News Flash from Award Headquarters in Santa Monica, Calf.; In recognition of his contributions to American music by hosting Jazz, Country and Latin music celebrations in the nation’s capital, President Barack Obama has been awarded the Grammy for lifetime achievement in music.

Anyhow, if just planning and wishing for things now brings recognition, then I would like to take this moment to thank everyone who makes my first Pulitzer Prize possible. I expect to be receiving word of my win any day now.

You know, this whole deal is just another eerie coincidence between the Carter and Obama administrations. Granted that Carter had to wait 20 years for his Nobel, but he got one and, just like Carter, Obama rode into the White House because America wanted anything not Republican.
Some people have been saying that President Obama received this award because he wasn’t George W. Bush, and that simply supports my belief.
Unfortunately, I think it is just a bandwagon effect. The hype over all the great things that this President was supposed to do is still resonating around the world, while here at home we know that. . .
. . . Just in from National Basketball Association Headquarters in New York City; In recognition of his stellar performances (especially on defense) during his all-male pick-up games NBA Commissioner David Stern today announced that President Barrack Obama has been named both League MVP and Rookie of the Year.

Anyway, here at home we know that he hasn’t done anything yet except continue the Bush plans of bailing out corporations, violating our First and Fourth Amendment rights by not getting rid of the PATRIOT Act and not only planning on extending our time in Afghanistan, but now considering opening up another front in Pakistan. All the while unemployment keeps rising, along with the prices of everything.
I know, before you start to whine at me, that he doesn’t win everything. I mean, was the Olympic deal really a surprise to any of you? Given the choice of Chicago, which is not the garden spot some like to make it out to be, and Rio de Janeiro, where one of the Seven New Wonders of the World, the "Christ the Redeemer" statue is located and a country which has arguably done more things to promote the bikini industry than any other country in the . . .
. . .Las Vegas, Nevada; In a stunning surprise decision the judges of the 2009 Legends XI World Bartending Championship have named President Barack Obama the 2009 Worlds Best Bartender in recognition of his efforts to use alcohol as a tool for peace and racial understanding. The President, as you may remember, played host to the first White House Beer Summit between scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Cambrige Mass. Police Officer Sgt. Joseph Crowley. Future summits may include a ‘Middle East Mimosa Meeting’ and ‘Gimlets for Gay marriage.’

I suppose that if this pace keeps up our President will need to convert the Lincoln bedroom into a trophy room so that he can enjoy all the awards that he is scheduled to receive over the next few years. . .
. . . This just in. . .

I give up.

John Wayne-abies Really Piss Me Off

Of all the character traits that people tend to exhibit, I think the posers urk me more than any other.
Admittedly, just like most folks, I am guilty of embellishing some of my life’s exploits from time to time, depending on how many adult beverages I have consumed and what crowd I’m in.
There’s a saying among old Marines and that goes “the older we get, the better we were,” but even good-natured exaggeration has its limits when someone benefits at the expense of others.
I am speaking, of course, of soon-to-be dishonorably discharged Marine and extreme dirt-bag David Budwah of Sabillasville, Md.
In case you don’t know about Budwah, he has been going around wearing medals he didn’t earn and telling tales of battlefield heroism, although he has yet to serve a day in combat. Once he was discovered, he was taken down and will soon be headed to a military penal facility for what will hopefully be a very unpleasant stay before he goes home in disgrace.
Now I have known a few guys like him, who have been hurt in non-combat related accidents or who stayed in the rear of the theater and who have come home and acted like they took Fallujah single-handedly.
These wastes of life get all these trips to theme parks and sporting events where they are treated like royalty. All the while, the real heroes are sweating and gutting through the pain of physical therapy so that they can charge back into battle with their new prosthetic leg supporting them or lying in the ground in a dozen or more hometown cemeteries.
Now I also know a couple of true heroes: I know a guy who was buried in the rubble of a Beruit Lebanon barracks, who woke up and had to pull his leg off of the re-bar he was impaled on before he went about denying medical attention so that he could look for his men, until he was too weak from blood loss to keep going – I was honored to serve with this man afterward. I know a man who won the Bronze Star for Bravery under fire for exposing himself to enemy fire in order to save fellow Marines in Vietnam – I am honored to be his son.
I also know three young men very well who serve now and who ask for nothing in return but their pay and some leave time once in a while. One of them has been hit by debris and even had his vehicle flipped over from enemy IEDs, but his injuries, according to the Army, were not serious enough to warrant a Purple Heart.
I think about my friends, my Dad and my Sons, and I get so angry at the posers for the way they cheapen the actions of true heroes, all because they think it makes them more important and give their mediocre existences some sort of meaning.
Hey, I had my time in harm’s way, I didn’t leave as a hero, and I didn’t want to. To come home and bring my men home with me, and none of us be dead, was enough reward for me.
Bush, and now Obama, complain that they haven’t been able to present Medals of Honor to any living recipients from this conflict. Well, maybe that is because they aren’t looking hard enough. Because if there is one thing America isn’t short of, it’s heroes.
We also seem to have no shortage of scumbags like Budwah. With a little luck, he’ll serve his brig time with some guys who have a little real combat time. I’m sure they will have lots of fun exchanging war stories in the exercise yard.

I'm Just So Very Tired

You know sometimes I get really tired of politicians and ring knockers* talking about the people in our military like they are pieces on a Risk board.
As you all know, I’m the Dad of three active duty soldiers who all have multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. As such, I have done all I could to keep most of my opinions about the different fronts in the war between friends, but now the people who are supposed to be smart about what needs to be done are just being stupid.
I have one boy in Iraq now and another who just learned that he has to get set for Afghanistan much sooner than the rotation schedule calls for, so I am tired of watching the leadership continue to drop the ball on this.
It is bad enough that with our military actively engaged in combat operations, the only thing that seems important is health care debates. Nothing else matters; it is healthcare and only healthcare we must have healthcare! All the while, we have General McChrystal doing his best Westmorland impression saying, “I need more troops in Afghanistan or we are going to lose.”
Well to hell with it already. Man I am tired of seeing our military (and yes, selfishly) my kids being in the middle of this. Exactly how much longer are we going to screw around with this before we can call it good.
Can anybody give me one good reason to still be engaged over there? Just one? Hussein is dead now and we blew it on bin Laden, they have Democratic governments (sort of) installed, regular elections and a uniformed military for self-defense. After all, their defense is their responsibility. We’re good! It’s their turn to run it.
If there were one more achievable objective to meet, I would not be complaining butI have kept my opinions tucked away for almost seven years now and I’m done.
All we are doing is staying engaged for the sake of being engaged. If you think that is a good idea, just ask the veterans of the Soviet Union about their little Afghanistan occupation and how things improve over time. You know, we used to call Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan the Soviet’s Vietnam. Does that make it Vietnam II for us?
It is time to put an end to the operations. All that can be accomplished has been accomplished. Our military has performed exceptionally, they have endured more than should have been asked and they continue to do so. Also, there is no shortage of young people who are trying to get into the military. There are actually waiting lists to leave for boot camp.
We have had over half the decade to take charge of Afghanistan and we have not done it. The time for games of political chess with live game pieces needs to end. If the President wants a legacy let it be ending our missions and returning the kids home. If they need to kill more Al Qaeda leadership, use the remote planes with tactical nukes attached to them-it makes a lovely sound and then we can all go home.
*A ring knocker is a military officer who is also a graduate of one of the country’s service academies, such as Annapolis.

That’s Some Bull

You know an awful lot of energy and time has been put into vilifying S.C. Representative Joe Wilson for his “You lie!” outburst during the president’s most recent prime-time camera grab. Let me make clear right off that I know Wilson was mostly wrong about that particular issue because the healthcare/health insurance reform bill does touch on the requirement for participants to be legal or documented, but it is vague in it’s guidelines. As is many parts of this issue that has gotten twisted and confused and seems to have lost the spirit of the idea, which was, in case you forgot, to make available to everyone basic health care..
Now many people think Wilson was wrong for his outburst, but I don’t. Even though he was wrong on topic, I loved the passion. Besides, there are many more reasons to hate Joe Wilson. Look up his stance on the Confederate flag debate in his state
That is something we have been missing for a very long time in our politics.
Think back over our history and ask yourself this question; wouldn’t it have been helpful if every now and then somebody stood up and cried Bull at a president or two? Think of decisions made throughout our brief history like going to war on the Asian Continent, South East and South West, and admitting Texas into the Union. If somebody had made a fuss, maybe just maybe things around here would be a bit different and lots of folks would still be alive.
George Washington, our first president, made a point of the fact that the office wasn’t a monarch or above anyone else and should be questioned about his decisions. Yet somehow, we have developed some type of collective reverence for the job that belies the fact that the office is a job someone is hired to do.
Our middle management folks in the house and senate need to call Bull when it’s obvious.
Have you ever watched any political coverage from Europe? Many folks in our government like to say how much more enlightened they are, well sometimes it gets so rowdy and loud in the British Parliament that the Prime Minister can’t even be heard. Somebody crying Bull would be tame for them.
We like to think ourselves refined and dignified in the fact that our politicians only criticize the president to inquisitive reporters, but we would be better served by our elected officials if they started to question the president’s (that’s any president) choices to his or her face. Let’s hold them accountable more often than every four years and start holding them accountable every single day. Who knows if they actually have to justify their decisions, maybe they will take the time to form them better instead of shooting from the hip on the campaign trail and then not being able to deliver on a deadline.
FYI just for fun, a poll conducted by Rasmussen, Monday, Sept. 14 shows that 34 percent of the nation's voters strongly approve of the way that Mr. Obama is performing his role as president. 37 percent strongly disapprove. What worries me is why the remaining 29 percent don’t care. That’s Bull.

Eight is Enough Already

The death last week of Teddy Kennedy got me to thinking about one of my favorite soapbox issues: term limits.
Now aside from the fact that his father was the reason the fourth place finisher in the family’s political empire lottery got a seat in the house, and forgetting for a moment that the family name and the collective sympathy it generates in Massachusetts, is the reason Teddy maintained a seat at the big kid’s table for far too long. Unfortunately for him, Lady Destiny’s wheel spins for everyone and Karma finally caught up with him. You’re welcome Mary Jo.
Now the scramble is on to replace him and the Democrats are regretting their haste in changing the law on how Senators are replaced in mid-term; guess they thought old Teddy would live forever.
Same thing in West Virginia right now with Grand Wizard, the Reverend Robert C. Byrd and Jay “The Carpetbagger” Rockefeller, who look to be settled in until judgment day. And don’t start with me about the issue. I grew up in West Virginia after my Dad left the Marine Corps and I have never known another Senator other than Byrd. I also remember when Old Jay came down from New York to save the hillbillies. Unfortunately, they bought into it and he became governor before going to the Senate. That’s part of the reason I decided not to go back.
Think of the ones that you know about, along with Kennedy and Byrd: there have been ones like Strom Thurmond and Jessie Helms, both who I thought would never go away.
Currently, we have Byrd who has been there since 1959, Daniel Inouye of Hawaii since 1963 and Patrick Leahy since 1975. That is stopping just three spots down the list. There are many that have been there from 1977 through 1989. I didn’t count ones there less than 21 years when there are 85 members with 36 plus years in office.
What I want to know is how in the world could these people have any clue as to what is going on in the parts of the country they claim to represent; when they haven’t been there in almost two generations?
It would be like me going back to Charleston, W.Va., to run for the Senate. I don’t have a clue what the needs are in my birth state because I haven’t lived there in 25 years. I would be only a little better than a carpetbagger myself. And many of the members, such as Rockefeller/Hillary, are textbook carpetbaggers.
I heard a great argument for term limits on NPR the other night when a guy, whose name I missed, said that the reason incoming administrations have such a hard time (he was referencing President Obama and his slowly dying healthcare legislation) is because that they come in and have to fight these old entrenched politicians who only care about keeping their seats.
We, as a people, think it is wise that Presidents only get eight years. Admittedly, we like the idea more when the person in the office is one we don’t like, but it is a good thing because we don’t do monarchies here, so I ask, why not the same for House and Senate members?
What would be so hard about making eight years the maximum for all of them? If they can’t get done what they want in eight years then what makes us think they can get it done in 16 or 30 or 56?
House elections and Senate elections need to mirror presidential elections and everybody get a four-year term. It would end the pain-in-the-butt mid-term elections and maybe save a little money. Then cap them off at eight years, and maybe, just maybe, we could get back to a real representative government. Otherwise we are going to have to wait for them to die off, and this country just doesn’t have that kind of time.
One more thing, just so folks don’t misunderstand, I also believe that term limits should be placed on every office above class president. Local politicians across the country also outlive their usefulness.
After all, as Mr. Twain said, “Politicians and diapers should be changed often, and for the same reason.”

We All Could Learn Something from Balboa the Squirrel

As I lazed the days away in my hammock during my vacation last week, I found that I got the most entertainment out of watching a little Douglas Squirrel go about his daily work of preparing for winter. As cold as it was at night at 10,000 feet in the Rockies, winter seemed to be just about there and this little guy was hard at it.
I didn’t really pay much attention to him the first day until he (or she, I don’t know, I didn’t look that close) jumped up on to our picnic table with something large in its mouth. I later was to learn that the little critter was gathering mushrooms, of all things.
From then on, he had my attention and that of my darling wife (who remains unidentified for her reputation’s protection). From well before I rolled out of our tent, until the last rays of sun dropped behind the ridgeline, Balboa was a blur of activity.
I decided to call him Balboa because Rocky was too cliché, and all I could hear in my head as he ran full-tilt from the mushroom patch that seemed to constantly have a new cap bursting through the pine straw to one of the nearby trees was the Rocky theme, so I called him Balboa. He didn’t seem to mind.
The more we watched, the more we learned about the critter and the more I thought how things might be better all around if people were more like Balboa the Squirrel. Here was a little rodent, and he was rather small, that had figured out how to make the most of the available food source. While I’m sure he was harvesting pinecone seeds and berries too, he was actually processing the mushrooms. He would cut it down, carry it onto a high branch and tuck it away to dry in the sun before taking it to his food cache. Or at least that’s how it looked.
All day long, back and forth, with only one thing on his mind: survival. That, after all, is his job; stay alive and reproduce. Balboa was a tireless laborer.
As I said, I thought about how I wish that people were more like Balboa the Squirrel and not because I want them to eat a lot of mushrooms. I wish they had his drive, his perseverance and his vision.
He knows what is coming even though he has no weatherman and he understands that if he wants to live, he has to build up his supplies. He has to invest the time to survive.
Too many people today, from politicians to day laborers, don’t want to invest the time to survive. They want everything handed to them. They want a job, but not one that involves too much work. They want the government to come and save them from their own mistakes, to provide them with free healthcare and guarantee their cars will be sold. They want people who disagree with them to just go away and they want it all, now and for free.
Balboa knows that nothing is free, he knows that every minute that passes by is a minute he must take to get one more piece of food stored away for those long, cold winter days that are coming. He doesn’t realize that he could be working for naught and that his life could end in a flash of eagle’s talons or the blast of a hunter’s shotgun. He just knows that survival depends on getting the job done so he does it, day-in and day-out.
Things come too easy to most of us, even those of us who struggle from payday to payday. Even if you don’t have a job, chances are you aren’t as poor as the poor in other countries and you can get some aide from the government through one program or another. That’s good for those who really need it, but it’s only a temporary fix, and some use it as a crutch and just get dependent on it.
So maybe we should all make an effort to try to learn a little something from Balboa the Squirrel. We, as citizens and neighbors, could learn to be more industrious in our labors. (Like me with my much neglected garden) and our government could learn to be a bit more industrious in how they run things and stop giving away the store. There is, after all, always a winter coming sooner or later and we have to have something left to eat.
Maybe we should all be working to survive the long cold winter of our worsening economy and employment numbers, so that when spring comes we will emerge strong and full of mushrooms. So to speak.

Bigfoot Told Me the Aliens Have Proof

I am vacationing this week, so this is coming to you from Fort Carson in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, right next to North American Aerospace Defense Command [NORAD] and Cheyenne Mountain. So conspiracy theories are on my mind.

First off, let me just say that I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy. Indeed, I love a story filled with intrigue and espionage with good guys and bad guys and every cliché spy gag that can be found. But I confine those enjoyments to my leisure time, and then I let Ian Fleming take me on a trip through the dark world of conspiracy. Sometimes I like my conspiracy fix through movies and I pop in No Way Out or Fahrenheit 9/11, but I always keep in mind that it is make-believe. Entertainment for those mindless times. If I want my brain stimulated, I turn to one of the many educational channels on cable. They regularly have conspiracy theory shows on. But again, I know it is for entertainment.

Now there is a certain segment of our civilization who will believe most anything and the tales of conspiracy flow through American culture like water. Everything from the grassy knoll in Dallas to our government being responsible for the attacks of 9/11 to the now infamous Dan Rather-Bush Document fiasco, have been latched on to by folks with way too much time on their hands.

In keeping with that tradition we now have the Birthers, led by Lou Dobbs of CNN, who obviously learned nothing from Rather's downfall.

Hey, I am sorry that many of the folks on the right side of politics are so unhappy that Obama won. Look, you should have ran somebody with a snowball's chance to beat the guy. I didn't want him to be president and I still believe in my heart that he does not possess the good judgment to do the job. Just look at his latest snafu in involving himself with the Gates arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

He is screwing up with his Afghanistan policy and is about to repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union. I hate his foreign policy, I hate his domestic policy and I would not vote for his reelection if they ran Bozo the Clown against him (which given the Republicans' most recent candidate selections is a possibility).

But the truth is, he is an American, born in Hawaii. Yes his father was a legal alien from Kenya but his mother was American. That (his mother's nationality) in itself gives him birthright, if nothing else. I mean are you telling me that a child born in a foreign hospital, to say a diplomat's daughter or a vacationing mechanic's daughter, isn't an American and can't be president? If you are then you are wrong.

Obama was born in the U.S. It has been shown with documents from Hawaii and repeated official statements from the state as well. We just have some folks so caught up in the fact that he won the election that they can't let go of the anger and now it has manifested itself into the Birther Movement. I really wish they would stop because it's embarrassing to me, as an American, to hear foreign news services reporting on the crazy Americans who think their president isn't a citizen. Not only that, but you are wrong!

Looking at it from another point of view, ask yourself this question: Would the Democratic Party really be so collectively stupid as to not ensure that their candidate was eligible for the office? I mean really, would they? Regardless of what you think of individual Democrats, the people who run the party behind the scenes and cook up all the campaign strategies and so forth get paid to make sure things are right. With all their hatred of Bush and their conspiracy theory that he was an illegitimate president because of the 2000 election, do you really think they would risk something like running someone that is not eligible? It would be suicidal for the party. If you do you may just be more unstable than James Carville.

Like it or not, the man is president, the man won the election fair and square, just as Bush did in 2000, and the man is an American. If you want to fix that Birthers, drop the nutty conspiracy junk and start working on getting him replaced in 2012. Of course, if you believe the Mayan Calendar conspiracy, the world ends in December of 2012 so we don't have to deal with it for much longer anyway.

So what do you say, how about putting all this wasted energy into finding a good replacement for Obama and then we'll see what conspiracies pop up about the new guy or gal. Just please, please, by all things holy and right, don't run a loser again. Yes, I mean Sarah Palin. Because nobody likes a quitter.

You Really Don't Want to Hear the Truth; You Just Want to Benefit From It

Jared Allen of the daily Congressional newspaper, TheHill, wrote "with their Speaker behind them, House Democrats are pushing ahead with plans to hold a series of hearings investigating instances in which intelligence officials may have misled members of Congress."

Coming on the heels of revelations that the CIA misled and kept information from top congressional leaders and that, shock of all shocks, Vice-president Chaney had told them to keep quiet about assassination programs against Al Qaeda leadership, the Democrats in congress are hot on the trail of having hearings about the CIA's conduct. And it's all because Ms. Pelosi thinks this will vindicate her for claiming that she was lied to by the CIA over water boarding.

Well, the way I see it, she needs no vindication. Of course the CIA lied to her, and others. It's the CIA! These people exist to deceive and to twist things in an attempt to gain intelligence necessary to keep this country safe. Sometimes they blow it, like with the whole weapons of mass destruction issue, but those are the exceptions. We never hear about the successes because they are not the things most people want to know about.

These folks operate in a shadow world that is full of things we civilians can't fathom. They do the wet work that has to be done sometimes. And only a very select few need to know what those jobs are.

The CIA, along with the other intelligence organizations in the government, for lack of a better metaphor, are the guard dogs of America, and if Dick Chaney was holding the leash, then good for him. Who is holding the leash now? Biden, Emanuel, Bo the White House dog? I guess we know it isn't Pelosi.

Look, I know almost everybody hates Chaney, but the fact is that what he did, he did because he thought it would keep America and Americans safe. He knew much of it was distasteful to many people but he did it anyway.

Put yourself in his position before you judge. Could you hurt someone else if it meant that you would save the lives of thousands? You might not admit it in public around some of your friends, but I bet deep inside the answer is yes. Would you have someone killed if you believed with religious conviction that if you didn't they would kill one of your friends or family members? You know you would.

So what if Chaney truly believed he was acting as protector? Is he still wrong? Is the CIA wrong for following his orders, if the reports are true? And show me where he benefited. He is hated by a vast number of Americans but he didn't make any money off of it, so what was the motivation if not genuine belief that it was necessary for our security?

Besides, when do you think the CIA has ever been completely upfront and honest with politicians? These folks deal in deception, and let's face it: the majority of our elected officials couldn't keep a secret no matter what level clearance they hold. The House has more leaks in it than a screen-bottomed boat and our intelligence professionals know it.

If anything, they tell Congress the stuff they want to leak out. Let the legislative branch do a little work for them.

I think that the honest truth about all that cloak and dagger stuff is that unless what is found out fits into the policy agenda of whatever administration is in charge, it is treated as untrustworthy. So why should they tell what they know to the incompetent few who think they know some truth nobody else knows?

We need the CIA, and we need our politicians to stay out of their business. The world hasn't gotten any nicer, the people who chant "Death to America" are still out there chanting. Some bad guys are getting ready to try and get The Bomb, and I don't want them to get The Bomb. This isn't a case of "since we have them they have a right to have them, too." No! They haven't proven they are grown-up enough for The Bomb. I would rather send in some Special Ops or a CIA hit team to deal with him. These unmanned aircraft they have been using seem like a good choice, too.

All of you who are going to get angry over my position will rant and rave because you just can't climb down off the "hate the war" bandwagon. So you will never admit that if it were not for the intelligence services and the secrets they keep, we would not enjoy the relative safety we enjoy today. Do you really think people have stopped trying to hurt us?

The fact is that in spite of the fact that you call for it, you really don't want to hear the truth; you just want to benefit from it. You don't want to know what has to be done to preserve your freedoms, you just want to use the information to criticize the people and methods used to protect it.

Sometimes bad people have to be hurt or die to save many more. Most people don't like that fact, but that's also the reason why not just anybody can be in the CIA and why politicians need to be kept out of their business. Let the President handle this part; so far he's done all right. He did block the release of interrogation photos and authorize the continued unarmed aircraft assassination program started under George W. Bush.

Keep Talkin'

It never fails to surprise or delight me how politicians these days keep stepping on their tongues. It used to be that reporters had to pry information out of these folks with a crowbar, but today they can’t wait to get to a mike and a camera so that they make the 6 p.m. sound byte.
The problem with that is that they don’t always think before they speak.
Take, for instance, New York Senator Peter King, who went on a rant about how the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death was obscene. “He was a pedophile, he was a child molester,” King exclaimed. “Why aren’t we mourning people like firefighters and soldiers who die in the line of duty?”
There is now a website dedicated to getting Jackson fans together to defeat King in his next election.
No word as to whether the fans will take similar actions against President Obama, who in one of those unfortunate open mike exchanges, griped to a pool reporter that “its been 10 days already and they tell me if I want to get on the air I better mention Michael and Sarah. Come on, I’m in Russia talking strategic arms limitation.”
While it is true that what the president is doing is much more important than the self-proclaimed King of Pop’s last hurrah, you better keep it to yourself.
Then there is the recent melt down in the fraternity of GOP Governors and their self-destructive public appearances.
Mark Sanford of South Carolina just couldn’t leave his press conference confessions of infidelity be No, he had to come back out and lump more embarrassment on his family and constituents; nice job. And now Sarah Palin just bails out on her state. Gee Gidget, what happened to the pit bull in lipstick bit? Things get rough and you cut and run? Sounds to me like Sarah made herself a multi-gazillion dollar deal with somebody and the battle between greed and duty ended in the normal political way, with greed on top.
No surprise really, but at least it makes for entertaining viewing most of the time through my new digital converter box.
After all, politics is the first and still the best reality TV show ever created and there are always good episodes to watch, I can’t wait to see what Joe Biden says next.
It is, of course, our fault that they are like this. We feed their egos and push them in front of the cameras to compete for airtime.
I have to wonder what folks like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and T.R. would think of the circus-like atmosphere that is today’s American politics. I dare say they would break out the stocks and whips in the town square.
Ahh, the good old days when you could flog your politicians.

Here’s My Point: It’s a Matter of Fairness for Everyone

What’s the saying? “Time flies,” or is it more like “Ain’t it funny how time slips away?” Whatever it is, “Time waits for no man,” or woman for that matter, and once it is gone it is gone. I began thinking about the passing of time this week when I realized, much to my surprise, that it has been one year since I was handed the reigns of the Ashe Mountain Times. The fact that the year passed by so quickly made me realize how quickly and sometimes quietly things in this life change.

Now I have enjoyed this last year, which has come with more than a few surprises, and I look forward to many more years of not only putting forth my opinions for you to debate but also, and much more important to me, bringing you news without opinions so that you can make up your own mind.

Sometimes it is difficult to have to choose what press release or news tip to develop into a story, and when space is tight in the paper, to decide which things to cover and which to let go. Because we just can’t cover everything, no matter how much we would like to.

In making those choices, I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.

What, I can’t say that? But I thought that things had changed and we could all just say what we think without having to worry.

I guess that it’s only alright if you’re not that white male. After all we old white guys are the problem, aren’t we? Well, aside from founding the country and writing the founding documents, establishing and voting in affirmative action, freedom to vote for women and racial minorities, ending slavery of our fellow human beings and many, many things I don’t have room to mention.

But we are not permitted to take pride in those achievements because some of those same old white guys made the wrong choices hundreds of years ago and chose to own humans and treat them as animals. That was wrong, and we stopped after thousands of white guys died to bring it to an end, but we can’t be proud of that either.

You know the President made a lot of speeches and statements running up to his election that the time for racial division was past and that to survive as a nation we had to put all those old ghosts to rest and just be Americans, but nothing has changed, and the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is yet another example. The woman makes an overtly race tinged statement repeatedly, but nobody who is white is permitted to talk out against it or be tagged racist themselves. Another, and not as widely publicized statement from the same speech, as the wise Latina woman remark is “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

Now I thought that our judges, no matter what the level, were supposed to leave their race and gender in the cloakroom and base their decisions on the letter of the law. If another has wronged someone, they deserve judgment based of facts, not whether or not those sitting in judgment are viewing the details of the case through the prism of race or gender.

I am concerned about how Judge Sotomayor will look at cases that come before her that might remind her about one of the rich experiences from her life. I am also concerned over the fact that she thinks a Latina woman makes better decisions than a white male. Would that equate to a Latina woman will make a better argument than a white male? Will she put more stock into those arguments and will it sway her judgment to be more sympathetic to the non-white male? If so, is she truly fit to serve on the highest court in the land, and in case you forgot, one of the three equal branches of our government.

But it is all moot anyway because she will be confirmed, don’t doubt it. The Republicans are too afraid of losing the Hispanic vote completely to oppose her appointment and the President is too busy running car companies to care. Besides, it is all political anyway. Just like her last appointment when President George H. W. Bush made a deal to put her on the U.S. District Court in New York. Sotomayor was nominated as part of a compromise in which Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan was allowed to recommend judges for two of the seven vacancies. Because she has that tie to Republicans it will be near impossible to keep her off the High Court. That and the majority of Democrats in the House and Senate guarantees, save some damming evidence of accepting bribes or the like, that she will become Justice Sotomayor. I just hope she learns a new way to look at the world maybe even ask a few white males around D.C. how life looks to them, she might be surprised, since no group has had to change more than we old white guys, maybe there is something in the richness of our experiences that she can learn from, too.

We Owe Our Children Better

This piece is running this week in the Ashe Mountain Times in a more edited format. But I wanted to publish a copy here for those who don't stop by the paper's web page.

For both personal and professional reasons, I am a huge fan of the First Amendment. One of the most important things that this country allows is the free exchange of thought and ideas as well as providing an outlet for artistic expression.
Freedom of speech, however, does come with some level of responsibility to the individual that exercises it and the publishing companies that disseminate it, because the words we speak and write are important. You have heard the saying “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater and you can’t yell bomb on an airplane,” and those are true. Try it sometime and see what happens. Wait, that was a joke. Don’t do either of those. Please.
Now, as true as those words are, there are other areas of speech and written word where forethought should be used, but are not.
What put me on this trail of thought was something that happened at my home this past weekend.
Over the weekend a friend of my family came to our home for a visit and brought his son. Now this is a nine-year-old boy and, like most nine-year-old boys, he wanted to shoot basketball and set up a tent in the back yard. You know, all the fun stuff. Well as you know this past weekend was a bit wet and the poor kid was forced to be inside more than he liked. But instead of hitting the video games, I was very happy to see that he was reading a book. I love to see kids read and just don’t see enough of it. That said, after seeing what he was reading I found myself wishing he would have chosen the X-Box instead.
The piece literature (and I use that term very loosely) he was reading is called Zombie Butts from Uranus by an Australian author (also using that term loosely) Andy Griffiths, and I have to tell you that I don’t know what angered me more: the premise, or the publication of the book. My displeasure at the existence of the book was passed on to his Dad for buying it and I asked him where it came from. Imagine if you can my surprise when I found out that it was purchased at a school book fair and had been published by the very well known youth book seller, Scholastic.
Now, I believe that all artists have the right to publish their works. I hope to one day as well, but I also believe that some responsibility has to be exercised in disseminating literature to children. This book is completely unacceptable for kids and I just have to ask if Scholastic, like so many other businesses, has simply devolved into a company that is totally driven by profits and has lost its purpose which, according to their mission statement, is “helping children read” because “literacy is the cornerstone of a child’s intellectual, personal and cultural growth?”
With all the books and authors out there for children, why would a historic and respected company like Scholastic choose to publish this sort of trash when Huck and Jim are still on the river learning about life, death, honesty and racial injustice? Aren’t those the ideas we should be nurturing in our children?
Here is just a small smattering of the book’s text that I promise I chose at random by just flipping the pages and jamming a finger in to stop. My finger stopped on the page containing this passage.
Gran jumped up and threw herself on top of the butt. It jumped into the air trying desperately to buck her off but she clung tight. Then, in the most spectacular display of pinching prowess Zack had ever seen, Gran pinched it into two halves, the two halves into quarters, and then the quarters into eighths. Her fingers were just a blur as she shredded the butt into smaller and smaller pieces. "Is there a water faucet around here?" said Gran when she’d finished, holding her hands out in front of her.
Aside from a small assist in learning fractions, there is nothing redeeming about this passage. It is even grammatically wrong because Gran did not say a question she asked a question. So it is even written badly. “Is there a water faucet around here”? asked Gran” is how it should have been written.
Now, I know that I write a lot of things that people disagree with, but I do try to do it in a way that is at least understandable and hopefully not disgusting, but I am writing for adults (young and older) this book is targeting children.
People are always asking “what’s wrong with kids today?” and “why do they act the way they do, they don’t have any sense of proper behavior?” and so on. They blame television, movies an the internet, but after seeing this book and looking at other books by this author such as The Day My Butt Went Psycho, (Zombie Butts was the sequel) and other titles at Scholastic and Amazon, as well as other children’s book sites, I have to believe that a lot of what is wrong with some kids is that they are allowed to read mindless crap like this book, which is nothing more than 200+ pages of ass and fart jokes.
My plea to parents is to look very closely at the books your child wants to buy from book sales. They can get great books out there such as Green Wilma, Frog in Space by Ted Arnold or Smoke Mountain by Erin Hunter, two great adventure books for younger readers. Then there are always the classics like Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels and the aforementioned Huckleberry Finn. Otherwise you might just as well plop them down in front of the television. At least there is PBS and the Discovery Channel, and who knows, they might accidentally learn something.

So you have a conspiracy theory do you?

I heard somebody say just the other day that all they ever seemed to hear in the news anymore was one conspiracy theory after another and he wondered "why they always sounded so thin?"
I told him that "not everything he heard was a conspiracy theory and just because it sounded thin didn't make it false." You see, sometimes the truth is stranger than conspiracy.

"All this stuff in the news lately about Rumsfeld, Bush, Chaney, torture, the wars, the CIA lying, the Speaker of the House lying and on and on and on. . . that is how the country really works," I explained. "This is the our real American government. And don’t think that the current administration is any different than any other that came before it. President Obama has already started hushing things up and extending policies that Bush, Clinton and other presidents have put in to place. Ask yourself what has President Obama really changed?"

He had no answer.

Yes, he directed military leaders to end war in Iraq (but the troops are still coming and going). Yes, he ordered two additional military brigades to Afghanistan. Yes, he released some of G.W. Bush’s presidential records. Yes, he supported high-speed rail. Yes, he extended unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspended taxes on those benefits. Yes, he reversed restrictions on stem cell research. And yes, he ordered that Guantanamo Bay Detainee Center be closed (but wait, maybe not if you listen to the rest of Washington, DC. Congress isn’t going to pay without a plan and he doesn’t have one, oops.) A lot of set up, but, what is being accomplished to change Bush policies? Actually not much. Each and every one of those things can be changed or stopped in an instant depending on the direction of the political winds. Hey, Nixon promised to end Vietnam he took 48 months and an additional 15,183 battle deaths to end that war, how long will President Obama keep us fighting when nobody really knows where all the enemies are? It's like the Cold War with a Commie hiding under every bed. However,is the President right to keep us engaged? Ahhh

The Government tells lies, it’s what they do, because as Jack Nicholson would say, ‘American’s can’t handle the truth.’

People are getting just a taste of the truth right now and they can’t handle it. Why do you think President Obama put the brakes on the release of torture pictures and criminal charges? Your smart, you know the answer.

What have we done as a country that “we the people” know about? Well, we infested the indigenous people of this continent with small pox and herded them like cattle to reservations (a euphemism for reeducation camp); we legally held other human beings black, white and yellow in slavery (some called it indentured servitude); we locked up Japanese-Americans because people who looked like them attacked us; we destroyed the lives of innocent people and even executed a few during the Cold War (McCarthyism was king and Ronald Reagan was their shining star); we infected black soldiers with syphilis and I myself was part of the attack and take over of Panama in 1989, (why was that done again?) We didn’t know at the time and I never have learned anything to my satisfaction. Oh, and we invaded the wrong country to stop our terrorist enemies. And they are our enemies. They chose to make us theirs when we turned our backs on them after the Soviet’s left their country a smoking husk.

Now ask yourself, If we know we did those terrible things, what have we done as a country that “we the people” don’t know about?

But that is what America has always been. However, that same America allows people like Rush Limbaugh and Al Franken to have talk shows and me to write editorial columns that criticize them, it allows your children to attend school where you want them to go public-private-home whatever and become anything they want, it provides welfare and Medicare for those who cannot or will not work and bails out major corporations who are in danger of failing (corporate welfare) so that more people don’t wind up on. . . welfare.

America has a split personality. We want all the freedoms the Constitution outlines, but we don’t want or like the methods that protect them.

Maybe someday we will get smart enough to stop the cycle, but I don’t think it will come in my lifetime. In fact, I think it will get much, much worse before it gets better.

Now that’s how you set up a conspiracy theory.

Sometimes You Just Have to Hurt the Enemy

None of the people involved in extracting information from the enemies of this country by means of torture, should be prosecuted, but then again I don't think torture should be illegal when it comes to enemies of my country.
Pain and even more so, the fear of possible pain, are huge motivators to telling the truth, I believe this. Pitch an enemy out the open door of an airborne helicopter in front of his comrade and the other guy is going to talk.
Ask John McCain, I bet even as anti-torture as he is, he would tell you that had the Vietnamese not tortured, him he would not have talked.
Information is power and power wins wars. If you can learn what your enemy is doing you can defeat him. But it must be done quickly. Depending on the rank or organizational-position of the captured enemy, the intelligence they have has a short shelf life.
After a week or so, you can leave them alone anyway because their usefulness as an information source is finished. Any operations they knew about have been changed by that time.
War is a dirty, ugly, nasty and unhappy business (as it should be so we don't do it very often) but the truth of the matter is when you fight a war you do it any way you have to, to win. And don't fall for the argument that if we don't torture them, they won't torture us. That is a falsehood that gives the enemy an advantage.
However, if torture of any kind is outlawed and it is going to be illegal to hook a car battery up to a guys testicles, don't prosecute the low level guys unless you can prove that it was done for the sadistic pleasure of the interrogator.
If they believe that they are doing what they must to protect home and country, leave them alone. And if you must prosecute someone, prosecute the people who write the policy. Maybe even the ones who ignore what's happening too.
People who do not understand the execution of warfare, do not understand that you do what you have to do to win, you do what you have to do protect your comrades and to protect those at home who will vilify you for the effort.
Maybe, just maybe if bad people around the world still feared us like they used to, they wouldn't think they can screw with us so much.

But that's just me.

How You Going to Provide Universal Healthcare when You Can't Even Care for Vets?

I have been on the fence about universal healthcare for a while but an e-mail I heard read on a radio show I listen to regularly made me decide that we have got to find a way to make it work. I just don’t know if we can.

The only thing that I can compare universal healthcare or government regulated healthcare, as I prefer to call it, to is the VA medical system. I don’t know if that is a fair comparison but it is government regulated healthcare, so it is the best that I can do.

Now I have been a part of the VA system for probably 14 years now and there are some real problems for the people who need care.

Two personal examples.

1. I have had to have the AC joints removed from both my shoulders due to service connected injuries—one was done on active duty and one was done by the VA. Active duty doctors did surgery within weeks of diagnosis and I had several weeks of physical therapy to get things back to normal. It took me 18 months from diagnosis to surgery with the VA. 18 months of waiting and being shot up with cortisone and being given bottles of Vicodin for the pain. Why so long? Because there was a waiting list and I couldn’t go anyplace else for the care. Just like universal healthcare where the program regulates where, when and by whom you get treated. Did I get the needed surgery? Yes. Is 18 months an unacceptable wait? Well when you are in so much pain that you can’t rotate your shoulder to reach up and scratch your nose, yes 18 months is too long. But it was free so I shouldn’t bitch right? Oh yea, and my physical therapy consisted of a Xeroxed instruction sheet and a piece of rubber tubing. They did give me lots of drugs though as I recall 100 Oxycodone. It made me itch so they mailed me more Vicodin and told me to flush the Oxy.

2. I am going to have a molar pulled next week. I broke it (long story) 4 years ago and requested an appointment with the VA dentist. I am still waiting. I can’t afford dental insurance. I just can’t, and the VA will not treat dental problems except for a select few. How and why they chose to segregate dental treatment I don’t know, but after four years of calling and begging, I have given up and the broken tooth that needed a cap and then turned into a much needed root canal is now going to be a memory. Is 4 years too long to request treatment and be ignored? Yes. I don’t want a parade or more medals, just fix my damn tooth!

The government can’t even run or regulate treatment for a small segment of society such as veterans; this has been shown over and over again in documentaries and news reports. Hell, even the President who is all about universal healthcare wanted to start charging vets with civilian insurance for service connected treatment. He backed of that quickly though.

If they can’t manage this small segment, how are they going to provide care for the whole country?

I think taking care of the health of the citizenry should be a right. I know it isn’t, but it should be. Healthcare wasn’t that big of a deal back in the days of the founding, they didn’t think about it. Of course you could pay the doctor with chickens then too.

This will just be another government program to be abused and leave the people who need its benefits the most getting substandard care from the lowest bidder for the contract. Because you know that the government always goes with the lowest bidder. It is called using the people’s money to get the most return of service. Quantity over quality.

Maybe I am just too cynical but I don’t see any good coming from government run healthcare.

Now healthcare vouchers that you could use to choose your own doctor that might be an idea.