I’ll enjoy this Memorial Day just as I do any other day, but I will also be reflecting on so many of the fine soldiers I have known and served with in my lifetime.
Apart from my father, a much-decorated U.S. Army sergeant who served during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, some of those Veterans who most influenced my life include:
A.C. “Ace” Wintermeyer, a WWII U.S. Army Veteran and Chief of LaVergne Fire Department, who gave me my first real job.
Sam Ridley, a much-decorated WWII Air Force Veteran, who did many fine things for Smyrna, TN as its mayor and always had a moment for some great conversation with Smyrna’s youth.
Professor (Lt. Colonel) Ralph Fullerton, my mentor at MTSU and a former aide to the ambassador to Nicaragua, who was one of the most adventurous, interesting and intelligent men I ever had the pleasure of knowing.
SSGT Barry Sadler, a Vietnam Veteran and author of the ‘Ballad of the Green Beret‘ and ‘Nashville With a Bullet‘, who often regaled me with fascinating stories, good advice and a bit of philosophy over many a cup of coffee at Shoney’s Big Boy in Hendersonville, TN.
SSGT Macon Blue, my Drill Instructor at Ft. Benning and a Vietnam Veteran, who had a steel plate in his head and only one lung, due to a “friendly-fire” incident, who often repeated, “Let your conscience be your guide, young soldier.”
Pete Doughtie, a U.S. Army Veteran of the Korean War, who operated The Rutherford Reader, along with his wife Kaye, and who was gracious enough to give me the opportunity to keep the community informed through one of the few conservative and ethical newspapers left in America.
And I offer my heartfelt “Thank You” to each and every single one of America’s Veterans, past and present, for their service and Putting It All On the Line, even during the time when so many were protesting in our streets and spitting on returning Servicemen and running off to Canada like the girly-men, anti-American commie faggots they were, no different from today’s black-hearted commies of ANTIFA, LaRaza and the New Black Panthers.
God Bless Them All and May God Bless This America We Love So Well and Keep Her Free for All Eternity, as He Damns Her Enemies, Both Foreign and Domestic, to the Hell They Have Earned and So Richly Deserve.
~ Justin
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“There must be a beginning of every matter, but the continuing unto the end yields the true glory. If we can thoroughly believe that this which we do is in defense of our religion and country, no doubt our merciful God for his Christ our Savior’s sake is able and will give us victory, though our sins be red.” ~ Sir Francis Drake writing to Sir Francis Walsingham, on May 17th 1587
This day, Memorial Day, set aside to honor all of our Veterans who have served and sacrificed in so many untold ways, Americans acknowledge the mighty endeavor our nation has set before Her Armed Services members. Most of us know just how long and hard the road back home has been, after America has asked them to deploy to combat, time and again, tormented by the roar of combat all about them but never shirking away from what they knew to be their duty. They are more than simple soldiers willing to die for You, and America owes them a great debt for their sacrifices, to those who died in combat, to all whose sacrifices were so selfless and honorable.
America lost roughly 117 thousand soldiers fighting WWI, 417,000 in WWII and thousands of more afterwards, in Korea and Vietnam. Approximately fourteen thousand and seventy-one U.S. military and contractors have died in the Middle East and the “War on Terror” since 2001.
Most able-bodied men and a small number of women, nearly 10% of the entire U.S. population, served in the military during WWII and were on active duty by war’s end. As a result, most Baby Boomers have at least one family member who served in uniform, and approximately one-third of all Americans born since 1980 are related to someone with military experience.
Since 2001, more than 3,002,635 men and women of the United States Armed Forces have deployed in support of the Global War on Terrorism, with more than 1,400,000 of them deploying multiple times; and no one has a clue when or where U.S. soldiers will once again get deployed to fight in a war in some far away foreign land.
As a society, America has traveled a long way from the early days of the draft and Vietnam, when 3000 people in Fayetteville, North Carolina were led by fifty soldiers from Ft Bragg — part of G.I.s United Against the War in Vietnam — in a protest at Rowan Park, and to many U.S. military personnel patriotism isn’t as complex a matter as so many anti-war advocates want to make it, and neither is the reason we fight. To most, in today’s all volunteer military, the mission and the need is clear as a bell; what isn’t so clear too many times is the road back into civilian life after their military career has ended, either voluntarily or due to service-related medical disabilities.
Combat changes everyone. The experience of killing another human sometimes results in significant psychological changes, whether it is the justifiable killing on an insurgent or enemy combatant, or the accidental killing of an innocent bystander who happens to get caught in the crossfire — too often dehumanized as “collateral damage”. Whether it is another member of one’s unit who is blown to pieces by an IED or your closest friend who dies in your arms after a sniper round penetrates just at the edge of his protective body armor, watching people die changes you. Even if one never experiences this bloodier side of war, constantly being on the alert and acutely aware of the ever-present dangers of war will change one. Everyone who is deployed to a war zone is changed by his or her experiences, and it would be abnormal if they weren’t.
As told in an Iowa PBS 2015 special, after hearing by radio that his friend was shot and down during an ambush, one corpsman rushed to render aid. The event is described by former platoon leader and 1st Lieutenant Dan Gannon: “Instead of staying on the trail, he just … took off and cut across. He made about fifteen steps and tripped a mine and was killed immediately. So here I’ve lost both corpsmen and we had injuries … we had to improvise. That was a very bad day for me, because both corpsmen I was quite close to.”
Gregory Gomez, part of an elite four man team in a Marine Corps Force Recon unit and a pure-blooded Apache from West Texas, recalls the numerous times they were dropped by helicopter into North Vietnamese territory, without a medic or and little support. They would eat Vietnamese food, not the C-rations, so they’d smell like the enemy who often would pass just yards from their position in the dense jungle. He observed: “Everyone who has lived through something like that has lived through trauma, and you can never go back. You are 17 or 18 or 19 and you just hit that wall. You become very old men.”
When an old accomplished, battle-hardened soldier first arrives home, all he can think about is being back In Country and in the thick of things. Home-life initially leaves them feeling unfulfilled, empty and without purpose, despite having their family and friends near them, and having a job. An Old War Dog has a long seemingly unshakable feeling that there is “unfinished business that needs to be taken care of” and he wants to return to fray and to “complete the mission“.
Although demanding and dangerous, the intensity of combat is rewarding in and of itself to many soldiers, and constantly living on the edge for many soldiers was the highlight of their life: Their time In Country was an experience they wouldn’t change for the world and it’s something they would happily and freely do once more — as they recall a powerful brotherhood, the bonds and friendships forged in combat that last a lifetime.
Combat Veterans are happy to have escaped injury and still be above ground, yet many feel guilty that some of their unit weren’t so lucky. Shame and guilt make them second guess decisions they made, or didn’t make, that resulted in the injury or death of a team member or civilian, and these Veterans feel guilty over enjoying life, with their feelings wavering between happiness and guilt; and sometimes depression sets upon them and interferes with their ability to function or enjoy life.
Many other soldiers who fully comprehend and believe in the mission [whatever it may be in any given year] usually return home and are able to adjust very well. These are the hard men in battle, living, breathing and eating combat operations around the clock.
However, even the strongest among us might succumb to the pressure cooker of multiple tours of duty and an untold number of bloody, horrific combat actions. Before America made Her hasty retreat from Afghanistan, one in two soldiers had reported to government inquiries that they knew a member of the military who had attempted or committed suicide, and over one million soldiers acknowledged they could not control their anger.
No one person can presume to actually understand the mental and physical toll military service takes on a soldier, unless they have been where it’s real, where an Improvised Explosive Device can end your life in a second or where an old Muslim with a mild, endearing smile on his face and gentle empathetic eyes suddenly screams “Allah Akbar” and detonates himself, killing everything within a 120 feet circumference. Unless one has hunted for the enemy in the jungles of Colombia and the kunai grass of Guatemala and Nicaragua or along goat paths and in little mud and wood constructed towns, where an RPG can scorch a man’s flesh from his body in a second, raided a cave by moonlight taking fire all the way to extract, and lain in their own urine and defecation for three days for a shot to the head of a high-value target, one cannot fully comprehend the soldier’s sacrifice.
How many old soldiers have returned home from one of America’s wars only to send their sons off to another war a few years later to fight and survive or return in a flag-draped coffin?
I would never minimize the pain and suffering of any Veteran, however, according to a 2015 analysis in the Annals of Epidemiology, Veteran suicides only topped civilian numbers in 2008, and they are most often seen in soldiers who had mental issues prior to their service and in Veterans over fifty years old. The analysis noted that the more time that passes between the trauma the less likely one is to commit suicide, while identifying suicide attempts before deployment as the most accurate predictor of post-deployment suicide.
The Annals suggested better screening for pre-existing mental disorders would reduce Veteran suicide, while also noting U.S. Airborne and other highly trained units in WWII had some of the lowest rates of psychiatric casualties of the entire military, relative to their number of wounded. And, in a 1968 study from the Archive of General Psychiatry, Special Forces soldiers in Vietnam had levels of the stress hormone cortisol go down before any anticipated attack, while less experienced soldiers had their cortisol levels increase.
The most severe and debilitating injury afflicting our returning soldiers is Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) generally received by being too close to an Improvised Explosive Device when it was detonated. The lingering effects of such an injury, in tandem with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and haunting memories, places a soldier in an unimaginable struggle and makes any attempt to start his post-war civilian life a daunting challenge; and, he most usually has a hard time holding down a job and has a drinking habit that is accompanied by hallucinations of his best friend who died in the war. And he drinks like it is his job to try and block out his troubling memories.
Although it is impossible to gauge accurately and equally hard to imagine someone who served America in the military living on the streets, many experts and studies estimate approximately 50,000 Veterans are still homeless on any given night in the United States of America. In conjunction, a recent Department of Defense report states that 383,947 Veterans have been diagnosed with war related Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), since the year 2000. And in 2015, a Veteran Administration Inspector General’s report revealed that 307,000 Veterans died awaiting approval on healthcare claims.
Veterans tend to dig their own graves, and going too far before they realize their mistake and the result of their own self-destructive behavior. So, while many dig their own hole without even knowing it, many of us in the military community and the community in general can implement the old OODA Loop concept of Observe, Orient, Decide and Act in order to offer assistance to those Brothers and Sisters in need.
Get rid of the parades and replace them with a community ceremony on Veterans Day attended by citizens, who are willing to give meaning to the words “I support the troops”, showing up at town halls across the land to hear our Veterans speak about the war, their own particular wars. Some Veterans will be proud of their service, some will be angry, and some will be unable to speak as tears flow down their face. A community ceremony like that would finally return the experience of war to our entire nation, rather than just leaving it to the people who fought.
All of Our U.S. Veterans past and present have been great friends to someone, recognized as great soldiers, American through and through. Valiant soldiers, their service, bravery and strength of character represents the principles and virtues that built America, and I salute them, each and every single one for defending and protecting our country, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave — their service to which I will never forget and much time spent in harm’s way — together Brother, together Sister.
They lived, they fought. And for their country’s sake they died, from Argonne to Berlin and from Kabul to Ramadi and Fallujah.
Since our nation’s founding, the strong independent nature of the American people carried over into the military, which enabled America to pursue Her best interests and to become the strongest and wealthiest nation in the world. The wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope for peace and freedom in the future will hinge on America’s moral courage and a U.S. military that ensures “peace through strength”.
This Memorial Day and every day forward, take a few moments, whenever the opportunity presents itself, to offer the sincerest, well-thought thanks to the men and women of our U.S. Armed Forces, with more than just a smile and a handshake. Offer a friendly ear on occasion and really listen. Offer a helping hand to those Veterans struggling to re-enter civilian life and offer friendship to all of these brave men and women. And, as we acknowledge that so many have sacrificed their lives defending America, Her traditional virtues and principles and freedom and liberty worldwide, we offer our prayers for all the U.S. Armed Forces members, who protect this nation’s existence each and every day, and we pray for America.
Looking out across our fathers’ graves, and taking liberties with Kipling’s words, the astonished years reveal the remnant of our country’s patriots whose blood, guts and steel defended America, and we think on those fine Americans we have lost with tears in our eyes that none will scorn, and one more service we dare to ask. Pray for us, heroes pray, that when Fate lays on Us our task, We do not shame the day.
by Justin O Smith
photo: Hue, Vietnam [February 4th 1968 / Rick Merron _ Associated Press]
In this years solemn Memorial Day commemoration to those that gave their lives fighting for America, the White house will feature drag queens in bikinis dancing to demonic music and exposing their breasts for the big finish! Thank you Jill. – the Biden Administration.
Thoughtfully written, thank you for sharing this.
absolutely.
Yep No Name, outstanding meme, we were all FED generational divide and kill bullshit False Flag history…and WAR was and still IS A RACKET.
I live the old man survivor walk through the 55-year-old graveyard of my time as an unknowing MIC enforcer, and I see every face of those who never made it back to the World, and those with lifetime wounds…and every face of every body count.
A bitter pill…but one that must be swallowed…and one that must not be FED any longer!
I don’t fault my 18 year old propagandized cannon fodder self at this stage of the end of the beginning.
I have a peace that was given to me by the Prince.
I have my boldness under fire…and the fact I saved many buddies…to cling to…but that is nothing compared to laying it all down at the foot of the cross.
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of our country’s most agile military force — the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent more of my time being a high–class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. “I suspected I was just a part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that the Standard Oil went its way unmolested. During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors, medals and promotion. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. I operated on three continents.” — General Smedley Butler, former US Marine Corps Commandant,1935
WAR IS A RACKET
https://www.heritage-history.com/site/hclass/secret_societies/ebooks/pdf/butler_racket.pdf
No Name, I have posted WAR IS A RACKET a number of times over the years on TBP. It had a huge impact on me when I finally ran across it…and after an initial period of wanting nothing to do with the war of my cannon fodder youth, (I refused to watch anymore of it on TV when I came home) it led me to start researching everything…including the FF of the Tolkien Gulf incident. Then the Bankster research led me to 1913 and the FED Long March of complete control over most power centers…from that point on I became a serious Conspiracy Realist. I then searched out the Committee of 300 (and all the other Secret Societies) devouring real history year after decade.
During my initial stage of coming back to the world I was severely riddled with PTSD (I had no idea what those letters stood for at the time having just turned 20 in 70.) It was a butt ugly, sometimes vicious homecoming in 70 in my liberal city. (One of the many reasons I left and spent my life outside liberal Yankeeland – I am a Deep South Copperhead…who loves Dixie with all his heart). God has a sardonic sense of humor sometimes…and me being born a Yankee just proves that to me.
When I was first home I didn’t know I was screaming in my sleep many nights…and it freaked my poor parents and little sister out. So they told family and friends not to bring up the war, and if I did change the subject (I found that out five years later). So I felt even more marooned over what had happened as it seemed no one close to me wanted to hear anything about what I saw, did, and experienced???
Then a guy I had grown up with, who I had liked, who became extremely active in the collage antiwar movement while I was gone (I had no idea) decided he was going to sanctimoniously and publicly ambush me with both spittle screaming ranting baby killer, government murderer accusatory barrels in a local bar in front of all our friends. His almost fatal problem was he had no idea who I had become and what I was now capable of. After instantly beating him viciously and savagely to a limp pulp (he never expected the level of brutality I brought to him in seconds – there was no debate he has expected) I drug him over to some sticker bushes choking him to death with my thumbs in his Adams apple, while screaming incoherently…while swishing his head in among the thorns.
There was no doubt among the now horrified witnesses I was going to kill him…and they were right.
Finally three alarmed guys (mutual former friends who also were still in school) pulled me off the now bloody stunned protester and two others drug his limp body away. I found out later they had rushed him to the ER. He did not leave his parents house for weeks…they talked about pressing charges but never did.
It was a defining experience in my ahhhhhh homecoming.
Once word got around town about the near death experience of the committed protester all the other types who were wearing white t shirts with red fists on the front gave me an extremely wide berth with no direct eye contact. I didn’t have to worry about anymore sanctimonious ambushes…matter of fact whenever I would appear in some of my old haunts everyone would get a little nervous, and any discussion over the war seemed to be dropped…and that was fine with me. My further marooning was welcomed.
I remember telling my Father in 1971 when we completely pulled out MARVIN the ARVIN will fold like an empty cardboard box of C-rats in the monsoon…and it all will have been for naught.
Watching the MIC enforcement enforcers enriching the CULT that Hijacked the World since has been hard as far as watching the generations of Bankster Cannon fodder march off…and come home…with many screaming in their sleep…and some probably not knowing it. Their Homecoming has been better…and I found myself jealous…but the wars were all just more RACKETS.
After reading WAR IS A RACKET I would issue this book to every American…that ought to kick start the next revolution:
Bizarre and incredible as it sounds, humanity has been colonized by a satanic cult called the Illuminati. This cult represents Masonic and Jewish bankers who finagled a monopoly over government credit which allows them to charge interest on funds they create out of nothing. Naturally they want to protect this prize by translating it into a political and cultural monopoly. This takes the form of a totalitarian world government dedicated to Lucifer, who represents their defiance of God. Thus, the people who hold our purse strings are conspiring against us.
To distract and control us, they have used a vast occult network (Freemasonry) to infiltrate most organizations, especially government, intelligence agencies, education and the mass media. We are being re-engineered to serve the Illuminati. They undermine institutions like marriage and religion, and promote depravity, dysfunction, corruption and division. They have orchestrated two world wars and are planning a third. Henry Makow describes this conspiracy and shows how human history is unfolding according to Illuminati plan.
http://www.henrymakow.com
So very well stated, fellow Veteran.
Welcome Home Buddy…
Great Article! Justin, is Sam Ridley Ob-knox’s father or uncle? Both turned Smyrna into an infamous speed trap.
My wife implored me to finally cave and go to the VA for my hearing loss that was a result of live fire in combat when I was an infantryman. I have avoided the US government like the plague lo these many decades, but she’s had enough of having to repeat herself constantly and I relented.
It took about six weeks to get an appointment at the VA hospital in our state and it was pretty routine. They did the tests, told me the results and offered me a hearing aid and or a white noise machine for next to the bed to help with the tinnitus. I thanked the doctor, told them I’d think about it, was issued an ID card should I ever need their services again and went about my business.
All in all I was somewhat surprised at how effortless it all was and that I was offered something to alleviate the symptoms I have experienced for most of my adult life. Maybe I was wrong to suspect the VA of being just another extension of my military experience.
Yesterday a bill came in the mail for the exam. I called the number at the top and asked them if I was indeed responsible for the payment and the man on the other end of the line assured me I was. I told him it was service related and at no point did anyone tell me I’d be on the hook for the physical, but he let me know that there is indeed no free lunch.
I ended the call by saying Thank you for your service.
I don’t think he got the joke.
So for my Memorial Day I am going to write them a check for helping me prove that I am indeed going deaf because of my exposure to live fire- this was in the days before ear plugs, when most of us when we’d go to the range would stuff cigarette butts in our ears- and will not return again.
So thank you America for reminding me what an honor it was to have served the greedy, duplicitous elites that run this shit show we call the land of the free (except for your service related medical care) and the home of the brave.
Farm,sorry to hear about the shit the VA is pulling on ya’s.
Me mum was a doc for 20 years @ Brockton,Mass. VA,every time I visited her there seemed all the folks were nice and really trying to help their patients.
I will say the overseers/bean counters were assholes during her whole time there and she and other “older “docs were unceremoniously just let go.I know that fucked with her head till the day she died.
I will say me uncle who was a 20 year man with a snake driver tour in Vietnam just recently hit the VA(Cali.) for some eye sight correction,he seems very happy with results so far and said though appt.s a bit of a wait felt he was treated very well.
I will say some states/va’s taking care of illegals over vets,seems to me treason and those doing this should face the results of said treason.
Anyhow,no matter what one thingks about the polotics of a war or supposed reasons for a war we should always remember our vets who have died but even more important help those who need help who are still alive.
After repeated trips to the VA for a back injury while serving, I was pushed here, shoved there, never received any help. Eventually, with terrible pain, I received civilian doctor care via Medicare. I avoid the VA “like the plague.”
With sparse details, I am not sure, but I think I know why they are charging you. To get them to foot the bill for service related injuries, you have to establish that first. You would need to apply for disability, the VA will schedule a C&P exam (compensation & pension), that will officially establish service connection, and then the VA will pay for it.
Of course that process can take from months to years, depending on the VA backlog, but those are the hoops you have to jump through.
I have since discovered this. It would have been nice to have had someone tell me beforehand so I could have made an informed decision, but spilt milk and all that jazz.
However, based on what I just experienced and on my four years of active duty and knowing how we were treated then, I’m going to pass. If I go deaf over time, that’s probably the price for having served.
We all live with the consequences of our choices.
When it is relatively painless, I welcome the reminder of why I’m trying to stay the hell outside their system (however you want to define that).
Similar to getting cheated for a tiny amount of money when you knew better than to trust someone, it is a little reinforcement for that gut feeling that most have been trained to ignore or even feel guilty about.
My wife loves that versions. It grew on me. I think the original is prettier, but maybe that is not the point of this version.
It was the same for me the first time I visited a VA. Most veterans don’t seek help, because they don’t even know it is available and especially not how to apply for it. My injuries were severe enough I had to. I almost died in Iraq.
I do share you attitude when people encourage me to chase ever more bennies. Some responsibility belongs on my own shoulders and the VA has done their part, at this point.
HB, #1:once you get established for the tinnitus, that’s a small disability check per month. #2:You cannot have tinnitus without also having hearing loss. Check gets upped. #3:You have insomnia because of the tinnitus, the white noise machine didn’t work. Check gets upped. #4: Frequent headaches because of the tinnitus can sometimes be debilitating. Check gets ….
Key is it all stems from the tinnitus, which is a condition you need no corroborating statements or paperwork for. I waited all this time for the same reasons, starting my paperwork shortly.
We visited the in laws in North Carolina last week, and I implored them to apply for VA Aid and Assistance as my father in law is diving deeper into dementia as a Vietnam veteran. Unfortunately, dementia is not “approved” by the government as agent orange related, and the whole journey has been amazingly complex, convoluted and designed to make you give up voluntarily. It doesn’t help when the afflicted person is incredibly stubborn and not willing to accept “help” from the country they served because “I am not THAT crippled yet”. Frustrating.
“I am not THAT crippled yet”
“Frustrating” though it may be for you, his attitude is perfectly understandable for an honorable man. He is worthy of a sincere salute! Would that there were more like him! While not a combat veteran myself, I nevertheless believe that while perhaps misguided, their motives for participating were pure and selfless and that’s more than good enough for me. Military service (combat in particular) veterans deserve recognition and all the help they may need as a result of their sacrifices.
Certainly for me and most I served with, the motivation was higher than pay and bennies. You find people like that in combat arms, a lot more.
Relatively recently, the VA has added a lot more presumtives to agent orange claims, so that may be worth looking into. They stone walled for decades.
Ah…. you did not go through the “process.”
First, you have to make a claim that your hearing loss/tinnitus was most likely caused by military service. Now, in your case, the loss is “presumptive” which means that once you file your claim, it will probably not be denied, but it isn’t presumptive until you make a claim.
So, you will need to file a claim at the VA.gov site, but first, you will need to establish an ID.me account or some other way to get a secure login at the VA so that you can file the claim for a condition that is presumptive but not until you claim it.
The good news is that since you’ve gone to the VA already for the condition, they will have the evidence in hand once you file your claim.
So, six months from the time you file your claim, you will be able to file a claim to have your medical payment reimbursed and the Veterans Administration will rate you at 10% disability. Then, you will get a “service-connected” VA ID and will no longer have to pay for the medical care related to your disability.
And, six months is realistic since my husband’s recent claim for the PACT Act related health issues, filed in December 2023, just got approved. Of course, as a “retired” military veteran, he already has a VA disability rating in place, so you probably will need to add a few months to establish your identity in the vast database that is the military health care system.
So, I suggest you contact your nearest VSO (Veteran Service Organization, e.g., DAV, VFW, AmVets) where a representative will be happy to assist you with the “process” as long as you give them POA to file for benefits on your behalf. What’s in it for them is political clout and so they will put their very skilled volunteers* on it for you.
Now, your other option is to find an agency such as VETLink or any Veteran Assistance organization where a team of volunteers will help you process a VA claim for a one-time payment to them after your claim is successful. A friend of mine went this route and awaits the finding after filing an “intent to file” last October. And “intent to file” reserves the date for your claim so that if your claim results in a disability award, you will be backpaid to the date you intended to file.
Now, if you are the sort of person who has to keep track of your own money and can’t just imagine it into being, you might wonder where all this disability reimbursement for veterans fits into the budget. And therein lies the beauty… it does not. It is mostly unfunded liability as far as the eye can see.
But, for now, those of us far enough away from a Veterans Hospital of any note (St. Louis comes to mind) are eligible for a program called Veterans Choice whereby we can select local caregivers and they get paid by the Veterans Administration. Probably also unfunded, but I will tell you they pay promptly here in our region.
It’s all just nuts now, Mark. When I “retired” out here to build this log home, I was rated at 20% for a back injury the USAF medically separated me for, also at 20%. When I got out of the USAF, the VA awarded me vocational rehabilitation (college) and I was so delighted, I bought a lifetime membership to the DAV, so they filed a new claim for me a few years ago and the VA service-connected me at 80% disabled. I now draw a VA pension larger than my husband’s retirement. He’s happy about it because, let’s face it, I am hard to live with and someone oughta pay, but both of us knew when the getting was good. Entitled indeed, but definitely unfunded.
You aren’t going to do it, Mark, but you are actually potentially eligible for benefits under the PACT act… “Expands and extends eligibility for VA health care for Veterans with toxic exposures and Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 eras” and if my husband’s mild-COPD was presumptively caused by deployments to Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm and not by 35 years of smoking Marlboros (quit in 2006! Yeah him!), then I’m sure a “good” review of your military history could find something claimworthy. You would be amazed at the claims I’ve seen denied (by friends from USAF) and even more amazed at those I’ve seen approved. Several of my former airborne colleagues claim and receive PTSD compensation. From flying over the battlefield in the Persian Gulf Wars. Nuts indeed.
Anyway, I’m not saying there are not good people in these organizations doing great things but the system is a giant network of gatekeepers through which one can only navigate with help. Dale Graham’s Veterans Organization in Norman Oklahoma is one of the biggest in the country and has helped tens of thousands of US Veterans get help they’d been denied for years. I’m one of them, but I am also aware of how easy it has become to take advantage of presumptive classifications and unfunded liabilities. Sorry for the ramble but if you were smarter you would have jumped over once you saw it was me.
*Once someone gets awarded a disability pension for life when they couldn’t even get the VA to pay for their care as promised they tend to be grateful and volunteer to assist others like yourself. They know how to cut through the red tape and, in many cases, view it as a second career fighting military bureaucracy. I volunteered for a while, then the Murrah building got blowed up and I was helping sort through records in Oklahoma City and discovered my old Wing Commander (Full Bird) was drawing a full retirement as a pilot and was also getting additional disability pay for arms and shoulders while taking classes to get his PhD. War is definitely a racquet Smedley.
Sounds like an experienced vet. My question, Vietnam, how does someone that served some months as a Navy enlistee on a Navy ship 50 miles off the coast of Vietnam manage a 100% disability awarded in 2010 for agent orange poisoning? It was about 60% until then based on PTSD.
The AO has to do with breathing but never mind the habits of smoking and drinking before and after the months of service on a ship.
I am shamed by being to lazy to detail all that, sister. I did have to go milk and then we had 3 kids from one doe (goat), though. God bless you.
I had goats for a short while. Then, I sold them to a Mexican goat farmer from Arkansas because, well, they were someone else’s spoiled pet goats I’d promised not to eat.
I did not extract the same promise from the goat farmer.
Well, I figured if the Hardscrambled Farmer wandered by and saw my message he would grasp what a messed up system the VA health care system really is… while I’m “lucky” that I was medically separated so had a Veterans Administration exit interview by a “real person” at the Alfred P. Murrah building in OKC and was supposed to return for my paperwork for vocational rehabilitation. That was in March 1995. That guy’s desk and all those records ended up four floors down on April 19.
Some days I feel a bit Forestgumpish.
Some days I feel a bit Forestgumpish.
You and me both. I guess that happens if you live long enough and pay attention as you make your way.
Thanks for all the advice, I will think about it.
Yep.
You brave men and women gladly volunteer to die while the men who send you to die sleep on silk sheets and drink mint juleps.
Vets can show real manhood now and do great healing to the burden on their heart by preventing more delusion and pointless carnage by standing up and declaring that… they were tricked…. they were used…. they painfully realize that not one naive dead American soldier contributed any iota of protection of American freedom…. every war has been a scam of psychopathic bankers/globalists…. and they were wrong to have fallen for the lie that they had any justification whatsoever to kill any Mother’s also naive young son total stranger in the middle of nowhere.
I forgive any vet who can now boldly stand tall and declare that total strangers killing each other for the financial and political benefit of psychopathic cowards is always trickery and never about what soldiers are told it is about.
I see the same thing now too. I used to think our wars were heroic struggles to protect the country from evil forces, like Communism and Muslim extremism. Now I see that our wars really are banker’s wars, and the Soldiers fighting each other are being maimed and killed only for the profits and hidden geopolitical goals of the monsters running our system. For example, 9/11 was a false flag attack created to provide a pretext for a war on Israel’s enemies in the Middle East, and to pass the “Patriot Act.” And to fund the MIC. It was all a sick scam. I am a former Soldier and I only figured this stuff out in the last two to three years.
That’s something to be very proud of. Amazing you made the big change after years of other side of thinking, and I assume it involved some hard swallowing. Many of the most well meaning but deceived of us are all deprogramming something or other this lifetime it seems, you’re not alone. Welcome to the stronger side. Much respect.
Whoever DVd that one has head completely up ass in denial!
… and I (we) will thank you to not diminish what we have done in service to our Nation …
Semper Fi — 1966-68
Amen brother, nor to diminish the sacrifice of those who came before us.
Semper Fi 1986-92
fools & NWO thugs – fuck ’em
Not a word about if it is advisable to enlist today?
Coward, hiding behind patriotism.
Everyone here knows the answer to that. No need to insult.
Justin served.I seriously doubt M did, or would have the guts to say it to his face. He never recommended anyome join and expounded on the problems combat veterans face.
Try to bullshit somebody else.
It has been less than 2 years ago, that someone in an article on TBP finally wrote that he would explicitly advise against [their sons] enlisting nowadays.
Now to hide behind ‘everyone knows, nobody speaks it out’ (a/k/a don’t ask, don’t tell) is even bigger cowardice. Read some Solzhenitsyn quotes for good measure.
Read 200 Years Together!
No need to insult, Svarga? There is a great need for the ‘wages of sin’. What war are you fighting? The war to accept culture war? The herd glories, it burns.
Only if you are a DEI candidate and want a free sex change operation. You can see that in the enlistment statistics.
While I served I go places that ask veterans to stand for Memorial Day. I never stand. Memorial Day is to remember those that gave their lives for the country. If you can stand that is not you. Veterans Day is to respect those that served in the Armed Forces, I stand for that.
I would ask you to not judge those who have given their all in service to our Nation … that is not your place, it is God’s place …
Many folks if not a “majority” will be out on the lakes, drinking beer, cooking out and otherwise not thinking the day is supposed to be in honor of those vets deceased. They will only think of it as a day off.
My favorite: “Thank you for our freedom!”
I just want to laugh my ass off. I just look at them like they are stupid.
Or I’ll say, “Look around you. Does it look like anyone fought, got shot or blown up, lost a body part, died… for your freedom?”
No soldier has fought for our freedom. That is complete bullshit. First we have no freedom. We do not even have a Democracy. Second every war since 1812 has been a war for profit, and empire to make the wealthy even more wealthy.
No soldier has ever done a damn thing for me, and in fact has done me harm by being part of a scheme to impoverish the tax payers to make profits for Zionist bankers and CEO’s in the Defense Industries.
Many of these soldiers joined the military with good intentions, but that unfortunately is not good enough. Prior to being a soldier, each of these men were Citizens, and being a Citizen comes with responsibly. As a Citizen, you are responsible for knowing what the fuck your Government is doing, and whether what they are doing is right or wrong.
Blind patriotism is bullshit, and a dereliction of your duty as a Citizen.
Our country is now a hot mess, with our Government being a cartel of traitors who are all owned by Israel. Our country is going straight to hell, and the people who co-operated with the government schemes to murder millions of innocent people for profits are complicit in the crimes of the government.
So stick your Memorial Day up your collective asses, because you are not patriots, you are traitors. Whether you knew you were committing treason or not, you still did it.
How noble of you, Jihad-Dog, to bravely choose not to serve your country in uniform. While the low-IQ, cowardly white Southerner or Midwestern blue collar boy was carrying a rifle in harms way during a time of conflict, bleeding out in a rice paddy or killing babies in foreign shit holes, you were in Canada singing Puff the Magic Dragon and bad-mouthing your country. Stunning and brave, man. Stunning and brave.
Too cowardly to even have a handle. You are a joke. I will face you anytime asswipe.
Tough talk from a man too brave to serve.
I don’t know Jdog’s circumstances , I only have no respect what-so-ever for the clowns vying for the next POTUS Selection, the two Bone Spur Warriors.
“The two BONE SPUR WARRIORS”.
1,000+
Best line of the day!
Makes me sick to think Joe Biden, a former running back in college and Donald Trump, nothing physically wrong with him at the time other than a bloated head, were each awarded deferments or whatever because of a “bone spur” on a foot. Makes me sick because a cousin was drafted in the Army in ’65, had no “out” and became a tunnel rat ( imagine crawling in a tunnel occupied by Viet Cong?) , came home alive but never the same, completely fucked up and ended up in prison dying of a heart attack at age 55.
It’s all in the past but does not alleviate the fact Joe Biden and Donald Trump are two sorry bastards. Never “voted” for either, never will. And not just because of the puny excuse of a bone spur. Sorry bastards.
I had a four year deferment as an apprentice after Vocational HS as a pressmen…but enlisted in 68 at 18. Was a bit of a military romantic as a boy, plus I was raised by a committed anti-communist Father and Grandfather…problem was they didn’t know the true history…nor did I then.
I volunteered to go into one tunnel in Nam (I was a grunt not a rat). Got into it and stopped not far down. Had an overwhelming sense if I kept going I was a dead man.
Backed out and told the LT I wasn’t going in any deeper. No one else would go and he didn’t order me or anyone to go back in. He dropped in a yellow smoke frag and we covered up the hidden entrance with five or six flack jackets.
In a few minutes yellow smoke was wafting up all around the platoon from air vents. We were stunned. We fragged them all and got the hell out of there.
If had a time machine I’d still go because of lives I saved.
The one other factor is what I know from being a grunt..as it looks like my life started with war…and is going to experience another one post SHTF.
Trump was a traitor at Warp Speed and is a Crypto Jew…Biden a demon possessed meat puppet.
Hang tough Jake.
You had me at “Bone Spur Warriors!”
That bone spur thing is real. I had an employee who was medically discharged in ’68 for bone spurs. They 4F’d anybody with diagnosed bone spurs as I understand it.
Name a time and a place. If you think I am afraid to fight, I will set you straight real fast. You are a piece of shit who thinks that going into the service of Israel in the US armed forces is brave. It is the cowards way. Killing women and children in countries that never harmed the US in any way. Like I said, name a time and place because I would love to show you how little I respect you.
Strawman much?
Jeeze, lighten up Francis!
Whoa, there Tilly, I’ll get you a nice bucket of oats!
Valiant, valiant marauders of Satan.
Yea buddy…it will eventually…the Bible tells me so…
“Defending freedom” is why the US has some 750 military bases in some 80 foreign countries. I recall Ron Paul in ’08 (and likely before and after) mentioning “they” don’t hate the US for it’s freedom, “they” hate the US because of its presence. Some day the chickens are bound to come home to roost.
Chickens=80,000,000 immigrants who arrived on Joseph’s disgusting technicolor faggot border.
POW – MIA left behind. KNOWINGLY !!!
John LeBoutillier speaks at Rolling Thunder 2016
Of 1200 prisoners , 600 were sent back, the rest were held until the US paid the 4.75 Billion it had promised for the release of the rest, the USA never paid. ( But we can send billions to Ukraine .) As of 2016 this former Congressman said there were still about 250 men still alive in camps along the Vietnam / Laos border. Locals all know about these camps. Well worth a 5 minute listen.
John LeBoutillier speaks at Rolling Thunder 2016. – YouTube
Pentagram covered up photos of ” SOS ” in rice fields and ” PAVE-SPIKE ” comms. used by downed pilots.
And remember that POS McStain … how he refused to do anything to try to rescue our POWs from the Vietnam War …
He calls out mcstain & horse face by name. Worst POW cover uppers.
John LeBouillier on POW’s & Donald Trump
John LeBoutillier on POWs, Donald Trump – YouTube
Wonder if they blink an eye FDT is a Bone Spur Warrior and that he sponsors LGBT fundraisers?
Aaron Rodgers on Tillman….
“He gets over there, and says, “What the f*** am I doing? I’m guarding these poppy fields? That’ not what I signed up for.”
Aaron Rodgers: The U.S. Gov’t Confiscated Pat Tillman’s Last Journal, Burned His Uniform
I met Jim in 6th grade in 1958 … we were just Ozzie and Harriet, David and Ricky kids back then in a low-income suburb of Cleveland.
He got to Vietnam in ’65/’66 as Army Special Forces … and somehow found a home there. He was put into Laos and Cambodia by the CIA (as he later discovered) to assassinate folks who refused to go along with the enormous drug operation run by the CIA, the mossad and the Meyer Lanky crime syndicate …
He did a lot of killing on behalf of that drug operation, including kills at 1800 yards and more … just like the US Military did in Afghanistan — another CIA drug operation …
The soldiers were valiant, but the wars were evil and greatly harmful to civilization…
Bullshit. Soldiers outta have a clue about killn. If they did, there were be good bad things done domestically on the regular. Total bullshit.
Take a look at what these “Great Wars” did to the people of European descent. The White race reached it peak at 34.5%, then DRAMATICALLY Drops after 1900. Very effective, wouldn’t you say?….
Racial population 1AD to 2100AD of World
Fratricide tends to that result. Who knew?
Draft registration to go automatic for all men.
You WILL serve your masters.
Lawmakers move to automate Selective Service registration for all men
Defense News com
” But the number of individuals who have skipped registering has increased in recent years, in large part because registration options were removed from the federal student loan process two years ago. That had accounted for nearly a quarter of all registrations in prior years.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., sponsored the automatic registration language and called it both a money-saving and common-sense reform. “
Memorial Day is to remember those who died.
Veteran’s, Armistice, Remembrance Day, whatever you may call it, is to remember that we got whipped up into a frenzy to wreck Europe and kill our own cousins, not once but twice. May we remember how we got fooled, may we remember who goaded us into it, may we remember who benefited. Even the date reminds us of those who died at the end of the war over nothing, and the flaws of our people we need to overcome.
I don’t mind talking to people that were in the military like they’re normal human beings, but I don’t have anything to thank them for and I sure as hell won’t let anyone thank me. I’m just glad that I had no part in anything that got our people killed or helped justify bringing in invaders from the countries we’ve been at war with.
The public displays of respect for the military only help train future generations to respect an enemy institution. Young men will still join like they always have, it’s understandable, but it’s time we grow up and take some responsibility. It’s clearly not about protecting/defending our country anymore and I won’t be part of The Lie.
And something to keep in the back of your mind — the words serve, service come from the Latin for slave.
Decoration Day is what the oldsters called it. I like that better.
https://nitter.privacydev.net/wayotworld/status/1794017257716146318#m
You have a familiar prose. I think you wrote some very important truths. This one line has ominous implications for the whole complex IMO.
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), chapter 5:
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.”
Race under globalizing conditions (ironically started by white people), who knows what can happen or what is best? I consider history and am unable to think of a more emasculated and worthless demographic of men than the great white American christian cuckservative. That gene pool has some serious if not irredeemable issues. I would not object to injecting some savage or otherwise alien DNA into the white gene pool to kill off the sentimentality genes from one and a half millennia of breeding under loser-hero-role-model Jesus. It seems that Christianity is genetically putrid at this point, which would explain a lot.
Only by submission to the organic process can biological power be endowed. Centralized control makes organically pointless cogs of men who are merely transitory cells in a societal organism that perverts everything, lastly itself. The orgy of every man for himself is cruel, but the results of small granularity ecological selection are always better than the results of large granularity ecological selection. Such may be inferred from Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene.
Anyway, I know how I would overcome those flaws, my bane, if I could. Flaws are just flaws to me. I don’t color code human garbage. Yes, there are certainly racial tendencies, and I don’t deny that. I simply believe the culture war is over and the culture genocide is not only here but inevitable. 99% of white people are garbage. (I welcome other estimates. Could be interesting.) I don’t see how to salvage them. I think only a mass die-off of humanity can reboot human greatness. What of Western philosophy can survive that? The corruption of the pragmatic Romans took a thousand years of Middle Ages to burn out. The organic process is on a scale we have difficulty comprehending. The sun will consume the earth in 5 billion years, so I hope mother nature will not endlessly fuck around, I guess.
If I am too preachy, I apologize. It’s a pet peeve of mine. I gave away my vital years to garbage posers who tricked me out of mine, and they are everywhere. Delay of the cleansing conflagration only makes the job tougher and the solution requirements bigger. Maybe humanity has peaked. Mother nature tires of her favorites.
There is no wiggle room in defining ‘we’ with the hole we are in. Less garbage = more human living space, better culture.
There is no honor in traveling abroad to murder a people who pose no threat to our nation , for a pack of lies, created to enrich and serve foreign interests aligned with international banking and the filthy military industrial complex…no honor at all… only shame
Americans have fought wars for two centuries, most of which were unnecessary and a waste of human life.
We should applaud those who did what they were supposed to do – even if they only did it for a job. They knew they could possibly die and went forward anyway.
Why, with our Constitution clearly saying we are a defensive proposition, do we continue to allow our elected officials to get us into situations where we kill our best young people?
How is it that ‘supporting our troops’ actually means finding places around the world, with notihng to do with defending the 50 member States, for killing Americans?
A memorial to those who have died in vain, my brothers in arms who did not come home.
May we recognize the blood on the hands of our Politicians and call it out.
Thank you for the great column. Too many people today have no idea of the sacrifices that are made by people that serve in the military. Some are minor but many are not.
we already have!
“There is no new thing under the Sun?
🤣 SSDY
“The paymaster has not a single dollar in hand” General George Washington wrote to the president of the Continental Congress John Hancock while conducting the Siege of Boston in 1776. A variation of this line permeated throughout the next seven years of war, as Washington, the Continental Congress, and the various states struggled to pay the soldiers that won American independence.
With the move toward creating a Continental army after the actions in Massachusetts, the Continental Congress set the pay for the first non-New England recruits. These riflemen, hailing from Pennsylvania and Virginia, that served as privates would be paid $6.67 per calendar month. As the year 1775 unfolded, captains in Continental service would earn $20 a month and the pay would increase as the ranks did, with a colonel collecting $50 per calendar month.”
Soldier Pay in the American Revolution
“The next morning on Friday, June 20, the State House was mobbed by as many as 400 soldiers demanding payment. The soldiers blocked the door and initially refused to allow the delegates to leave. Alexander Hamilton, a delegate from New York, persuaded the soldiers to allow Congress to meet later to address their concerns. The soldiers allowed the members of Congress to peacefully adjourn that afternoon.[3] That evening, a small Congressional committee headed by Hamilton met in secret to draft a message to the Pennsylvania Council, asking them to protect Congress from the mutineers. The letter threatened that Congress would be forced to move elsewhere if the Council did not act.[2]
Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783 – Wikipedia
AND? If Ya really wanna laugh?
Finances of George Washington – Wikipedia
So many men died in vain it is disgusting.
Too many men died in vain. Just look around.
All men have died in vain who believed not upon the only begotten Son of God. It’s a VERY large club. Appallingly so.
You can’t save them all.
I appreciate that you were taught and believed you were doing the right thing but you’ve been redcoats since the “Civil War”. Nobody has fought for my freedom since maybe the war of 1812.- and they were fighting against people just like you.
Here’s the kicker, America has bullied every nation on earth at one point or another. The day is coming when Americans will have to defend their own soil from hordes of foreign military aged invaders from within and direct kinetic war from without.
I can feel it in my bones that we will wake up one morning and realize we are under attack. Will there be an army to defend American soil? Will we be able to stop a military invasion of America? Have they so decimated our military to the point that we will find ourselves defenseless against the horde?
Happy Memorial Day – I think I’ll sit this one out.
War, huh good God y’all What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it, say it, say it War, huh Oh-ohh yeah, huh What is it good for? Absolutely nothing Listen to me!
That’s like old hippy tunes from Woodstock.
Never doubt the ability of a .30ish caliber black powder discharged from behind a tree no less. And the accuracy ? Right between the eyes.
“We” fight if provoked yet don’t go snooping around the globe looking to feed the MIC.
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=26659.0
Don’t Shame The Day, you say? Sorry, broheim. We shit that particular bunk the day we officially departed Vietnam. Veterans coming home in civilian cloths to avoid being spat upon by the very people they were fighting to protect. I was 10 years old and I SAW IT HAPPEN…at National Airport in DC.
Hum, you some sort of spring chicken. Didn’t get a lotto number.
There’s ALWAYS a war to get involved in somewhere if that’s what you’re into.
Cornering the Heroin Market, and securing future tennis shoe Mfg. facilities.
for men brainwashed in those mid east rendezvous with the idea of “defending freedom”. A lot of Americans whether serving or not were also brainwashed. That is the kind of news at 6PM after a hard day at the office.
The japs did a good job of brainwashing the kamikazes. And a opium pipe before takeoff could have made them feel nothing on impact. Have no fear they were told. Try this new strain.
Don’t let the bastards get you down. She matters to me , and I won’t let her go !
Oh beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife
Who more than self, our country loved
And mercy more than life
America, America, may God thy gold refine
‘Til all success be nobleness
And every gain devined
And you know when I was in school We used to sing it something like this, listen here
Oh beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain
But now wait a minute, I’m talking about America, sweet America
You know, God done shed his grace on thee
He crowned thy good, yes he did, in a brotherhood
From sea to shining sea
Ray Charles
America The Beautiful – YouTube
SF MFF MDE 15sec 640×480 FINAL (youtube.com)