VIETNAM VETS DESERVE IT AND THE BURNS BUDGET GIVES IT TO US NICE AND HARD

[Jeffersons Ghost]

On the Burns Amendment

How nice for us vets, a $795 million increase from our fearless draft-dodging leader.

Republican Senator Larry Craig just said "there today, there tomorrow," but Senator Patty Murry claims there will be no actual funding without radically increasing co-payments and fees. The Republican budget is based on new "fees and co-payments charged to veterans."

As us messed up Nam vets get older, non-service related injuries emerge as one of the issues but those type injuries were covered when they swore us in during that "police action." I mean, why the new deal? The primary target of this budget is middle or high income vets who use the services. Should the government now renege on commitments made to veterans at enlistment?

Danial Akaka is opposed to the "user fee for simply choosing VA as a provider" imposed on middle income veterans. He also finds it unfair that my middle income comrades-in-arms are targets of a rapidly increasing VA expense, resulting from a war based on a lie. I know it was only Nam, not some fancy high-tech action that we call a "war" but please tell me, Mr. President, wasn't four years long enough for us to serve as a target?

[TomInTib]

1. I wonder if they would let us on college campuses?

Intead of "The One Hour Orgasm", our theme could be "The Forty Year Fuck".

When I read about this last week I just had to put it away until I could see straight again.

Bastards.

[MindPilot]

2. That's fer damn sure

Most of us hadn't lowered our right hands before they starting fucking us. I hope anyone who is thinking about joining now understands that even if they do make it back to the world in one piece, the military has no intention of honoring their side of the contract.

[TomInTib]

4. From what I have been hearing, these guys are...

more fucked from the get-go than we were.

I read the other day about this gunner (howitzer) who had both of his legs taken off while escorting (on foot) a convoy of Hummers.

They have aircraft mechanics looking for IEDs.

When I graduated at the top of my class in Navigation school, I was told I could pick any ship anywhere in the world for duty assignment. So I did (oh, man, this Texan was headed to Hawaii!).

Then the fucking Navy sent me off for two tours on a PBR (Patrol Boat, river) on the Qua Viet with the 2nd Marine.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

9. aircraft mechs! LOL

Those guys were good if we needed work on a P-3 but I don't think we want them looking for IED boobie-traps.

You were an easy mark on those river boats... Instead of body armor they should have pinned a "target" on your shirt!

After boot-camp they pinned this little wingy AC thing on my uniform and sent me to a squadron in Jax because I wanted to be a Seal... LOL, there's the ticket... you gotta ask for the jungle to get sent to live at the beach.

[TomInTib]

12. Maybe that's where I went wrong....

or maybe the War Gods mixed up and you and I got each other's shit.

Didn't you know why Rivereens refused to wear shirts?

Because they DID have targets on 'em, that's why.

I still sometimes wonder how I made it.

[Stinky The Clown]

16. Hahahaha .... that was your first mistake ...... QM school

I was the consummate skater .... volunteered in boot camp (Great Lakes in January .... brrrrrr) as a compartment cleaner ..... the other guys marched in the morning and risked frost bite ..... me and a few other smart asses were able to stay in the barracks, clean toilets and smoke at will. At the end of boot camp, our DI told us we were the smart ones.

Then I went to SK A-school in Newport. No SK in Viet Nam ever got further than Da Nang. I never even got there cuz we were a critical rate fleet wide keeping the canned hams and 50 cals flowing up the supply line.

[TomInTib]

17. If I was gonna do it again...

Postal Clerk.

'Course, in Iraq, they probably have PCs looking for IED, too.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

19. Orlando was nice in the spring

But I didn't skate... I can remember to this day how proud I was to be appointed as a squad leader in boot-camp... The AW job in Jax had some perks too but not cool :sarcasm: stuff like going shirtless on a patrol boat as Charlie made the water boil with machine gun fire like other Navy service people. What kind of boat did Kerry command, a "swift boat?"

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. yes it pisses me off too

I'm not sure what "The One Hour Orgasm" is but I'm real familiar with the other quote. What is that One Hour thing Tom?

I think what little body armor actually makes it to Iraq will save lives but these low-yield explosive traps they're using in the Mid-East will create new VA patients at a MUCH higher rate than we saw with Nam.

[TomInTib]

5. Oh, that was some fad book a few years back...

they were holding seminars and stuff. I only used that as a comparable slogan.

Hey, JG, read my response to MindPilot above.

At least we were (mostly) doing what we had been trained to do. Just nobody told us how really shitty the whole thing would be. Can you imagine what it would have been like if we had had internet and satphones over there?

Man, these concussion casualties are never gonna get right. As you know, there are so many guys coming home alive today that would have been bagged in our time.

And it is only gonna get worse.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

14. LOOKY WHAT I FOUND! no more body bags!

I didn't know we were "selling anti-war" with all those body bags comming back, did you Tom? I guess we bought a bunch of anti-war, if we paid for it with body bags from Nam... Hmmm, on second thought, maybe we needed more body-bags because war marches on.

I hope new widows can afford to burry them. I heard they cut the widows survivor benefit with Social Security.

Here's a nice song by a band called Fish, that I reworked:

Yeah, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again.
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way out yonder in Iran
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Reminds me of Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance has come at last.
Gotta go get those towel-heads —
The only good Muslim is one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'um all to kingdom come.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Huh!
Well, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray if they drop some nukes,
They don’t drop it on our own troops.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Reminds me of Vietnam.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

Well, come on mothers, now don’t be sad
Pack your boys off to Baghdad.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
And it's one, two, three
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is in Iran.
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.

[TomInTib]

18. That's pretty danged good..

Joe McDonald would appreciate it.

[hippywife]

28. That would be

"Country Joe McDonald and The Fish"

http://www.countryjoe.com/

He is still out there giving them hell, too! :hi:

[Sapere aude]

6. We are "our boys" until it comes time to put money where the mouth is

Saying you support the troops is just saying words. Anyone who agreed to take a bullet for his/her fellow citizens, even though the war was the wrong thing for the country to do, deserves more from those citizens than words.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. welcome to DU

Thanks for your heart-felt comments Sapere... This little cartoon will take a few minutes to load on dial-up but you'll feel like Neo in The MATRIX after you see it. Please keep in mind VA funding is not in what has currently become a $500 BILLION defense budget to the Pentagon. http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/
"One cookie equals $10 Billion."

[blondeatlast]

10. Amen, and welcome to DU.

:toast:

[astonamous]

22. I have a sign in my car window that say almost that same thing.

The sign says, "Supporting our troops is more than a magnetic ribbon on the back of your SUV".

I was behind a vehicle yesterday that had 5 different magnetic ribbons on the back. No one of them said, "Bring them home".

[Jeffersons Ghost]

27. that's what yellow ribbons meant when the song became a hit in '73

Right after they stopped drafting for Nam in '73, yellow ribbons weren't reich-wing badges to support war, they were peace signs.
Where's your Daddy, little girl?

[flpoljunkie]

8. "Support the Troops" by using them for photo-ops and screwing them

at every opportunity-- no body armour, no robot-controlled IED blaster, and no health care when you get out of Rummy's military.

Screw you, Rummy!

[Jeffersons Ghost]

32. the Republican policies will destroy enlistment

the DRAFT, however, won't be affected

[blondeatlast]

11. K&R. Let's have a couple more to show them who REALLY gives a damn

about our soldiers.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Will they also turn away the guys who are REALLY still fucked up .....

.... and homeless (STILL) ...... and jobless (STILL) ..... and suffering from a panoply of mental disabilbilities (STILL).

I'm among the lucky. I don't need VA services. For that I thank God. But to this day .... several generations pased ..... we STILL have Viet Nam vets on the streets

There is NO basis whatever for any current or former military to support this bunch of fuckwits for ANYTHING.

User fees? My fucking ass.

Sunzabitches ......

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. READ THIS PLEASE! this posting is dedicated to our dead

I just got this in PM:

Maybe they can give us medals instead medical care.

"As ComWestPac walked to the bottom of the gangway, I could tell he was pissed. They had asked us to clean up, etc. Well, fuck that. He knew me because he had given us medals before. Warner was there to give us a Presidential Unit Citation. We weren't real thrilled because of the 9 guys getting the medal 4 were not there (dead). And we already had so much hardware it just didn't matter anymore. We wanted our buddies back.

And that Citation? It is with all the rest of them; midway off a span under the San Francisco Bay Bridge. I can see the bridge from my parking deck. May they rest in Peace for eternity. Same for 63 of the bravest guys who ever lived- my guys. I can barely see the keys as I type this. Some things will never change."

Those are not the words of Jeffersons Ghost but these words must haunt us as we allow our government to spend $500 BILLION on defense each year. At least many of the Democrats are veterans but the true heroes of democracy scream at us from the grave: "THE INSANITY MUST END!"

[radio4progressives]

15. Keep this high on the radar..

:kick::kick::kick::kick:

:hi: :cry: :loveya: :cry:

[blondeatlast]

21. K, continued. Please, keep it up there, DU! nt

[knitter4democracy]

23. This enrages me.

As I get ready to send another helmet liner to a soldier in Afghanistan, I can't believe how badly we treat our troops. I almost cried on Sunday night when, on West Wing, President Bartlett asked what coats the soldiers would wear. You can tell our administration has never asked that kind of question. Our soldiers don't even get enough socks, and our med units don't get enough scrubs or laundry facilities to clean them.

Check out anysoldier.com and tell me where our nation is headed. It's disgusting--they give their lives and futures to serve a nation they love only to get shat on when they're there and after they get home.

I'm thinking of heading over to the VA hospital in town to visit some of the vets there and find out what they need. Any ideas? I'm going to pass it on to the people at church--we have a WWII vet for a deacon and several other vets.

[0007]

30. ....and they wonder why enlistment numbers are low.

The VA hospital in Big Springs Texas is looking more like a funeral parlor than a hospital these days.

[knitter4democracy]

31. Don't get me started.

Our VA isn't too bad, but seriously, the vets get mostly crappy care in most VA hospitals. My hubby did some training in Cleveland's when he was in residency, and he was shocked by some things, and he's hard to shock.

It's so freakin' bad it's going to take ages for us to fix.

[Stinky The Clown]

24. Kick again (n/t)

[blondeatlast]

25. Passed the Senate 100-0.

(snip)
Conrad called the boost in veterans' funding "meritorious," however, and voted in favor of it. Along with other members of his party, Conrad also voted for a Democratic amendment that would increase veterans funding by closing corporate tax loopholes. That amendment was rejected.
(snip)

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/03/14/news/state/25-veterans-amendment.txt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

26. yep it passed

The article concludes with; Montana's other senator, Democrat Max Baucus, said the vote was "bittersweet" because even more money should be provided for veterans.

"While the Senate nixed enrollment fees and copays, which is good, it didn't provide the dollars we really need," he said.

added on edit: Without those fees and co-pays it's another Republican shell game, not a budget but we can't have that top 3% of wealth holders suffering with the same taxes most people in America pay so let's leave those loop-holes open for them.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

29. since I can no longer edit my last entry... I'll add some info here

I've been using the Tuscaloosa VA for years and before Bush, we had a Rapid Care clinic, which was like an emergency room, only faster service and it's now closed down from lack of funding.

In earlier times, they never had us fill out forms that ask how satisfied we are with VA services and they started that new policy in the past few months so propagandists can say we're receiving better care and are more satisfied with VA services.

In the old days no one cared much about our income but today I must send in some new paperwork to prove I'm poor enough to qualify for my meds and being 100% disabled, I qualify. This program started about the same time as those "Satisfaction" forms began appearing.

All this from a president who is strong on defense?

[AndyA]

33. I'm speechless.

This is how we treat our veterans? Our heros who went out to defend our country, like it or not, leaving behind their friends and families, and we can't even provide basic medical care and support for them.

Meanwhile, our fat cat Senators get nice pensions, benefits, and perks for life!

It's a disgrace. How they can stand up in front of the world and tell us to support our troops, and then turn around and do this to them is beyond me. I guess I'll have to lower my expectations of our government even more, although I'm not sure that's possible.

To all the Viet Nam vets out there, as well as all the others who have served, THANK YOU for your service to America. The American people, every one of us, owe so much to you for your bravery.

YOU ARE ALL HEROS