WAKE-UP Call from CHUCK CALL SUICIDE

[Jeffersons Ghost]

According to CNN, after receiving a letter saying he didn't qualify for benefits from a drastically underfunded VA, honorably discharged Iraq veteran Chuck Call took his own life, saying "Hell is better" than living with my memories. Did anyone see my post this week about how Republican Senators are funding the VA by passing along the radically increased expenses of care to veterans?

[Coexist]

1. sometimes I think it is not right to hate people

then I read something like this.


:grr:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

3. this one is for Cindy and Vietnam Veterans Against War

It's a very meager turn-out so far.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Those repukes who underfund the VA

will meet the soldiers like this poor soul when the repukes meet their Maker. May Chuck Call find peace in the afterlife.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

4. I don't care what religious fundies say

I believe Divinity knows its own and we are judged on how we lived, not what we believe or how we died.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. I agree

and would offer to you a Sufi story about the importance of good actions.

It is the duty of every Muslim who can afford it to go on Pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. As I understand it, there is great ceremony in doing Pilgrimage, and it is very difficult to do all ceremonies exactly right. One Pilgrimage, a Sufi shaykh had a dream that one Pilgrim made the perfect pilgrimage, and by doing so, blessed all who had gone to Mecca that year. The shaykh was told the man's name-he lived in a nearby town. The next day, the shaykh hurried to the house of the man, who was a merchant. The merchant invited the shaykh into his house. In the course of conversation, the shaykh asked about Pilgrimage.

The merchant looked surprised. "I didn't go on Pilgrimage this year," he said. "I was going to, but I discovered my neighbor, a fellow merchant, had lost everything when robbers struck his caravan. His family was starving. I took the money I was saving for Pilgrimage and gave it to him instead."

[Jeffersons Ghost]

15. that's how religion should be used

in our world aye, to help humanity, instead of as an excuse to kill others... for fundies: the exact wording is "THOW SHALT NOT KILL."

[electropop]

10. May Chuck Call be well armed and armored in the afterlife.

Though I doubt he's going to run into The Dick and the Chimp; they're going in the other direction.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

20. but the fools don't have to wait!

Maybe HEAVEN CAN WAIT for Warren Beaty but that pair of idiots are about to get Hell on Earth electropop!
Can you find the mark of the Beast on these two faces?

[AndyA]

5. So this is how Bush and the Republicans support our troops?!?!?!?

How awful! How disgraceful that our country will not stand behind our troops.

God bless Mr. Call - he is surely in a better place, now...

[Jeffersons Ghost]

6. welcome to DU andy

Here's how they treat us: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2513387&mesg_id=2513387 What do you think of this brief thread? I bet we'll be seeing alot more posts on this Chuck Hall suicide on DU, so we might want to get up on the details.

[AndyA]

9. Thanks for the welcome - I'm shocked at what's going on

And as an American, I'm ashamed that we aren't doing more for our veterans. There's simply no excuse for it, especially since there is so much waste in other areas.

I was just a kid during the Viet Nam years, but I remember a friend of mine down the street was sitting on the curb in front of his house crying one day. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me his Mom had told him that Steve, his older brother who was serving in Viet Nam, wouldn't ever be coming back home. He'd been killed.

My friend, Mike, looked up to his older brother and admired him so much. I just sat down and cried with him. Mike was never the same after that, and in a way, neither was I. I remember Steve as a really great guy, who would always stop and talk to you even though you were so much younger. He helped fix bikes, and was always a really great guy. I remember Steve walked home with me one day after school, when a bully was after me. He told the bully if he laid a finger on anyone, he'd have to answer to him, and the bully was much more subdued after that.

Steve could have changed the world, had he been given the chance...

[Jeffersons Ghost]

14. Since war is the purest evil humans can achieve...

Why do people historically claim it's for Divinity?

[karynnj]

7. What's amazing was the Republican Senators voted down

the amendment (Kerry's) to not increase these fees. Sessions was the Republican who had a minute to speak on it - he spoke about supporting the troops, then said to vote against this.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

11. the only thing good about sessions being in DC is that...

I don't have to breath the same air as him, here in AL, but I don't want to send him back and the same goes for his partner in crime Shelby.

[karynnj]

22. He seems utterly unimpressive

How on earth did he ever get elected. My condolances on your Senators.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

25. With the worst schools in the nation, we can't afford to educate...

But we CAN afford Diebold Machines throughout Alabama!

[Minnesota Libra]

12. OMG, this is absolutely horrible!! Oh, that poor man!! I'm........

....speechless right now!!!:cry:

[Jeffersons Ghost]

17. of the threads I've posted at DU, this one is close to my heart

The guy came back and filed with the VA for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder} and they turned him away but it the story didn't claim it was for economic reasons... still no vet should be treated like this by a government he defended.

[Deja Q]

18. And real stories like that one are why nobody is signing up.

When will the twits in public office realize that people who sacrifice a lot for our country deserve every benefit they get.

Anything else is similar to using and discarding disposable tableware.

And what is why nobody is signing up. Americans are not that stupid. Not to see how little they're considered; indeed - how they're being pissed on.

[Missy Vixen]

13. This is wrong and every American should be outraged

How dare the chickenhawks who voted to underfund the VA get away with this? It should be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. After all, we heard ad nausaeum that * and the Republican Party "support the troops" -- well, at least till they need body armor, functioning equipment, nourishing food, or gosh, medical care and treatment after they return from Iraq.

This reminds me of those who can't wait to defend the "rights" of a cluster of cells, but don't give a damn about that child once they're born.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Chuck Call, and to the vets and their families who are now living with this nightmare.

Julie

[Rainscents]

16. This is down right disgusting!

Our Republican Senator's don't give a shit about our troops!!! I am very outrage and angry!!!

[alfredo]

19. Someone please supply a link as soon as it is poste.

I want to pass this on to my fellow vets.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

21. I still haven't found the hard copy but he's just one of many. read on

The Life and Death of an Iraq Veteran Who Could Take No More
by Andrew Buncombe


By his own admission Douglas Barber, a former army reservist, was struggling. For two years since returning from the chaos and violence of Iraq, the 35-year-old had battled with his memories and his demons, the things he had seen and the fear he had experienced. Recently, it seemed he had turned a corner, securing medical help and counselling.

But last week, at his home in south-eastern Alabama, the National Guardsman e-mailed some friends and then changed the message on his answering machine. His new message told callers: "If you're looking for Doug, I'm checking out of this world. I'll see you on the other side." Mr Barber dialled the police, stepped on to the porch with his shotgun and - after a brief stand-off with officers - shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

The death of Mr Barber is one of numerous instances of Iraqi veterans who have taken their own lives since the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein in spring 2003. Concern is such that the Pentagon has recently instigated new procedures for monitoring the mental health of returning troops. But his story would not have been told but for a group of determined activists and a British journalism student who was among the handful of people the reservist e-mailed just minutes before he killed himself.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0125-03.htm

[alfredo]

23. Too fucking sad.

I had a friend kill himself this Tuesday. It wasn't war related. but just as sad.

[Tsiyu]

24. We are not ready

for all of the victims of the neocons

[area51]

26. Republinazis cut finding for VA hospitals.

Republinazis truly hate Americans.

[eppur_se_muova]

27. Shouldn't recruitment be "pay as you go"? No new recruits until the Army..

has paid (fairly) for the care of those who have returned.

Didn't legislators used to be AFRAID to cut vet's benefits, because of voter backlash? They don't seem to be now. I think the right wing has succeeded in showing them that it's OK, politically, to treat recruits as disposable, just the way they regard all human beings outside their own tiny inbred circle as being of no worth. It's like the way they slowly made it "acceptable" to be racist, just as long as you speak in code and aren't so blatantly obvious about it that even the sheeple can see through the guise. (Thanks, St. Ronnie!)