I would like to thank Anthony Criner for bringing up this subject the other day, which prompted me to search for this quote.
President Theodore Roosevelt
“A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.”
Have you ever noticed in the news how often the U.S. Government drops the ball when it comes to returning veterans?
We have a state-of-the-art life SAVING system, but then when the recuperation phase is entered, there is this sudden silence that only hears the echoes of the questions the veteran has about the future, usually with no reply at all from the government. If there is an answer, it is to say “wait, we have it all under control, but hey, we lost that form we asked you for again, would you please resubmit?”
The despair, anger, and helplessness our veterans feel is totally justified. Veterans who came back in one piece have regaled me with stories of going to the V.A. for a simple checkup and being postponed after they arrived and waited a few hours, or having appointments rescheduled after being initially made just to fill some government quota after one of the numerous investigations.
Since they see a different doctor every time, the wrong medication that the patient showed an allergic reaction to was prescribed again, and the list of failures goes on and on.
It is more than just a shame that the government can’t be trusted with this sacred obligation. This is not to say that all the workers in the system do not care, but it seems anything the government tries on a large scale leaves Americans falling through the cracks, sometimes to their deaths.
Only after statistics were compiled of the many who died from suicide or neglect has there been any attention paid to what to do about this epidemic. But now it is too late for them. Let us hope their second sacrifice is not in vain.
Will they just apply another government brand financial bandage and hope the bleeding stops, or will they actually CURE the system? Past lessons learned from all previous administrations don’t leave a lot of hope of a real fix. That is why we need an organization like the Disabled American Veterans.
From the DAV website:
Fulfilling our promises to the men and women who served.
“We are dedicated to a single purpose: empowering veterans to lead high-quality lives with respect and dignity. We accomplish this by ensuring that veterans and their families can access the full range of benefits available to them; fighting for the interests of America’s injured heroes on Capitol Hill; and educating the public about the great sacrifices and needs of veterans transitioning back to civilian life.”
Links to this greatly needed organization will be included in the show notes. It is a travesty that the government is so inept that it requires private concerns to force it to do its duty for those who did their duty so well. Tell a veteran today how much you appreciate the freedom their sacrifices have made possible, and do what you can to help.
Theodore Roosevelt in Wikipedia
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Hillary Clinton Former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State of the United States
“I don't think feminism, as I understand the definition, implies the rejection of maternal values, nurturing children, caring about the men in your life. That is just nonsense to me.”
I fondly remember my grandmother. She never had a driver’s license, she worked hard all her life in the home raising kids and keeping house. She had 12 pregnancies, and 10 of the children lived to adulthood.
When she was in her 80’s I interviewed her on camera and learned a lot of things about how she was raised, how she met my grandfather and the struggles of raising so many children in coal mining communities. When there was a strike in the mines, sometimes they had the spend the night in the woods with all the babies. Hard times.
I asked her if there was anything she regretted about her life, something she wished was different. I expected something like having more money, a nicer house, etc. What she said really shocked me.
“I wish I could have kept on having babies.” In today’s society many times it is looked down on if a woman “settles for” being a homemaker, but my grandmother reveled in it. She was completely content and happy in that role. A totally fulfilled and successful life.
Many ladies decide to make other choices. To marry, not to marry, to have babies or not, to go and get that dream career, or start their own businesses and be their own bosses. The key here is they decide.
There are options available today that my grandmother couldn’t even conceive of. Before marriage, she had been living on a prosperous farm owned by her grandparents. They even had their own coal mine. She chose however, to marry a poor coal miner, and to do so, had to move from Kentucky to West Virginia to begin her new role. She made her choice about her own life, and if she were alive today, she would still have no regrets.
Isn’t that what feminism is all about? Not becoming what other people, men or women, tell you to be, but having the freedom to become what you really want to be?
Ladies, it’s time to take the world by storm, and you are free to do it anywhere and any way you want to.
Ani DiFranco
“My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.”
Hillary Clinton on Biography.com
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I would like to say again how much I appreciate the band Portal for allowing me the use of their fantastic music in the production of Daggers Of The Mind. Check out their website at
http://portalpraise.homestead.com/
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