The flip side of Veterans Day

You hope those above you will not waste or misuse it. - Fixer

I appreciate thanks for my service from other Veterans and some other folks as well, but I come from a time when there were signs that said "Dogs and Marines keep off the lawn", when military service was reviled or at best ignored, and frankly I think the Repug militarism that has made people thank us now is a crock of shit. I have told people "Bullshit. Where were you forty years ago when thanks might have mattered?" and it shocks them, shocks them I say! Maybe I'm just an irascible old fart, or maybe I see hypocrisy under color of 'patriotism'.

Vietnam was less of a criminal act than Bush's War For Iraq's Oil. The difference now is that nobody blames the troopers for it or for going where their overlords send them. I suppose that's a good thing.

Here's the last coupla verses from Rudyard Kipling's "Tommy". He knew.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

You fuckin' well bet Tommy sees. He sees a country that begrudges him anything after he's no longer in service, that wants to privatize and charge him for medical care, that sees a vet living under a bridge from PTSD and claims he has a 'pre-existing personality defect' that his own service used to deny him benefits and help, that tries to rip off his death benefits from his family, that offers him a GI Bill and puts up obstacles to keep him from getting his lawful due, that employers think he's a mental case and won't hire him, that throws him away like so much trash when he's no longer of use to the Military Industrial Complex. In short, "no pull trigger, no get food".

Lip service. When all is said and done about Veterans, more's been said than done.

That said, I got my Veterans' benefits at a time when there was no concentrated demand for them and the VA was struggling to find enough Vets who needed them to stay in some other business besides geriatrics. Now that there's a huge surge in demand it's all about begrudging spending the money and our nation and Vets are the poorer for it.