Veterans are a useful bunch of folks. They fought our wars and kept the country safe.
Twice a year — Memorial Day (war dead) and Veterans Day (all veterans) — we trot our veterans out and honor them, but the rest of the time we disrespect and abuse them.
Marines engaged in close combat, hand-to-hand training.
The proper young combat engineer lieutenant overseas. Me.
If you are of a certain age, your life was ordered by the draft. If you are younger — the vast majority of those reading this are — or a woman, you have no idea what that means. That is not intended to be judgmental. Continue reading
Respect to all veterans on Veterans Day!
“I, Jeffrey L Minch, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
I took the above oath in 1969 when I matriculated at the Virginia Military Institute at the height of the Vietnam War. I took it again when I was commissioned a Regular Army Second Lieutenant in the Combat Engineers four years later. Continue reading
I was at Lowes today buying a dehumidifier for a little stone repair I am in the midst of. It seems that water got behind some Carrera marble and some pinwheel stone flooring and I have to suck it out using a huuuuuuge dehumidifier. So, I park at the Veterans Parking Spaces at Lowes.
I love that Lowes has parking spaces reserved for veterans and provides a 10% Veterans Discount. Well played, Lowes.
I do my business and I get my 10% veterans discount. I return to my vehicle with my $300 dehumidifier.
There are several other cars parked in the spaces. One is a Jeep looking SUV with a Bronze Star on its license plate. I witness a conversation.
The Bronze Star recipient and another gentleman, whose age suggested he was a Vietnam War Era veteran, strike up a conversation. I listen to it as I’m stuffing my enormous humidifier in my truck.
They have a nice chat. If you have never been in the Army, you don’t understand that soldiers when they meet compare where they were and what units they served with. It’s a soldier thing.
The Bronze Star guy had been awarded his medal for valor in Iraq.
Big Red Car here on a rainy Austin By God Texas day, a Veterans Day.
Today in church, the minister asked veterans to rise and he had some kind words for all of us veterans.
It brought to mind Isaiah 6:8:
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”
Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
The veteran is the man (or woman) who upon hearing the voice of the nation asking the same question, says, “Send me. Send me to do what is necessary to protect freedom, to vanquish evil, to free the oppressed. Send me.”
Big Red Car here on a lovely sunny Sunday morning to discuss a somber subject. Suicide.
We never really know what demons another person is wrestling with. I have come to realize that everybody has their demons. Nobody is demon free.
The toxic culture at the Veterans Administration is finally getting some overdue attention. Bravo!
Big Red Car here on an incredibly beautiful Texas day. Will be hot, sunny, and Texas. On Earth as it is in Texas, y’all!
So, big things going on over at the Veterans Administration. Finally!
In late June, the President signed the Veterans Administration Accountability bill codifying some simple commonsense changes to an organization with a toxic culture which falsified records resulting in veterans not receiving timely care and employees receiving performance related bonuses based on bogus information. Not a good thing. One would that fraud in most instances, financial fraud. The kind of fraud folks go to jail for, but not at the VA.
The Union — can you believe that government employees at the VA are union members? — says it is a wholesale assault on Federal workers to which the Big Red Car says, “Bravo! About time!”
Veterans Day after Election Day feels a little different to me. The Boss is a veteran as were both of his parents. He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute — a hard place to be but a good place to be from.
Every veteran in America is in a better position today than they were on Monday. We have a chance that the Veterans Administration will get sorted out and that we will have a Commander-in-Chief who will actually respect and act on behalf of veterans other than on Veterans Day.
I should have a lot more to say but that about summarizes it.
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