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
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.
Veterans have a special attachment to the American flag. Allow me to explain why.
Big Red Car here in a cloudy Austin By God Texas day with some reflections from a veteran on the flag of our great country. This is written to explain how enraged veterans may be over recent events which they interpret to be disrespectful to the flag under which they served and, by reference, disrespectful to them. The Big Red Car is not doing missionary work here, not trying to espouse a view, but trying to provide information for you to be able to understand how a veteran might feel about this.
“I want you to see how this became about the flag, the Star-Spangled Banner, veterans, and patriotism. It is not an illogical conclusion,” said your Big Red Car.
Firstly, this controversy was initiated by NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he sat down and then, subsequently, took a knee during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner at the start of a San Francisco 49ers game (26 August 2016) . He explained his action thusly, “I AM NOT GOING TO STAND UP TO SHOW PRIDE IN A FLAG FOR A COUNTRY THAT OPPRESSES BLACK PEOPLE AND PEOPLE OF COLOR.”
His words are the glue that attaches his protest to the flag. The flag was being displayed during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. There is no necessity to look for linkages to the flag and the Star-Spangled Banner, they were there from the beginning. They were put there by Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick went on to say, “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
In this manner, Kaepernick drew attention to the idea that policemen killing innocent people should not be tolerated. He fleshed this out in numerous statements which identified specific police killings of black men.
Let’s stop for a second and reason together. Regardless of whether one agrees with Kaepernick’s actions, is there anyone in favor of cops killing black men? As a foundation value, that is not particularly controversial. Nobody wants cops killing anybody, if it can be avoided.
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 — one more attempt to screw our veterans? Shall we?
Big Red Car here. No niceties about the weather (OK, 62F low, 84F high, sunny as Hell) today.
The Pentagon is not a friend to our veterans. That is no revelation if you’ve ever served in the Army. You knew this.
The Pentagon can spend years gazing at their hairy navels to determine what you should call a rifleMAN which is non-threatening and accommodating to gender norming (haha, that’s an actual thing, did you know that?) while soldiers have been calling them GRUNTS for almost a century, but they cannot solve a problem they created.
Their answer, as it always is, is to SCREW OUR VETERANS.
Big Red Car here. Sunup not quite here but it will be shortly and it will be bringing the warmth of a Texas winter.
So, Donald Trump skips the Republican debate in Iowa and instead stages a veterans event raising $6,000,000 for veterans?
You OK with that?
Let me be a bit as crass as Trump — I am perfectly fine with rich people giving money to veterans but I am more than a little pissed off with the way Donald Trump used veterans as a personal imprimatur.
Let me tell you about that.
Happy Veteran’s Day, y’all, from the Big Red Car here in the ATX.
Three important data points for you today.
Veteran’s Day — 11 November every year
The founding of Austin by God, Texas — 11 November 1839.
The founding of the Virginia Military Institute — 11 November 1839. Continue reading
Big Red Car here. The Boss is on the road again and is attending the Veterans Day parade in New York City while me and the housesitter are having our own little celebration. And why not?
The Boss has a funny view of things as it relates to being a Veteran. His Father, his Mother and he are all Veterans. His Father is 96 years old and is retired from the Army. So The Boss’s interest in the military is the family business kind of interest.
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