He's no saint, either.
"Squabbles in Senate thwart $21b veterans benefits bill" by Alan Fram | Associated Press, February 28, 2014
WASHINGTON — A divided Senate derailed Democratic legislation on Thursday that would have provided $21 billion for medical, education, and job training benefits for the nation’s veterans. The bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and fresh penalties against Iran.
Yeah, somehow they could come together for veterans aid.
Related:
"The deal buoyed Wall Street investors. Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, concluded that as a result overall Pentagon spending will remain relatively the same for the next several years before it begins to grow once again, at about 2.5 percent per year."
You ever get the feeling that the "parti$an$hip" is only a convenient, finger-pointing excuse to give you for denying your wants and needs, Americans?
Each party covets the allegiance of the country’s 22 million veterans and their families, and each party blamed the other for turning the effort into a chess match aimed at forcing politically embarrassing votes.
Yeah, we see this all the time. Makes it look like they are doing something.
Republicans used a procedural move to block the bill after Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, chided GOP lawmakers about their priorities.
‘‘I personally, I have to say this honestly, have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for tax breaks for billionaires, for millionaires, for large corporations, and then say we don’t have the resources to protect our veterans,’’ said Sanders, the measure’s chief author.
Democrats noted that more than two dozen veterans groups supported the legislation. But Republicans said they still favor helping veterans while also wanting to be prudent about federal spending.
Oh, NOW they want to be prudent.
Republicans criticized how most of Sanders’ bill was paid for — with unspent money from the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and the winding down of American military involvement in Afghanistan.
Republicans also objected to provisions making more veterans without service-connected injuries eligible for treatment at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.
"Squabbles in Senate thwart $21b veterans benefits bill" by Alan Fram | Associated Press, February 28, 2014
WASHINGTON — A divided Senate derailed Democratic legislation on Thursday that would have provided $21 billion for medical, education, and job training benefits for the nation’s veterans. The bill fell victim to election-year disputes over spending and fresh penalties against Iran.
Yeah, somehow they could come together for veterans aid.
Related:
"The deal buoyed Wall Street investors. Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm, concluded that as a result overall Pentagon spending will remain relatively the same for the next several years before it begins to grow once again, at about 2.5 percent per year."
You ever get the feeling that the "parti$an$hip" is only a convenient, finger-pointing excuse to give you for denying your wants and needs, Americans?
Each party covets the allegiance of the country’s 22 million veterans and their families, and each party blamed the other for turning the effort into a chess match aimed at forcing politically embarrassing votes.
Yeah, we see this all the time. Makes it look like they are doing something.
Republicans used a procedural move to block the bill after Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, chided GOP lawmakers about their priorities.
‘‘I personally, I have to say this honestly, have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for tax breaks for billionaires, for millionaires, for large corporations, and then say we don’t have the resources to protect our veterans,’’ said Sanders, the measure’s chief author.
Democrats noted that more than two dozen veterans groups supported the legislation. But Republicans said they still favor helping veterans while also wanting to be prudent about federal spending.
Oh, NOW they want to be prudent.
Republicans criticized how most of Sanders’ bill was paid for — with unspent money from the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq and the winding down of American military involvement in Afghanistan.
Republicans also objected to provisions making more veterans without service-connected injuries eligible for treatment at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities.
--more--"
"Congress lacks veterans, empathy, critics say" by Kimberly Railey | Globe Correspondent March 14, 2014
WASHINGTON — When Senator John E. Walsh, an Iraq War veteran with 33 years of military service, was sworn into office last month, he expected that veterans’ issues could unite lawmakers, even in an atmosphere gripped by partisanship and gridlock.
But when the Senate derailed a sweeping bill to expand a host of post-military benefits two weeks later, on Feb. 27, Walsh saw how even an area that typically enjoys bipartisan support can crumble amid partisan acrimony. In addition to concerns over the package’s $21 billion cost, the legislation was defeated for an entirely unrelated reason: new penalties against Iran that Republicans sought.
Forgotten is the unemployment extensions the Democrats said they would take up right when they got back after the budget deal. Was covered for a couple of days, its defeat quietly covered, and then down the ma$$ media memory hole.
“If more men and women in the US Congress would have served or had family members that served, that bill would have passed,” Walsh, a Montana Democrat, said in an interview. “They would have realized that we’re talking about veterans and their families.”
Our nation is so militaristic.
The number of veterans serving in Congress is at its lowest point in nearly 40 years, even as America winds down its military presence overseas. There are 18 senators and 83 representatives who are veterans, according to data compiled by the American Legion, a veterans advocacy group.
And it has been worse.
But the defeat of the veterans bill in the Senate was mostly a party-line vote, with all Republicans who are veterans opposing the measure. The divide signals another marker of the polarization that has plagued the chamber in recent years: The political affiliation of senators trumps their shared military bonds, even on legislation for veterans’ benefits that many people across the political spectrum say is needed.
The bill, which would have provided medical, job-training, and education benefits to veterans, failed to secure enough Republican support in a 56 to 41 procedural budget vote that fell mostly along party lines.
While I don't oppose this for veterans, why are they the only group singled out for such treatment. Why must civilian Americans just suck it up?
The low numbers of veterans in Congress stem mainly from the transition to an all-volunteer force in 1973, and veterans advocates said they see legislative impact in the shrinking numbers. They said that lawmakers with military backgrounds are uniquely positioned to speak about veterans and national defense issues.
“It brings experience to the table on issues we’re facing,” said Kate O’Gorman, political director at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
The clash over the bill, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, reflects the stark and bitter divisions between the two major political parties....
Unless it is feeding the war machine, funding Israel, cutting foreign aid checks for coup support, propping up Wall Street, and maintaining lavish political lifestyles.
While Republicans and Democrats are usually quick to curry favor with nation’s 22 million veterans and their families, opposing Republicans raised objections over the bill’s funding mechanism, savings from military operations ending in Iraq and Afghanistan. They called that approach a budget gimmick, saying the money would not have been spent as the country’s military presence draws down.
As if they never used them!
“There a number of things that would be desirable in a perfect world, but we can’t afford all of them,” said Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican who served in the Air Force and the Air Force Reserve.
We can't afford a billion to the Ukraine, but its going there.
Republicans further criticized language that would have opened up Department of Veterans Affairs facilities to veterans without service-connected injuries, which they said would worsen wait times at clinics and the backlog of disability claims.
“It would make a system that’s having a hard time functioning collapse,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is in the Air Force Reserve.
Republicans demanded the opportunity to offer amendments, including a less expensive plan proposed by Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, that would have imposed new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program, an issue that has split some Democrats and the White House.
“The Republicans saw an opportunity to maybe cause a division between Democrats and politically embarrass the president,” Sanders said in an interview.
Last January, Sanders became chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, but his path to the position, in many ways, was unlikely. Sanders has maintained an antiwar stance since he first ran for Congress in 1971 and voted against going to war in Iraq in 2002.
Related: Licking the Pentagon
Like a good $ociali$t.
But Sanders said taking care of the men and women hurt in military conflicts is Congress’s obligation.
I agree, and it is the government that neglects damaged goods, not me -- and I would never have sent them off to war based on lies.
At one point in the 1970s, roughly four out of five members of Congress were veterans, mostly of World War II, according to the American Legion. Democratic Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who served in the Army Reserve in the Vietnam War, is the only member of the state’s delegation with military experience.
When John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat, announced last month that he would retire at the end of this year’s term, it meant that Congress will lose one of its only two World War II veterans.
Related: Jolly Sinks Democrats' House Hopes
“The veterans are going to be largely dependent on the members of Congress who are civilians,” Dingell said in an interview.
Lawmakers who served with more veterans say their shared military backgrounds fostered greater collaboration.
“We had good, strong voting power,” said the former senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican, World War II and Korean War veteran, and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
In a Congress stymied by gridlock, deal-making is much harder to achieve, even on a bill that Sanders emphasized has broad bipartisan support....
For Sanders to move his bill forward, he must secure three Republican votes. Walsh said lawmakers have paid a lot of “lip service” when it comes to veterans’ issues....
--more--"
At least they will get a wall:
"Iraq, Afghan veterans seek memorial for war without end" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff, December 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — Brian and Alma Hart of Bedford frequently visit marker 60-7892 at Arlington National Cemetery, the grave site of their son, who died when his unit was ambushed in Iraq in 2003.
Related: A Trip Through Arlington
But their visits to the capital area do not stop there. They also search for another, more prominent location to memorialize Private First Class John D. Hart — and the estimated 2.5 million of his comrades from America’s post-9/11 wars.
The Harts are part of a diverse movement of veterans and families seeking to establish a national memorial to honor those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their drive is fraught with complicated questions about the “global war on terrorism,’’ its open-ended nature, and the unpopular conflicts it spawned. In all, nearly 6,800 American soldiers have died since 2001 — more than 4,400 in Iraq and nearly 2,300 in Afghanistan.
Even though John Hart died a decade ago, the larger mission for which he sacrificed his life remains an unsettled, controversial chapter in American life.
“There is no great icon of victory because there is no clear victory in either war,” said Brian Hart. “There are iconic images of how these wars started, but not how they were fought or how they ended, if they ended at all.”
That is not deterring the Harts or others across the country who are starting to raise private donations, build grass-roots support, and seek sponsors in Congress, which to their frustration has yet to wade into the highly charged issue.
One organization is the National Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Memorial, a nonprofit group in West Virginia that has set a five-year goal to have a memorial dedicated in Washington.
“We haven’t progressed very far,” acknowledged Sanford Walters, a board member of the group, which was established in 2011.
But Walters, who served as an infantry officer in Vietnam, said he and his son, Nicholas, were drawn to the cause because of the touchstone that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been for him and others who served in Southeast Asia.
“We had our reunions in D.C. so we could go to the Wall and pay tribute to those who didn’t make it,” Walters said. “It is a very moving thing to have a special place to go. We haven’t established anything for the people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I had one tour, these people have had multiple tours.”
Establishing a national memorial also is part of the broader policy agenda of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the largest post-9/11 veterans group.
I'm so tired of the brainwashing and conventional myths in the name of military worship.
But its leaders acknowledge they are just beginning what promises to be a multiyear struggle, one that could prove more controversial and challenging than even the movement to establish the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
You would think they would wait until the wars were over.
**************************
The Commemorative Works Act of 1986 stipulates monuments cannot be erected until the conflict is over for at least 10 years.
Timothy Nosal, a spokesman for the American Battle Monuments Commission, which helped oversee the construction of memorials for World War II as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam, said the waiting period is designed to ensure sufficient time for proper reflection on a conflict’s place in American history.
“You have to see what happens with the history and how the history sorts itself out,” said Nosal, an Iraq war veteran.
I am history.
But how do you measure the completion of conflicts that were framed by political leaders as part of a wider struggle against Islamist terrorism, a mission with no clear ending?
“What are you memorializing? That is your basic issue,” said Jan Scruggs, one of the founders of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial who said he has been consulted by a diverse group about how to organize a post-9/11 war memorial.
For example, if the wars are to be memorialized as part of the larger struggle against Islamist terrorism, questions abound on what to include.
The searing and molding events of Zelikow shall live forever.
Related: ISRAEL DID 9/11
“Are we going all the way back to Beirut” in 1983, when Islamist terrorists killed 241 US Marines, asks Scruggs. “What about [the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia of] Khobar Towers” that killed 19 US servicemen? “Or are you just doing the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Should we have one for Iraq and one for Afghanistan? Are you going to [include] Operation Desert Storm,” the first US-led invasion of Iraq in 1991?
Kirk Savage, a professor of architecture at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the history of war memorials, agreed that choosing how to commemorate these modern conflicts will be uniquely vexing.
“If we are talking about the war on terrorism, there is no end date,” said Savage, author of the recent book “Monument Wars.’’
He also predicted the debate will open old wounds about whether the US invasion of Iraq was necessary.
While both conflicts “are clearly intertwined,” Savage said, there is a “huge amount of debate about one being a defensive war, the other a war of choice. All those debates will be dredged up again.”
The United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 for providing support to Al Qaeda terrorists who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and invaded Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
US forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, and most US forces — but perhaps not all — are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Most but perhaps not all?
Bureaucratic and practical obstacles also abound.
***************************
Scruggs, who served as a corporal in Vietnam, said he believes the veterans of America’s post-9/11 wars need a memorial as much or more than his generation did.
“The only people who are suffering are the ones who went over there and what they need is the type of national recognition a national memorial brings,” he said. “Most people want to forget these wars.”
That's not true. The victims are also those of us at home under a war economy built on lies.
--more--"
Related: Fairhaven in shock at death of hometown US Marine
Why? Because the government and papers are telling you the war is over? Or because people just believe such things won't happen to them? When will they wake up?
Fairhaven Marine’s body is returned to Mass.
Fairhaven marine with ever-present smile remembered
Abington Marine killed in combat in Afghanistan
The war is supposed to be winding down and we are not supposed to be in combat anymore, but you know....
Body of Abington Marine returned to hometown
More than 1,000 attend wake for Abington Marine
Funeral held for Abington Marine killed in Afghanistan
In Afghan war’s twilight, two farewells in Mass.
Mass. veterans look to treatment court for help
Veterans’ treatment court opens in Boston
I'm all for taking care of veterans, but a separate civilian justice system for them smells like fa$ci$m.
“We cannot arrest and incarcerate our way out of the many problems that we face,” said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. “Accountability takes many forms, and what justice and the public safety require is not always a jail cell.”
Tell it to the black kids and nonviolent drug offenders!
"Congress lacks veterans, empathy, critics say" by Kimberly Railey | Globe Correspondent March 14, 2014
WASHINGTON — When Senator John E. Walsh, an Iraq War veteran with 33 years of military service, was sworn into office last month, he expected that veterans’ issues could unite lawmakers, even in an atmosphere gripped by partisanship and gridlock.
But when the Senate derailed a sweeping bill to expand a host of post-military benefits two weeks later, on Feb. 27, Walsh saw how even an area that typically enjoys bipartisan support can crumble amid partisan acrimony. In addition to concerns over the package’s $21 billion cost, the legislation was defeated for an entirely unrelated reason: new penalties against Iran that Republicans sought.
Forgotten is the unemployment extensions the Democrats said they would take up right when they got back after the budget deal. Was covered for a couple of days, its defeat quietly covered, and then down the ma$$ media memory hole.
“If more men and women in the US Congress would have served or had family members that served, that bill would have passed,” Walsh, a Montana Democrat, said in an interview. “They would have realized that we’re talking about veterans and their families.”
Our nation is so militaristic.
The number of veterans serving in Congress is at its lowest point in nearly 40 years, even as America winds down its military presence overseas. There are 18 senators and 83 representatives who are veterans, according to data compiled by the American Legion, a veterans advocacy group.
And it has been worse.
But the defeat of the veterans bill in the Senate was mostly a party-line vote, with all Republicans who are veterans opposing the measure. The divide signals another marker of the polarization that has plagued the chamber in recent years: The political affiliation of senators trumps their shared military bonds, even on legislation for veterans’ benefits that many people across the political spectrum say is needed.
The bill, which would have provided medical, job-training, and education benefits to veterans, failed to secure enough Republican support in a 56 to 41 procedural budget vote that fell mostly along party lines.
While I don't oppose this for veterans, why are they the only group singled out for such treatment. Why must civilian Americans just suck it up?
The low numbers of veterans in Congress stem mainly from the transition to an all-volunteer force in 1973, and veterans advocates said they see legislative impact in the shrinking numbers. They said that lawmakers with military backgrounds are uniquely positioned to speak about veterans and national defense issues.
“It brings experience to the table on issues we’re facing,” said Kate O’Gorman, political director at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
The clash over the bill, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, reflects the stark and bitter divisions between the two major political parties....
Unless it is feeding the war machine, funding Israel, cutting foreign aid checks for coup support, propping up Wall Street, and maintaining lavish political lifestyles.
While Republicans and Democrats are usually quick to curry favor with nation’s 22 million veterans and their families, opposing Republicans raised objections over the bill’s funding mechanism, savings from military operations ending in Iraq and Afghanistan. They called that approach a budget gimmick, saying the money would not have been spent as the country’s military presence draws down.
As if they never used them!
“There a number of things that would be desirable in a perfect world, but we can’t afford all of them,” said Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican who served in the Air Force and the Air Force Reserve.
We can't afford a billion to the Ukraine, but its going there.
Republicans further criticized language that would have opened up Department of Veterans Affairs facilities to veterans without service-connected injuries, which they said would worsen wait times at clinics and the backlog of disability claims.
“It would make a system that’s having a hard time functioning collapse,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is in the Air Force Reserve.
Republicans demanded the opportunity to offer amendments, including a less expensive plan proposed by Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, that would have imposed new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program, an issue that has split some Democrats and the White House.
“The Republicans saw an opportunity to maybe cause a division between Democrats and politically embarrass the president,” Sanders said in an interview.
Last January, Sanders became chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, but his path to the position, in many ways, was unlikely. Sanders has maintained an antiwar stance since he first ran for Congress in 1971 and voted against going to war in Iraq in 2002.
Related: Licking the Pentagon
Like a good $ociali$t.
But Sanders said taking care of the men and women hurt in military conflicts is Congress’s obligation.
I agree, and it is the government that neglects damaged goods, not me -- and I would never have sent them off to war based on lies.
At one point in the 1970s, roughly four out of five members of Congress were veterans, mostly of World War II, according to the American Legion. Democratic Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who served in the Army Reserve in the Vietnam War, is the only member of the state’s delegation with military experience.
When John Dingell, the Michigan Democrat, announced last month that he would retire at the end of this year’s term, it meant that Congress will lose one of its only two World War II veterans.
Related: Jolly Sinks Democrats' House Hopes
“The veterans are going to be largely dependent on the members of Congress who are civilians,” Dingell said in an interview.
Lawmakers who served with more veterans say their shared military backgrounds fostered greater collaboration.
“We had good, strong voting power,” said the former senator John Warner, a Virginia Republican, World War II and Korean War veteran, and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
In a Congress stymied by gridlock, deal-making is much harder to achieve, even on a bill that Sanders emphasized has broad bipartisan support....
For Sanders to move his bill forward, he must secure three Republican votes. Walsh said lawmakers have paid a lot of “lip service” when it comes to veterans’ issues....
--more--"
At least they will get a wall:
"Iraq, Afghan veterans seek memorial for war without end" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff, December 14, 2013
WASHINGTON — Brian and Alma Hart of Bedford frequently visit marker 60-7892 at Arlington National Cemetery, the grave site of their son, who died when his unit was ambushed in Iraq in 2003.
Related: A Trip Through Arlington
But their visits to the capital area do not stop there. They also search for another, more prominent location to memorialize Private First Class John D. Hart — and the estimated 2.5 million of his comrades from America’s post-9/11 wars.
The Harts are part of a diverse movement of veterans and families seeking to establish a national memorial to honor those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their drive is fraught with complicated questions about the “global war on terrorism,’’ its open-ended nature, and the unpopular conflicts it spawned. In all, nearly 6,800 American soldiers have died since 2001 — more than 4,400 in Iraq and nearly 2,300 in Afghanistan.
Even though John Hart died a decade ago, the larger mission for which he sacrificed his life remains an unsettled, controversial chapter in American life.
“There is no great icon of victory because there is no clear victory in either war,” said Brian Hart. “There are iconic images of how these wars started, but not how they were fought or how they ended, if they ended at all.”
That is not deterring the Harts or others across the country who are starting to raise private donations, build grass-roots support, and seek sponsors in Congress, which to their frustration has yet to wade into the highly charged issue.
One organization is the National Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Memorial, a nonprofit group in West Virginia that has set a five-year goal to have a memorial dedicated in Washington.
“We haven’t progressed very far,” acknowledged Sanford Walters, a board member of the group, which was established in 2011.
But Walters, who served as an infantry officer in Vietnam, said he and his son, Nicholas, were drawn to the cause because of the touchstone that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has been for him and others who served in Southeast Asia.
“We had our reunions in D.C. so we could go to the Wall and pay tribute to those who didn’t make it,” Walters said. “It is a very moving thing to have a special place to go. We haven’t established anything for the people who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I had one tour, these people have had multiple tours.”
Establishing a national memorial also is part of the broader policy agenda of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the largest post-9/11 veterans group.
I'm so tired of the brainwashing and conventional myths in the name of military worship.
But its leaders acknowledge they are just beginning what promises to be a multiyear struggle, one that could prove more controversial and challenging than even the movement to establish the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
You would think they would wait until the wars were over.
**************************
The Commemorative Works Act of 1986 stipulates monuments cannot be erected until the conflict is over for at least 10 years.
Timothy Nosal, a spokesman for the American Battle Monuments Commission, which helped oversee the construction of memorials for World War II as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam, said the waiting period is designed to ensure sufficient time for proper reflection on a conflict’s place in American history.
“You have to see what happens with the history and how the history sorts itself out,” said Nosal, an Iraq war veteran.
I am history.
But how do you measure the completion of conflicts that were framed by political leaders as part of a wider struggle against Islamist terrorism, a mission with no clear ending?
“What are you memorializing? That is your basic issue,” said Jan Scruggs, one of the founders of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial who said he has been consulted by a diverse group about how to organize a post-9/11 war memorial.
For example, if the wars are to be memorialized as part of the larger struggle against Islamist terrorism, questions abound on what to include.
The searing and molding events of Zelikow shall live forever.
Related: ISRAEL DID 9/11
“Are we going all the way back to Beirut” in 1983, when Islamist terrorists killed 241 US Marines, asks Scruggs. “What about [the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia of] Khobar Towers” that killed 19 US servicemen? “Or are you just doing the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Should we have one for Iraq and one for Afghanistan? Are you going to [include] Operation Desert Storm,” the first US-led invasion of Iraq in 1991?
Kirk Savage, a professor of architecture at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied the history of war memorials, agreed that choosing how to commemorate these modern conflicts will be uniquely vexing.
“If we are talking about the war on terrorism, there is no end date,” said Savage, author of the recent book “Monument Wars.’’
He also predicted the debate will open old wounds about whether the US invasion of Iraq was necessary.
While both conflicts “are clearly intertwined,” Savage said, there is a “huge amount of debate about one being a defensive war, the other a war of choice. All those debates will be dredged up again.”
The United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 for providing support to Al Qaeda terrorists who orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and invaded Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
US forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, and most US forces — but perhaps not all — are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Most but perhaps not all?
Bureaucratic and practical obstacles also abound.
***************************
Scruggs, who served as a corporal in Vietnam, said he believes the veterans of America’s post-9/11 wars need a memorial as much or more than his generation did.
“The only people who are suffering are the ones who went over there and what they need is the type of national recognition a national memorial brings,” he said. “Most people want to forget these wars.”
That's not true. The victims are also those of us at home under a war economy built on lies.
--more--"
Related: Fairhaven in shock at death of hometown US Marine
Why? Because the government and papers are telling you the war is over? Or because people just believe such things won't happen to them? When will they wake up?
Fairhaven Marine’s body is returned to Mass.
Fairhaven marine with ever-present smile remembered
Abington Marine killed in combat in Afghanistan
The war is supposed to be winding down and we are not supposed to be in combat anymore, but you know....
Body of Abington Marine returned to hometown
More than 1,000 attend wake for Abington Marine
Funeral held for Abington Marine killed in Afghanistan
In Afghan war’s twilight, two farewells in Mass.
Mass. veterans look to treatment court for help
Veterans’ treatment court opens in Boston
I'm all for taking care of veterans, but a separate civilian justice system for them smells like fa$ci$m.
“We cannot arrest and incarcerate our way out of the many problems that we face,” said Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. “Accountability takes many forms, and what justice and the public safety require is not always a jail cell.”
Tell it to the black kids and nonviolent drug offenders!
