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Today as I was exiting Shaw's, instead of the usual cheerleaders/lacrosse players/girls hockey team soliciting funds for their uniforms/trip to regionals/spirit sticks, was a table and two men asking for money to help support a homeless veteran's shelter in Manchester. While making a small contribution, I found out that 33% of homeless males in this country are veterans. And they have to beg for money to help veterans.
This really put me in a rage. This f'ing administration is spending billions on a war nobody but themselves and their friends (Halliburton, et al) wants. They don't have enough troops to serve* so they force the ones they have to go back two and three times. The reason they don't have enough is because they toss out any highly qualified, willing soldier who just happens to be gay or lesbian.
When the troops do come home for good they have the following options:
#1: They're dead and the Commander in Chief will not allow their fellow Americans to see the caskets;
#2: they're sick or maimed and wind up in a hell hole like Walter Reed or are told that PTSD is not a real ailment;
#3: they try to go back to work (if the job is still there). Or maybe they attempt to learn a new skill..Nope! No more GI Bill. No school for you! Which leads to
#4: they wind up in the streets, self-medicating with alcohol and whatever drug they can beg, borrow or steal.
And it's all such a stinking pile of dung foisted on the young men and women of the US by the assholes in the White House (and Joe Lieberman). But we're not supposed to talk about all this, because to do so would be un-American. (Actually the un-American thing would be not to talk about it.)
As someone who had a problem with substances back in the day, I tell you that these people are no better than drug dealers. They promise you everything..see the world...learn a great skill that will get you a great job when you go home.. be Army Strong. Then, when they've hooked you, the reality sinks in and that great job isn't there and the only part of the world you see is the part where you go to kill people. During the Viet Nam war protests I had a bumper sticker that read: Join the Army. Travel to exotic, foreign places, meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.
* Isn't "serve" an interesting word for what people do in a war? You serve a meal you don't serve up a war.. you kill, shoot, maim, create widows and orphans and die in a war, but you don't "serve".
