Posted on 11/11/2013 3:18:53 AM PST by Kaslin
This Veterans Day, let’s honor our warriors, not patronize them.
We veterans resent the left glomming on to us to justify the welfare state, responding to any observation regarding the millions of liberal-voting deadbeats feeding off of Uncle Sucker with the smug rejoinder “What about the veterans who need help? Why do you hate veterans?”
Like progressives ever cared about our warriors – the only reason they aren’t lined up to spit on our returning fighters is they know they’d get their teeth knocked in.
Let’s be clear – being a veteran is not a “Get out of work free” card that excuses you from the basic responsibility of supporting yourself and your family. If I pass a bum with a sign reading “Homeless Vet,” I don’t feel an overpowering surge of solidarity. I feel disgusted that another low-life is trying to milk sympathy off a proud status that millions of us earned with our blood and sweat and years of our lives.
Are there vets who need help? Of course, but those aren’t the ones you see playing the vet card to avoid work and fuel their addictions. Some legit ones have physical injuries. For others, the wounds are invisible and hard to understand, like traumatic brain injuries. We owe these warriors not only our support but our compassion as they struggle against an insidious enemy. They are eager to overcome their challenges and to build productive lives.
These wounded warriors are getting some of the help they need through the government – taking care of those hurt in the service of the nation is a basic federal government function and about the only kind of safety net program that can be legitimately extrapolated from the text of our Constitution. Where the government falls short – as it inevitably will, because it is the government – the American people are picking up the slack.
But the “professional vets” you see demanding handouts are, at best, exploiting their long-ago service. Just because you served doesn’t necessarily indicate that you will forever demonstrate the kind of character and self-respect that the military demanded you show when on duty. It’s not a free pass for the rest of your life – in fact, fellow vets expect more from you. We expect you to live up to the example of the overwhelming majority of veterans who came home, hung up our uniforms and went about building families and careers.
Of course, that assumes that all of the people out there claiming to be veterans actually are veterans. My police pals inform me that the only uniform most of these frauds have ever worn is an orange jumpsuit. A vet can always tell a fake – asking for a DD 214 and getting a blank stare back is usually a pretty good tip-off.
We vets aren’t victims. We aren’t pawns to be used to justify giving handouts to couch-dwellers. We aren’t asking for anything except to be taken care of when injured – and we shouldn’t have to ask for that.
Vets are humble – the guy who tells you how he was a war hero invariably wasn’t. But because our military has grown so remote from most Americans’ lives, many civilians are unsure how to express their gratitude toward their warriors. Here’s how:
If you see an guy in a ball cap that reads “World War II Vet,” “Korea Vet” or “Vietnam Vet,” ask about it. Make sure your kids listen. These heroes won’t be with us forever, and their stories need to be told. I remember speaking at a function and sitting next to an unassuming gentleman who turned out to have landed at Normandy. For a military guy, this was like being a garage band guitarist who got seated next to Pete Townsend.
Citizens often want to reach out to warriors they see in uniform around town or at airports. That’s great. A “Thanks” and a handshake, even a hug, is appropriate.
Now, this will fluster the warriors. The warriors will tell you they are just doing their job, and they mean it. Most warriors are baffled that someone is thanking them because they know so many people they feel truly deserve it. Thank them anyway.
Sometimes a warrior in uniform at a restaurant will find his tab paid when he asks for the check. This happens a lot. If you feel compelled to do it, any senior sergeant or officer will tell you to save that for the younger troops. They get paid less and they do the really hard work.
If you want to say “Thanks,” but you aren’t where there are a lot of warriors around, then why not help out Operation Gratitude or Wounded Warriors? Do you own a business? Think about hiring a vet. I did, and she’s awesome.
Regardless of how you choose to do it, on this Veterans Day, let’s honor our warriors – including deployed ones like my pals Jon and Don. Instead of treating them like losers in need of pity, let’s treat them like what they are – heroes.
That’s about it
The Dems have indeed managed to cover for their anti-military thoughts and deeds by promoting supposedly hapless, duped vets as another category of victim in their anti-liberty pantheon.
We are all losers we have a criminal in the White House - a liar, a thief and a murderer.
He stole people’s health care, Americans will die because of it and he lied about it. If this bastard can’t be impeached, NOBODY can!!!!!
A quiet veteran is a good veteran. One who is on a wheel chair and teaches people history like a voice in the wilderness will get crazy stares.
It is not about patronizing or feeling sorry, it is about learning, honoring and listening to history and justice, that one done by a neighbor who volunteered to protect your neighborhood.
But for empty suits like Obama who want to look good, it cannot be acceptable. And for the feminine, the cripled vet is not a lucky boy bringing the money like Obama welfare office does, even though we all bum off of their sacrifices in nice houses which are glorified shelters for ingrate snobs without a clue.
And dont get me started with executives at liberal companies who hire vets but like to keep gays around ao as to keep the workforce divided thus preventing a vet with ideas from getting any credit. Some Liberal CEOs out there are absolutely disgusting and deserve all the homosexual union problems harassment they deserve after foisting it on their workers. That the Pentagon now employs these types shows how weak the leadership is in order to rely on that kind of divisions.
If there is a vet in difficulty or shunned out there by empty suits, it behooves on this neighborhood to make sure his or her abilities to overcome be acknowledged beyond temporary, social or physical/technical ones.
The dems have covered up their racism, after the GOPe let them get it through Kennedy, they have hidden their love of drafting people in Vietnam and the Obamacare war on poverty, they have covered up their economic nonsense after Bush I gave it to Clinton, and now the dum GOPe is about to give God and Vets to the democrats in their crazy aristocratic hate for conservatives.
“If this bastard can’t be impeached...”
He won’t be impeached. Too many people love him, no matter what.
(How disgusting and disappointing.)
IMHO
All true.
Here is a touching tribute....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoABty_zE00
5.56mm
I had to laugh - and cry a bit at the Military Channel’s rolling out premier lefty Alan Alda to MC their PTSDathon.
Bet his heart was really in it, what with homosexuals and islamocommies now in the mix.
Oh, well.... Guess I’d better put out my flag. Gadsden Flag.
No disrespect to anyone, I’m a vet myself. But, here in my area, there is the VFW and the American Legion. Our VFW is FILLED to the brim with vets who sit around all day and drink, and claim disability. Well, those of the Vietnam era (as I am). Most will all claim to be highly decorated tunnel rats if you ask them, and they will wax eternal about secret missions, special ops, etc. It is amazing that no one worked in the motor pool.
Now, you find the modern soldiers in there as well, and they are disgusted by the vets from my era. Here we have guys from the Sandbox missing limbs looking across a bar at some dude with a vest and Vietnam patches all over him, fully able bodies on disability.
Our American Legion is completely different. There we have vets from all wars (most Korean and of course WW2 vets are dying off), who have been business owners, outstanding members of the community etc, who have lost limbs, have shrapnel all over them, and never once have a “victimization attitude”.
I look up to these guys, and they are an inspiration. No self pity there.
I am ashamed at those who served during my period who used it as a tool to live on welfare.
In our VFW half claim to be victims of “Agent Orange”, and all have PTSD. Ask them where they were posted, and those of us who were in country can spot their bullshit a mile away.
Two lawyers frequent our VFW, but this new generation of sandbox warriors will have nothing to do with these leeches of the legal world.
I’m proud of all those who serve and come home with dignity, but have nothing but spite for those who want a free ride because they were drafted from the lottery.
I know I’ll get flamed by a few here, but for those who served in my era, we know that half the people drafted were idiots, and they just continued that behavior when they got home.
This is in a suburb of Chicago, where most folks are leeches anyhow, so perhaps it is different in other areas of our nation.
EXCUSE ME FOR BEING A LITTLE OFF TOPIC. BUT I WAS WATCHING FOX NEWS COVERAGE FOR THE LAYING OF THE WREATH (ABOUT 11:15 EST) BY PRESIDENT OBAMA. AS OBAMA AND HIS MILITARY ESCORT EXITED, THEN ENTERED THE BUILDING, I CLEARLY HEARD THE WORD “JESUS”. I WAS SO STARTLED. THE VOICE SOUNDED LIKE OBAMA’S TO ME. BUT, THAT COULD HAVE BEEN A SUBCONSCIOUS FUNCTION ON MY PART. PERHAPS SOMEONE NEAR THE PRESIDENT LOUDLY SPEAKING OUT ON PURPOSE...? ANYONE HEAR IT, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
THANKS,
MRS. ESOPMAN
He told me that the real heroes were the wounded and dead which his ship helped get off the invasion beaches.
When I was in high school, our local VFW was a great organization which sponsored patriotic essay contests and even sent speakers to the schools. They were good men, as I recall, but not one of them had seen the firefighting which my Dad did and wouldn't talk about except in those quiet father-son moments when you were with him on a long drive or hunting or fishing trip.
I’m in the West. Respected locals in my area, including current and retired civil service employees and local government employees, hate veterans except for those who were officers or are dope smoking Wiccans and the like. I avoid them and tend to socialize with those who are more like Americans of the past (older veterans, people descended from longer lines of Americans,...). In at least some places (especially offices), it’s best to keep quiet about being a veteran.
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