I must admit, in years past, especially in youth through young adult, Memorial Day was nothing more than a three-day weekend, barbeques, picnics and fun. And it still is… to an extent. For me, this year Memorial Day just feels different. I am opposed to war. Especially the one in Afghanistan right now. It seems as though we have lost the reason as to why our troops are there. How is our invasion presence helping protect America? Is that not what our military is for? To protect our country? It seems to have evolved into something else. Personally, I think the War on Terrorism is nothing more than a scare tactic being used on the US citizens in order to justify being in Afghanistan. But this post is about Memorial Day, so with that I will move on.
Tag Archives: Afghanistan
“What has happened to our country while we were gone?” Sgt. Mad Dog Tracy 22
A friend shared this image along with the story behind it on Facebook today. Verbatim, here is the story as told by Sgt. Mad Dog Tracy of what the soldiers had to endure on their flight home from their tours of duty in Afghanistan – and all after risking their lives fighting for our country. The sergeant’s closing line pretty much sums up what life is becoming here within the United States.
UPDATE March 25, 2012: Well, folks. I feel like an idgit. I normally check for validity on stories like this, but was lazy last night and didn’t. And what do you know – this happens to be a made-up story. Here is the link to an article which has the information about the research in contacting the Indiana National Guard, who stated that this never occurred. I am still going to leave this up, though, so if anyone is looking for proof and they stumble across this posting, then they’ll know. It’s still a good story, though.
The Parting Shot for January 28, 2012 15
Meet Landon.
His father, Marine LCPL Carpenter, gave his life defending our country in Afghanistan earlier this year,
a month before his son was born. Baby Landon’s Mom wants his story to be known.
Take a moment to share this photo with your friends and reflect on the price of freedom.
Never forget the price of freedom.
Iran Pres Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech at UN. US and others walk out. Truth hurts. Full coverage. Reply
Very powerful speech…. American diplomats led a walkout at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fiercely attacked the United States and major West European nations as “arrogant powers” ruled by greed and eager for military adventurism.
Veterans suffer and die while waiting months, years for their benefits Reply
Returning veterans encounter VA mental health m…, posted with vodpod
Clay Hunt, a Marine sniper, served two combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he came home with a Purple Heart and post traumatic stress disorder, Hunt asked the Veterans Administration for help. But getting medical attention was a two-year struggle. On March 31, Hunt committed suicide in his Sugar Land, Texas, apartment. He was 28.
Philip Northcutt, 38, a fellow Marine, saw intense combat in Iraq in 2004 and was wounded. He was diagnosed with PTSD in the field, but he says he was merely given sleeping pills and an anti-depressant and told to keep fighting. When he came home, he struggled to adjust, spending time in jail and becoming homeless before he started receiving disability benefits more than four years later.
When Jordan Towers, 27, came home from Iraq in 2008, the Marine couldn’t escape the feeling that he was on another night patrol in Al Anbar province, and that each step might be his last. He angered easily and snapped at people for no reason. When he called the VA, he was told it would take three months to get an appointment. He was diagnosed with PTSD a year later, but six months after the diagnosis he is still waiting to hear whether his claim for disability benefits will be approved.
The stories of Hunt, Northcutt and Towers are not unique. Similar allegations are leveled in a lawsuit against the Veterans Administration filed by two veterans groups that argue delays in the process of evaluating and treating returning veterans with mental health problems are systematic.
On May 10, a federal appeals court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering the VA to drastically overhaul its mental health care system and accusing it of “unchecked incompetence.”
Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, which filed the lawsuit against the VA along with Veterans United for Truth, said there are more than 1 million veterans currently awaiting decisions on disability claims.
Meanwhile, Susan Selke recently received a letter from the VA approving an increase in her son Clay Hunt’s disability benefits.
It arrived five weeks after his death.
When are we going to start taking proper care of our veterans? I may not be a full-supporter of our wars, as I feel there is more going on than is told. My contempt for these wars does not change the fact that these soldiers are the people that risk their lives every day while they walk on foreign soils, following orders from their peers. Members of our government, congress, senate, etc. all receive immediate medical care at the first sign of a sniffle, while those that dedicated their actual being sit on the sidelines discarded like a piece of roadside trash.
Our values and priorities have become severely skewed with our government. Many of our elected officials bow down to the “man behind the curtain”, such as the big oil companies… the Koch Brothers… funding hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in donations and lobbying.
While veterans like Clay Hunt take their own lives…. Will this senseless suffering ever stop? Not while “man behind the curtain” is in control.
The Federal Courts may have ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but I have little faith we will see any change. I hope I am wrong.
How 480 Taliban prisoners broke out of jail in Afghanistan (Article/Videos) Reply
In the early hours in the morning on Monday, April 25, 2011, at least 480 Taliban prisoners escaped.
According to people involved in the break-out, the Taliban’s great escape began with a team of 18 insurgents on the outside spending five months burrowing hundreds of metres underground through the brown soil west of Kahandar city and into Sarpoza prison, taking their tunnel right into the prison’s political section where hundreds of Taliban were held.
The starting point was a compound directly opposite the prison that from the outside looked like any one of hundreds of building companies that have popped up in areas awash with reconstruction dollars.
According to one of the escapees, the tunnel was of sufficient diameter and high enough for the prisoners to stand upright for most of their walk to freedom. Sections were lit by electric light and ventilated with fans, he said.
One official who visited the prison said the tunnel had two exits, and that the second branch led to a wing of the prison housing ordinary criminals. For whatever reason, that equally grand escape did not come off.
“I only found out that we were going to escape at midnight,” the 28-year-old insurgent, who did not give his name, said during a phone interview with the Guardian.
The man, who had served three years of five-year sentence for fighting foreign forces in Afghanistan, said that a mere 20 minutes later he and his cellmates were taken to the entrance of the tunnel, a hole in the concrete floor that dropped down five feet to the tunnel passage itself.
When the escapee prisoners got to the construction company compound at the end of the tunnel, they were met by their commanders and taken off in cars to safe locations.
From about 11pm to 3.30am, cell after cell of prisoners trooped through the passageway to freedom.
The unfortunate guard who came into the wing first thing on Monday morning was confronted with an entirely empty building, save for prison clothes, shoes and turbans that the inmates had for some reason left behind.
“The guards are always drunk. Either they smoke heroin or marijuana, and then they just fall asleep. During the whole process no one checked, there was no patrols, no shooting or anything.”
The prison break also comes just weeks after a Taliban suicide bomber succeeded in blowing up Kandahar’s police chief, and another came close to killing Afghanistan’s defence chief in the heart of his sprawling ministry in Kabul.
But for the Taliban escapee enjoying freedom for the first time in three years, an experience he compared to the Islamic festival of Eid, there was a belief that the government would not recover from its display of ineptitude.
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Full article here:
Jon Boone in Kabul
guardian.co.uk | Monday 25 April 2011 19.38 BST
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