What do veterans groups really stand for

Category: History - Military - Vietnam War
Format: Hardcover, 336 pages
On Sale: September 26, 2006
Price: $32.95
ISBN: 978-1-84603-020-8 (1-84603-020-X)

A bad thunderstorm rolled through Central Florida this afternoon so I took off to Borders Books. I just bought this book for $4.99 and frankly, I'm stunned. I can't believe a book like this was at such a low price. It only came out in 2006.

When I am working on videos, I find pictures from several places. Online, from people sending me their pictures, my husband's pictures and from books.

This picture got to me and I wanted to share it with you.





What really got to me about this picture was this

"A GI holds protectively a badly wounded buddy. In Vietnam, out in the field racial conflicts were minimal. Soldiers were neither black nor white, but green. You depended on your comrades to cover you, and they depended on you do to the same. (Larry Burrows, Life, Time Life)

This is what I've been trying to get across but not doing a good enough job of it.

Because I'm involved with so many groups, what I hear all too often is the division of committed people when it comes to politics. I often wonder what really matters the most to some of these people. Is it the veterans from all political parties and demographics, or is it the political ideology they hold?

The men and women veterans along with those serving today come from all thoughts and backgrounds. What makes all of them united is that they are the smallest percentage of Americans and they were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of the rest of us. They are not all Republicans and they are not all Democrats, but they are all veterans.

Attending some of the events and gatherings I do, too often I heard "We need to support the president" when the President happened to have been Bush, a Republican. It didn't seem to bother many people there what I knew to be facts as far as how he was not supporting them, but only claiming to do it. The facts were there for anyone to find but some of them just didn't bother. Now that the President happens to be a Democrat, the talk has changed to attacking the President and bumper stickers show up on the backs of their cars against the President they used to say they needed to support because "He was the Commander-in-Chief."

No group will agree on everything, but when it comes to veterans, they need to agree on truth and what they were willing to risk their lives for in the first place. There are a lot of rumors out there about President Obama, just as there were a lot of rumors out there about President Bush and every other President before them. The facts are there to find for anyone interested enough in looking for them. While President Obama has increased the VA budget more than it has been done in over 30 years, he has been accused of being against veterans. Yet when President Bush cut VA funding, had less doctors and nurses working for the VA than there were after the Gulf War, with two military campaigns going on, they said we needed to support the President. It didn't matter what the truth was. It mattered more what party he belonged to.

What good did this do? Were the wounded taken care of properly? Were the veterans treated with the care they were promised? Were politicians held accountable for what they did not do? What about the service organizations claiming to be about veterans but clearly with an agenda of more political power than putting veterans, all veterans, first?

This is the part that I will never understand. They are supposed to be fighting to get it right no matter which party is in control. They are supposed to be standing up for all veterans no matter what party they come from and not making them feel as if they don't belong there simply because they happen to be a Democrat among Republicans or a Republican among Democrats. The truth is the truth no matter which party hears it.

It should never matter what party is in control. These groups need to fight to make sure the veterans are taken care of and stop all the nonsense about party loyalty. Things got as bad as they did because some people in these groups only cared one of their own was in power and to tell you the truth, it's one of my fears now. I don't want to see more of a repeat of the time when President Clinton was in office and too many Democrats would not complain and the Republicans managed to spread rumors that were not true. I don't want to see a repeat of the last eight years when some want to support President Obama no matter what he does nor do I want to see more of the false rumors being allowed to be spread out without correction.

If these groups really care about veterans, all veterans, and the troops, then they need to support the truth and not participate in party over any of them. Our veterans fight for the entire nation and not just parts of it and they are looking to the service organizations to support them no matter what party or person they vote for. If I feel as uncomfortable as I do at some of these events when I hear what I hear, imagine being a veteran and hearing one of your own attacking your thoughts because you happen to vote differently than they do. If we are not a nation where all are equal, the right to have your own opinion and vote according to your conscience, then what are the troops defending? What does it actually mean to be "free" when they cannot be embraced by these groups as a veteran because they vote the "wrong" way? If service groups and veterans groups cannot keep political opinion out of group events, then they need to stop saying they are working for veterans because that means, they are only working for the ones they agree with.

I have heard from too many veterans not wanting to join any of these groups because of this reason. It's time for all of them to open their eyes and decide if they are more about party or people. They all serve the same nation side by side with members from all walks of life. They should be welcomed into any group the same way.