Pick your battles, fight for veterans

Pick your battles, fight for veterans
by Chaplain Kathie
Wounded Times Blog
July 25, 2012

My Mom always said that I wanted to change the world. She was right. When I was younger it seemed as if I took on everything. She told me that I needed to pick my battles to give it all I had or I'd lose more than I won. She was right again but it took me years to learn that lesson.

For almost 30 years, my passion has been veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because even tough I grew up surrounded by veterans, Combat PTSD became personal to me. I fell in love with a Vietnam veteran. To this day, I'm still in love, but not just with him. I adore all our veterans because of what I've learned from them.

Since 1993 I've been posting on one blog or another, in chats and chains plus too many websites I started but never managed to catch on. This one did and will be 5 years old next month. This is the count as of 9:00 am today.

Not bad considering what this blog is all about. The reason this blog is what it is, is because people are tired of politics getting into everything. No politician is all bad and none of them are all good. This blog was started because a Marine set me straight and snapped me out of the trap I fell into when political ideas meant more than veterans did.

Most of my friends are Republicans but I have Democrat friends as well. When it comes to politics, none of them agree but when it comes to veterans standing by the side of other veterans political differences vanish. Much like troops deployed into combat will risk their lives without ever once thinking about how the soldier they are next to voted in the last election, veterans support each other when it matters and overlook differences when it really doesn't.

What else I discovered in all these years of research and tracking reports is that people, the general public, get confused between the military and defense contractors. Republicans elect people they think will support the military when the truth is most of their politicians support contractors first and troops afterwards. Elected Democrats support the troops first and contractors afterwards. This has been made clear by their bills and votes on the bills. Neither party has done what is needed to take care of all the men and women in the military anymore than they have taken care of all veterans.

Politicians on both sides have done great things for veterans but the problem is not all of them have all the time. That is why fighting for veterans will never be over.

It is also why I am an Independent and ignore political emails from both sides unless they are so outrageous I can't remain silent.

One thing I can't be silent about is the VA and how Romney would get rid of it.

Normally I wouldn't be concerned but considering how many in congress have said it in the past he would be supported in doing it. They have managed to get the general public looking at the deficit while they are the ones that caused it just as they have us thinking about unemployment when they cut the jobs instead of doing something to give jobs back to us in the USA instead of overseas. They very well may be able to pull off selling the VA to private for profit companies.

It is up to us to pay attention to what is really going on since reporters got lazy a long time ago and you won't even hear them ask about this. It is up to us when we get political emails to find out if the claim made is true or not before we hit the forward button. I'm not talking about looking it up on another blog or opinion piece. We're smarter than that. I expect my readers to look up what I say as well in case I made a mistake. This is all too important to allow lies to live and truth to be buried.

It would be wonderful if politicians could manage to do what the troops do everyday. Put each other first and politics second.

Obama's Promise to Exempt Veteran's Benefits Is Bad News for Pentagon
By U.S. News Staff
July 24, 2012

President Barack Obama's Monday announcement that he will protect military veterans' retirement and health care benefits drew applause from a VFW audience, but it likely drew a few grimaces among Pentagon and industry leaders.

That's because exempting veterans' benefits from $500 billion in cuts to planned national defense spending over the next decade would shrink the places in the defense budget where cuts could be made. That would mean whatever reductions are enacted will be deeper than if the vets' benefits also were cut under a complicated process known as sequestration.

During a much-anticipated speech Monday before a Veterans of Foreign Wars audience in Reno, Nev., Obama touted a "promise I made four years ago: Upholding America's sacred trust with our veterans."
read more here