“Woe to you, blind guides!" for using veterans

End False Awareness
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 27, 2015

There is a special place in hell if you have been using veterans for your own gain. It doesn't matter how you manage to convince yourself that it is all about some "noble" cause to justify your actions. The fruits of your deeds are known to God. The results of your actions are the deaths of veterans by the thousands!

How can you claim you are making veterans aware of anything when you don't have a clue what life is like for them of for families like mine? You are blind to us at the same time you claim to be doing it all for us. You tell us that you are raising awareness but I got news for you, we already know a lot more than you will ever begin to learn. Your false awareness has only raised funds for what you want and not for what we need.

What has changed after all these charities popped up all over the country to "raise awareness" while picking our pockets?

This is a reminder of where we were on veterans committing suicide.

In 2007 CBS News had a headline Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans and in that article a study CBS News asked for. It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets.

Yet the numbers remain the same

The suicide rate among young male veterans continues to soar: ex-servicemen 24 and younger are now three times more likely than civilian males to take their lives, Female military veterans commit suicide at nearly six times the rate of other women, new research showed but when they factored in the younger female veterans The rates are highest among young veterans, the VA found in new research compiling 11 years of data. For women ages 18 to 29, veterans kill themselves at nearly 12 times the rate of nonveterans.

But what most leave out is this simple fact.

"Veterans over the age of 50 who had entered the VA healthcare system made up about 78 percent of the total number of veterans who committed suicide"

Here are just two reports on veterans new groups won't even talk about.

"BAY PINES VETERANS MEDICAL — A man fatally shot himself near a flag pole next to the front entrance of the Bay Pines VA Medical Center, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office." Deputies identified the man as 61-year-old James W. Violette of St. Petersburg.

Violette was not a veteran or on staff at the hospital.

Sgt. Tom Nestor said Violette told his family he was going to do it at the hospital because he knew they would take care of his body and bury him.

But this didn't just happen. It happened in March 17, 2011. It did happen again on August 25, 2015 when a Vietnam veteran committed suicide.

Ever since leaving the battlefields of Vietnam in 1968, Marine veteran Gerhard Reitmann struggled with the horrific memories of the things he did and saw.

“It was a rough one,” said his brother, Stephan Reitmann. “Emotionally, it did a number on his mind.”

Gerhard Reitmann had trouble holding a job. He often kept to himself and, until recently, cut himself off even from his family.

On Tuesday, Reitmann’s struggle ended.

The man who once served as a guard at Camp David during the term of President Richard Nixon apparently took his own life while parked in his car on the southeast side of the sprawling Bay Pines VA campus shortly after noon, according to officials from Bay Pines and the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner’s Office.

It was near Building 37, which houses the hospital system’s human resources, environmental management and inspector general’s offices.

Bay Pines police are investigating,

Reitmann, of St. Petersburg, was 66.

Seven Woes on the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees

16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ 17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?

Huffington Post reported on August 29, 2011 "Almost half of the 39 veterans charities rated by the American Institute of Philanthropy in its April/May 2011 report received F grades, largely because they devoted only a small ratio of their expenses to charitable programs, in part due to excessive fundraising expenses. Some of these groups defend their spending by arguing that reliance on such ratios is misleading, claiming that new nonprofits may have to spend over 50 percent of their revenue on outreach, education and fundraising for a while. But charities that spend up to 90 percent of their donations on overhead have been widely condemned and were the subject of congressional hearings in 2007."

AUSTIN (KXAN) reported on November 2014 "Professional fundraisers have collected $130,399,567 for veteran organizations since 2001, the records show. But those fund-raisers kept 84 percent of the money donated. Meaning, most of the money you donate never reaches veterans needing help."

Matthew 25:31-46 New International Version (NIV)
Hypocrisy of the Pharisees

5 “Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6 they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7 they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

The Sheep and the Goats
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Matthew 21:12-13 King James Version (KJV)

12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

Elite Marketing used veterans

From September 2014 to July 2015 an estimated 40,000 to 800,000 Florida vets were illegally approved for free cellphones under the government’s Lifeline program.

VES a VA Contractor sent veterans to a Doctor after the Department of Justice was trying to take away his license and send him to jail.

Congress and corporations are accountable to no one but God knows what they are doing! I have no need to curse you because you have already put a curse on your own head and you will answer to God for what you have done. You are no better than the charities out there collecting billions a year for using veterans.

Hold hearings all you want to pretend you care but the evidence is all around you! If you did what you claimed then there would be no need for more bills to do the same exact thing as the bills others wrote years before you.  Who do you think you are fooling?

If you are still repeating the 22 a day claim, you are no better than any of the thieves picking pockets. You have been lied to and then repeated the lie instead of actually taking the time to discover what the truth is.  Who are you trying to make aware of the suffering of millions of veterans? Civilians unable to put two simple facts together? "Survived combat willing to die for someone else but gave up living back home and took their own life?" Or are you trying to make veterans aware of what they know far better than you do?

Our families are real! We're not a bunch of numbers. You are using us and screwing with our lives! We're sick of suffering so you can make more money! You have done this to those you see as the least of your brothers at the same time you want the masses to think we are worth it?