Veterans "Choice" is for promises to be kept!

When officials talk about "Choice" they omit the fact that our veterans should never be subjected to having to chose between the healthcare they were promised, or having to deal with the system the rest of us have to endure. After all, these are the same folks who continually remind us how bad our system is. These men and women became disabled serving this country, but apparently the long list of presidents forgot that part!

If it does not work right, they forgot it was their job to fix it! The picture above has President Lincoln because of the motto the VA uses. The other presidents, starting with Kennedy, are all the presidents we've had since I was born. None of them have lived up to the promise to "care" even though all of them talked about how much they did.

This is why I do not like politicians on either side!

There is an article about Choice Act that offers a great reminder of a very simply fact,

The Choice Act reimburses veterans who seek medical care outside of VA. There are two bills pending in Congress to amend it. Trump favors the one that would most aggressively expand options for veterans to see providers who are not on the government payroll, saying the beleaguered agency can’t adequately care for the 9 million veterans it serves.

It isn't as if the over 20 million veterans are all going to the VA. It is less than half and only 20% go to the VA for all their healthcare. So when do Presidents and Congress actually live up to that motto?

UK PTSD: there was NOBODY to take his desperate call for help

The crack shot who cracked up: Ice-cool sniper suffered PTSD after seeing body of his best friend killed in combat in Helmand... and there was NOBODY to take his desperate call for help
The Daily Mail
Ian Gallagher
February 10, 2018

Eventually a Medical Board dealt with his case in his absence and a decision was made to discharge him. He left the RAF last year without a pension – a decision he is appealing and which the couple describe as ‘appalling’.

The couple have never stopped campaigning for a 24-hour helpline, with Luke even invading the pitch at Liverpool’s Anfield stadium during a match in 2015 in protest at the MoD’s treatment of its soldiers

Dodging Taliban bullets in Helmand, RAF sniper Luke Huskisson drew on all his training just to stay alive.

Yet it was many months later, safely back at base in Suffolk, that the battlefield almost claimed him.

In Afghanistan, flushed with adrenaline, he was constantly tuned to life-threatening danger. Now, alone in his room, death and oblivion seemed enticing.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Luke recalls: ‘I was getting constant flashbacks and I couldn’t take any more.’
read more here

Do some Trump supporters think the world will stay flat?

Correction: Only some supporters do. My bad, just added that word.

If anyone thinks that President Donald Trump would ever take sexual harassment seriously, they must also think the earth will stay flat.

Considering there was no "due process" for the women it happened to, seems Trump recovered to the highest office in the land, and then hired more accused abusers, with serious enough records the FBI could not give them security clearance. 

“Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. “Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused — life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”

Trump decries lack of ‘due process’ for men accused of sexual harassment, abuse

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a leader in the effort to combat sexual harassment in Congress, said her stomach turned when she saw Trump’s tweet Saturday morning.

It just turned my stomach too. Just a reminder of who was elected and why he would have this disgusting attitude, The Washington Post added it.

As a candidate, Trump acknowledged that he had made lewd comments about grabbing women’s crotches after The Washington Post reported on a recording of Trump making these claims. “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on a hot mic before recording a segment of “Access Hollywood” in 2005. Trump denied making any such assaults and dismissed the recording as “locker room” talk.

POTUS said it didn't happen, before he admitted it did, then defended why he said it.

I was a victim of domestic violence. The second it stopped, I was a survivor of it. Back then the attitude toward domestic violence was not what we needed it to be. Men denied it, said we deserved it, or simply got away with it.

So much for family values voters defending any part of what we've seen from this man, who was accused of marital rape by his first wife, left her for his second wife and then is now on his third marriage.

You may consider this off topic, but if you do then you must have not been paying attention to what continues to happen to women in the military. If you think this Commander-in-Chief, or any of his department heads will do anything about sexual assaults, you have been under the spell of the delusion wand he keeps waving as the master of deflection.

Don't count on this Congress either. Remember they thought it was OK to pay off survivors of their abuse with our tax money?

76 Year Old Vietnam Veteran Finished 5k Race--As Amputee

Donna Deegan’s uncle, a Vietnam veteran and amputee, finished Saturday’s 5K race
First Coast News
Author: Stephanie Kim
February 10, 2018

The annual Donna Marathon Weekend brings in hundreds of athletes from all over the country. Among them is one inspiring amputee from Greenville, South Carolina.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The annual Donna Marathon Weekend brings in hundreds of athletes from all over the country.

Among them is one inspiring amputee from Greenville, South Carolina.

Joe Cole took a big step Saturday taking part in his first 5K race. The Vietnam War veteran had his leg amputated four years ago after he was exposed to Agent Orange. The 76-year-old trained for months in preparation.

“Just because I lost my leg doesn’t mean I lost my will,” Cole said.

The Donna Marathon weekend has been a family affair since its start 11 years ago, especially because his niece is Donna Deegan, the founder of the DONNA Foundation.
read more here

UK Firefighters still struggle after Grenfell Tower

"It will stay with us forever": Hero Grenfell firefighters reveal emotional toll of dealing with tower tragedy
Mirror UK
Emily Retter
February 10, 2018

They worked relentlessly, up and down the smoke-filled stairs time and time again. The team had to listen to the screams and cries of victims and traumatised survivors in the worst blaze on our soil since the Second World War.

Tom Abell says he "shed a few tears" when the reality of the tragedy hit him (Image: Daily Mirror)

After witnessing the horrors of the inferno, Tom Abell and his colleagues are still suffering - but the brave crew are now set to run the London ­marathon to raise cash for victims

Driving day after day past the charcoal shell of Grenfell Tower , knowing first-hand the horrors that lay within, firefighter Tom Abell was unable to process what had happened there.

Based at the closest fire station, he and his watch had been first to arrive and then spent nine hours in the heart of the devastation.

They worked relentlessly, up and down the smoke-filled stairs time and time again. The team had to listen to the screams and cries of victims and traumatised survivors in the worst blaze on our soil since the Second World War.

Later, at North Kensington fire station, Tom read letters written in hopeful childish ­handwriting, with the pleading words: “My friend is still missing, can you help me find him?”

And he watched the events of June 14 over and over on television.

Yet it still took days before 31-year-old Tom could actually take any of it in. Then reality struck like a tsunami.

And today, Tom and his colleagues, along with the Grenfell residents, are still suffering torment over the blaze that killed 71 adults and children.
read more here