Day: April 30, 2015

US vets come to Vietnam to confront past, and find a home – Yahoo News

This year is the 40th year since the fall of Saigon and an end to the Vietnam War…..I will be posting a lot this year on my war with the hope that Americans will remember and finally understand……..

Many Americans know the problems that some vets had when they returned home…….unless you were there you cannot understand the internal battles that many of us had to fight…….

This is piece is a good one on the lengths Viet vets will go to to find the peace that they may have not known for 40 years……..

This may be of little interest to most but if there is a Viet vet out there that will find this an uplifting article…….then it is not a waste of time…….

 

US vets come to Vietnam to confront past, and find a home – Yahoo News.

Florida’s Greek Geeks….Good-Bye!

Last week I wrote about a disgusting incident where a bunch of Frat rats disrespected some vets and others….these Greek Geeks were from the Univ of Florida…….if you would like to refresh your memory here is my post…….

Veterans: Welcome Home

I am pleased to announce that there has been a turn in the events around this incident…….

Future pledges interested in joining Zeta Beta Tau will have to go somewhere other than the University of Florida. The Gainesville Sun reports that the school’s chapter of the fraternity is now closed in the wake of an April 17 incident in Panama City Beach in which ZBT members were accused of spitting on veterans and their service dogs, throwing beer bottles at them, and urinating on an American flag. During its investigation, the university had suspended the frat, already on probation for a hazing incident last fall. “I continue to be saddened and disappointed by the reported mistreatment and disrespect of our military veterans,” UF President Kent Fuchs said in a statement. “Our university has always honored, and will always honor, the service of veterans.” Due to privacy laws, the college says it won’t reveal the fates of individual ZBT members.

The head of ZBT’s national org also piped in. “We are absolutely disgusted by the accusations that have been made regarding the behavior of certain members of this chapter,” Matthew Rubins said in a release, per My Fox Orlando; he adds that while conclusive evidence about some of the worst accusations hasn’t been found, the group believes some members made “irresponsible decisions.” ZBTers from Emory University were also alleged to have harassed the veterans, though that college has said in a statement that “to date, no evidence has been found to implicate Emory students,” WJHG reports. The founder of the charity retreat where the abuse allegedly occurred, an all-expenses-paid vacation for combat-wounded veterans and their families, adds, “They were being treated like the Vietnam veterans were treated.

Am I pleased?  Not in the least!  These pricks deserve much worse and the Frat that allowed this type of creep in deserves no consideration……there can be NO excuse for the disrespect these toads showed…………there is NO explanation other than they are worthless lumps of crap…..and this incident should follow them throughout their lives…..there should be NO second chances for these demented little toads.

Thoughts?

Smells Like CYA!

Baltimore is a tinder box and could re-erupt at any moment…….calm for now but all the facts are still not available……the media has had to dig hard to find something anything to keep this story going  and now they have been given the red meat they have been searching for………what purpose is a countdown to curfew the media is doing?

First, the promise of the findings of Gray’s death would be released on Friday 01 May and now not so much…..we are told that the findings will be turned over to the investigation before it is released……does this threaten the tenuous calm?

Second, there seems to be a witness to Gray’s condition as he was arrested…….

A weird twist in the Freddie Gray case: A prisoner being transported in the police van where the Baltimore man suffered a fatal spinal injury says he could hear Gray banging on the walls and thought he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a statement on a search warrant obtained by the Washington Post. But the prisoner couldn’t actually see Gray, and a lawyer for the family says they have not been told about the unidentified prisoner’s statement. “We disagree with any implication that Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord,” the lawyer tells the Post. “We question the accuracy of the police reports we’ve seen thus far, including the police report that says Mr. Gray was arrested without force or incident.”

According to the Post‘s timeline of events, the prisoner who says he heard Gray banging on the walls was in the van for the last six blocks of the ride to the police station—after Gray, who was handcuffed and wasn’t wearing a seat belt, had already asked for medical help. Six Baltimore police officers have been suspended over the death and police plan to turn the results of their investigation over to prosecutors on Friday, NBC reports. It’s not clear how much of the report will be made public, but the mayor’s office says it hopes police will “share any additional facts and details to the public that could shine some light on this,” reports the Baltimore Sun.

Now ask…if this report is true why was it not released in the beginning for it could have help avoid the violence?  Why now?  This unnamed witness that was arrested and in the same van….does he now get some sort of deal to tell his tale?

The media will fixate on these two stories and pick it to part……will their reports help trigger more violence this weekend?  These two stories are a god send to a story that was dying a slow death……

As for the city of Baltimore……all this smells like CYA! (would make a good protest song)

GOP Presidential Hopefuls

We have a handful of GOP candidates for the 2016 game……..and I am sure the list will expand and expand until there is a GOP candidate for every GOP voter…….

I love politics but in recent years it has become a joke  without a punchline…….elections are a game played by the wealthy at the expense of the people……it is all sound and fury with absolutely NO advancement of the country……

But let’s be honest……with the people that are hopefuls it is sad that the next president will most likely be a Democrat……

But why is that?

Send in the clowns!

 

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Bernie! About Damn Time!

It’s Thursday and a day to celebrate!  Hump Day is behind us and the end of the week approaches…….

As boring as I am finding the early days of the 2016 election it is about to get more interesting.

No secret that I like Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders and have been hoping he would do the right thing and run against Hillary……..and as they say hope springs eternal…….

Today is the day!

Hillary Clinton will have at least one challenger over her left shoulder for the Democratic nomination: Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who describes himself as a democratic socialist, will announce his candidacy on Thursday, reports Vermont Public Radio. The 73-year-old will focus on three main issues: income inequality, climate change, and campaign finance reform, a longtime adviser tells Politico. The plan is for a low-key announcement, followed by a splashier kickoff in Vermont in a few weeks, and then trips to the early-voting states.

“Sanders’ basic message will be that the middle class in America has been decimated in the past two decades while wealthy people and corporations have flourished,” writes VPR. Expect him to press Clinton on where she stands on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade pact that he opposes as bad for working-class America. Sanders should have company soon in nudging Clinton leftward: Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to join the race in May, reports Reuters.

My guess is that this will keep Warren from a trip to the primaries…….and the Dems need someone who is truly on the Left….plus will wait and see the “dirty” the scared Right digs up on Bernie….I know the first place they will go…..but I will remain silent to see if they are as smart as they think they are…….

Go Bernie!

From the Fall of Saigon to Our Fallen Empire by Tom Engelhardt — Antiwar.com

40 years ago this year Saigon fell to the advancing North Vietnamese along with its allies the Viet Cong……I case you were unaware…….

As a Vietnam vet I hate to see the US return to doing stupid stuff as it did in my war……from the beginning I compared the wars, Vietnam and Iraq, both wars smelled the same…..we went there under false pretenses…death is the only thing that has come out of Iraq as it was in Vietnam.

This is an interest piece that kind of follows along my thinking back in 2004……please give it a read and comment…….

 

From the Fall of Saigon to Our Fallen Empire by Tom Engelhardt — Antiwar.com.