Veteran Voting

[Oubaas]

My wife and I were there when the doors opened here in our tiny, rural, red state village and we've cast our votes.

We would have voted anyway, and we're Democratic voters for reasons besides veterans issues, but we were particularly motivated because I was 100% permanently and totally disabled in the line of duty in the military and the Republicans are eying veterans benefits again. Senator Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, seems to think we have too many benefits and commissioned a report about what we're eligible to receive. He says he wants to "streamline" our benefits because we're eligible for too many things. He probably ordered up the report right after reviewing his own benefits as a Senator and deciding he and the uber-rich could have more if he took from us pesky veterans.

I'm sure he'd give a stirring speech about how willing veterans are to sacrifice for the good of the country. Republicans like to wave the flag, slap us on the back, and put words in our mouths for us. But it's not like they're making me rich or something, unlike Senator Coburn. Sorry Senator Coburn and his fellow Republicans, but I've sacrificed enough already and I'd like to be able to afford to live like a human being and take care of my family. Maybe even keep my home. I'm greedy like that.

But trying to screw veterans is a longstanding Republican tradition, and Senator Coburn's lust to cut our benefits is just the latest attempt. John McCain, Michelle Bachmann and others have tried in the past. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a while back that veterans benefits are the PROPERTY of the veteran, not entitlements. But I guess the Republicans are OK with depriving me of my property, for which I contracted with the government and served until I couldn't anymore, without due process or consideration of the potential impact on me and my family. And McCain should know better, being a veteran himself.

I have a friend who works for the VA and has been paying attention and tracking things for many years who tells me that veterans ALWAYS do better under a Democratic Congress and administration. Always.

I've been retired from the military for 23 years now, and for all of those 23 years, I have lived not only with my service-connected disabilities, but also with the constant threat of having my benefits, my PROPERTY according to the 9th Circuit, stolen. For two cents, I'd sue the Republican Party for exacerbating my service-connected disabilities year after year for 23 straight years. It would be so nice to be left in peace. But I guess the service-connected disabilities aren't enough and the Republicans want to make sure that I don't run low on stress.

And as icing on the cake, I now have a daughter in university, and the aspiring Senatorial candidate from my state, a Republican, would like to cut her scholarships here in her second year of university if he's elected. I can't afford that, either, and neither can my daughter. And I still have one more to get through school.

Needless to say, I voted a straight Democratic ticket, as did my wife. Any veteran who votes Republican is shooting himself in the foot.

And Mamas, considering my 23 years of waiting to be screwed out of what I was promised when I joined the military, don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines.

[lonestarnot]

1. Thank you for your service and your spouse's and your intelligent votes.

[moondust]

2. I think Republicans would prefer it if

you and I and thousands of others would march off to the wars they start (for their own glory and profit) and not come back alive. Seriously.

I remember back during Vietnam there were some draft age boomers who wondered if the whole Vietnam thing wasn't just a plot to "thin the population" because they thought there were too many baby boomers.

The Republican Party has basically become a one-trick pony: all they know how to do is ATTACK! It's hard to believe anybody would vote for them when that's all they have to offer the American people.

[Oubaas]

3. Yup!

Yeah, I think you're right, Moondust. I get the impression that they're happy to pat us on the back and see us off when we go, but if we have the temerity to come back and start claiming the benefits we were promised, then we're not so popular with them anymore. I grow weary of reading the news and seeing yet another great Republican idea to reduce veterans benefits.

And then, of course, there are matters like trying to legislate their ideas about morality into everyone else's life, and wanting to throw anyone who's down on their luck to the wolves, and throwing temper tantrums and trying to shut down the government in a foaming-at-the-mouth petulant frenzy. But they don't seem to understand that regular folks are tired of the nonsense.

I may live in a red state and wear a cowboy hat and boots, own a pickup truck, listen to country music, and own guns and all that, but when I wore that uniform in which I was disabled in the line of duty, I wore it on behalf of ALL Americans, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, straight, gay, male, female, religious, atheist, and any other category you can think of. I may not always agree with others, but I'll defend their right to disagree with me, as others have said before me. I didn't always agree with what we were involved with in the military, but I carried on because I felt that sometimes what we had to do was necessary, and it wasn't my business, or anyone else's in the military, to set national policy.

I'm a great believer in minding my own business. And it isn't my business who somebody else chooses to love. Hell, I'd rather see two people who love each other, regardless of gender, than to see two people trying to kill each other. And if two people partner up, why shouldn't they get the same benefits as any other two people who partner up?

And I think a poor kid from the inner city is entitled to the same rights as an American as the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

And I don't see it as any of my business, or anyone else's, as to what decisions a woman makes about her own body.

And even though I own some guns of my own, I don't see anything wrong with having some reasonable restrictions on who can own weapons and what sort of weapons they need to be allowed. Frankly, I can shoot, and I hit what I aim at, and I have never been in a situation outside the military where I felt that I needed an autoloading weapon with a high capacity magazine. Just a regular old lever action, low capacity ranch rifle accomplishes any task that I might have for it.

And I don't understand locking people up and ruining lives because their recreational choices are different than mine. Or spending 70 billion a year on a "War On Drugs" that doesn't work even as they eye veterans benefits, and welfare, unemployment, and other social programs for cuts. You don't throw people to the wolves.

A lot of the people in my community would probably howl with indignation at the way I see things, but to me, I'll worry about fixing everyone else and forcing my values and beliefs on them as soon as I'm perfect myself. And I've been working on it for 56 years. But somehow, I seriously doubt I'll ever get there. So I hope no one is waiting around for me to tell them how to think or live.

In the meantime, I think I'll mind my own business and vote to preserve everyone else's right to live as they please. Even the ones who disagree with me. I just wish the constant divisiveness spewing forth from the conservative end of the political spectrum would cease. Maybe then we could all work together and get on with keeping and maintaining a nation that's the best place to live that I've been able to find.

[moondust]

5. Question for you.

Do you think reinstating a draft would be a good or bad idea? You probably know the arguments on both sides. Having a draft would tend to involve more children of privilege and therefore discourage their families and friends from dragging the country into unnecessary wars. Plutocrats would be less willing to sacrifice their own children.

On the other hand, an all-volunteer military tends to spare a lot of young people who aren't really fit for military service for one reason or another. But it also spares a lot of privileged kids whose families and friends may not mind sending poor kids off to war if it could mean big oil company profits or stock market gains (Cheney/Halliburton). I have a feeling that a lot of young people in today's military are there not so much out of duty to country but because they couldn't find a decent job with benefits anywhere else. Maybe that's the plutocrats' plan. ???

Any thoughts?

[Oubaas]

6. Tough Question

Whew, that's a tough one. I was a volunteer, myself. I'm 56 years old now and the local youngsters know that I'm retired military. And these days if I'm asked by a young person about joining, I tell them "I wouldn't." Unexpected advice from a military retiree perhaps, but I have to give an honest answer. And that's the way I feel about it.

And my reasons for telling them that are because I question the purpose behind our various excursions of late, and not only did I have to wrangle for about three years to obtain the benefits that I was "guaranteed" when I joined, but over the years they have cut and continue to seek to cut those benefits. Even if they give you the benefits that they promised, you'll never rest easy, because there will always be Michelle Bachmanns, John McCains, and Tom Coburns looking to cut your benefits when they're not busy voting to increase their own.

On top of that, the services themselves have become so nitpicking chickenshit about every little thing these days that I'm sure I'd be in deep shit in about ten minutes if I was still in.

But we do need armed forces. How to fill the ranks? Well, I think the all volunteer force is a good thing, but I do agree that things would be better, especially for veterans and their benefits, if more Senators' and Representatives offspring got to wear a uniform.

I'm hesitant, however, to advocate conscription. If we ever do draft people again, I'd like to see great improvements to the policies on conscientious objectors. If a person sincerely abhors the idea of participating in such things, then they should not have to jump through hoops to be exempted from it. A person should be allowed to live as their conscience dictates. If someone believes that violence is wrong, then they have my blessing, speaking as a veteran, to be exempted from serving. Of course, that would also provide an easy out for the children of the privileged. So I guess those of us born without the proverbial silver spoon in our mouths would still get the brunt of it.

I think I'd have to stay with the all volunteer force. But I sure wish the politicians would stop to think how they'd feel if one of us disabled vets was their son or daughter before they cast a vote to make our lives even harder by cutting our benefits. And it's usually the flag-wavingest Republican uberpatriot with a "Support Our Troops" bumper sticker on his limo that's eying our benefits for more cuts. I wish more veterans would realize this.

[ladyVet]

7. Everything you said, times one million.

We are the same age, and I know lots of people were sure howling for us to get sent over to Iran during the hostage crisis. Bastards.

I agree that it would be better in some folk's eyes if no military survived a war. I think it's why our men and women were so under-provided for, for these last shit holes.

[FSogol]

4. Awesome, thanks for voting and welcome to DU. n/t