How do other veterans feel about Veteran's day [View All]

[Stinky The Clown]

I'm a Navy Vet - regular and reserve - from 1967 to 1975. Vietnam era, but I fortunate not to have been to Nam. I get proud and weepy on Veteran's Day. Proud because I went when it seemed the right thing to do. Weepy because of all the shit the vets have had to take. Some even on this board seem to want to criticize today's active duty military - for voting for Bush and even for simply being in Iraq.

Treating vets shitty is nothing new. When they came back from Vietnam, they came home by commercial carrier in onesies and twosies. No welcome. No warmth. No thanks. (The notion that they were spit upon appears to have long ago been debunked). Then they were pushed aside by the VA. It took Max Cleland and Jimmy Carter (both vets) to fix that.

My Dad was a WWII vet. North Africa, Italy, France, then Germany at the end. He came home, and like all the rest of his generation of vet, married, got a job, had kids, and lived his life. But now, where he's buried, we can't even get permission for a plaque on his grave to signify his service. Catholic cemetery in CT. My mother, before she died, too, worked hard to get that changed. The Diocese of Bridgeport. The city. The state. Nada. Finger pointing. Call this one. Call that one. I'm sorry, ma'am, we can't help you here. Try there.

Bullshit.

Do you realize that Vietnam Vets got a memorial before the WWII vets did? Greatest Generation? Yeah, whatever. Now move along ...... no loitering.

And so I hold my head proud.

And I weep (quite literally, even as I am typing this).

The current AWOL fucker occupying MY government's house is just like the assholes my mother dealt with to her death. Disrespectful, ungrateful, uncaring, unconcerned.

God Bless you all, My Brothers and Sisters!