It is a question many of us have been asking, but not getting any answers. We listened as they debated, tried to play a game of whose who in the patriotic games that never seemed to really make any points other than people were pissed off. Not about Iraq or Afghanistan, just pissed off at the other side. Some people had valid points and truly motivated by what they believed, but the rest, were just a bunch of hacks running around the country trying to dump their own bad moods onto someone else's shoulders.
People like Beck fed on it. He showed up at rallies just like the one he mentioned tonight as I was channel suffering and wondering what he was talking about. The truth is, he never once mentioned how our "troops" which he was just too lazy to use the words of Soldier, Marine, Sailor, Airman or National Guardsman, were committing suicide when they were supposed to be back home, safe and sound with their families.
Oh, he couldn't be bothered to read a tiny insignificant blog like this one or my older one, but take a peek and see what was on this one post. I did it for research on the video I made, Death Because They Served, because of the numbers of suicides people like Beck were just ignoring.
Non-combat deaths-Non caring media
April 5, 20071/25/2007 JUSTIN BAILEY 27 CALIFORNIA OVERDOSE Iraq war veteran Justin Bailey checked himself in to the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center just after Thanksgiving. Among the first wave of Marines sent into battle, the young rifleman had been diagnosed since his return with posttraumatic stress disorder and a groin injury. Now, Bailey acknowledged to his family and a friend, he needed immediate treatment for his addiction to prescription and street drugs."We were so happy," said his stepmother, Mary Kaye Bailey, 41. "We were putting all of our faith into those doctors."On Jan. 25, Justin Bailey got prescriptions filled for five medications, including a two-week supply of the potent painkiller methadone, according to his medical records. A day later, he was found dead of an apparent overdose in his room at a VA rehabilitation center on the hospital grounds. He was 27
Spc. Doug Barber: One Year After His Tragic Suicide-Unaired Interviews by Jay Shaft Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 at 7:39 PM Two previously unreleased audio interviews with Spc. Douglas Barber, who served in Iraq with the Ohio National Guard. Released to commemorate the one year anniversary of his suicide due to untreated PTSD and overwhelming mental trauma. Interviews conducted by Jay Shaft: Editor-In-Chief/Executive Investigative Editor Thought Bomb Radio- Shock and Awe For the Mind Radio Hour/Coalition For Free Thought In Media 1-16-2006
Last month, on December 16, 2005, Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Spc. Douglas Barber was my guest on my radio talk show. He said he'd been diagnosed with PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) and despite receiving some help from the V.A., was still having trouble getting his life back together. Yesterday, one month later, on January 16, 2006, I received an email from a listener who'd been exchanging emails with Douglas since his appearance on my show. Douglas has just sent him an email that troubled the listener. Douglas said he no longer had anything to live for, and was getting ready to "check out of this world." My wife immediately called Douglas and left a message on his cell phone. She also called the Montgomery Police Department in Alabama. At the start of the 3rd hour of my program last night, I received an email from one of Douglas's friends, who told me that Douglas had committed suicide earlier that afternoon. Today I was able to confirm his suicide with the Opelika, Alabama Police Department. The officer in charge of the investigation told me that it had happened with officers on the scene trying to talk Douglas out of it. The officer told me Douglas took his gun, fired one shot, and killed himself.
Spc. Rusty W. Bell 21 Company A, 603rd Aviation Support Battalion, Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division Pocahontas, Arkansas Died of non-combat related injuries in Taji, Iraq, on August 12, 2005 Similarly, Army Spec. Rusty W. Bell, 21, of Pocahontas, Ark., showed signs of combat stress after his first deployment to the Middle East in 2003 as a member of the Army National Guard, said his mother, Darlene Gee. When he came home in April 2004, he enlisted in the Army and was sent back to Iraq in early 2005."He saw tons of combat that first time, and I think it affected him," Gee said. "I never asked him about it straight-out, but he said a few things that stick with me. He said, `Mom, I wish they'd just nuke the entire place. I know I would die, but at least I would die for a reason.' I said, `Bub, don't talk like that.'"I thought they shouldn't have sent him back so soon," she said. "Let him have a normal life for a while, after what he'd been through."An autopsy report on Bell's death concludes that he shot himself last August, with witnesses saying he was "distraught over family problems." Gee said she was not aware that her son, who was married, was having any significant personal problems.
But as long as people like Beck get to say they support the troops and wave a flag, that's all they feel obligated to do. Isn't it?
What do people like Beck know about Vietnam veterans anyway? What does he know about what it was like for them to come home to a nation worse than ambivalent? That is what they got from us. They went to the American Legion halls and the VFW posts looking for some kind of support, but were told they didn't belong there. They were not welcomed there either. But Beck forgets that part.
What does he know about what it was like for them to go to the VA because their lives were falling apart, their wives wanted divorces, their kids hated them and they were about to lose yet another job because they couldn't find a way to sleep without having a nightmare walk them up, drain them of all energy and then have to deal with the daytime nightmares called flashbacks? Does Beck know what it was like for them to go thru any of this? No, it's easier to just focus on what was obviously done against the Vietnam veterans because then he can feel oh so noble.
It's really funny when you think about it. At least the anti-war people didn't try to hide how they felt about the Vietnam veterans, but people like Beck hid it rather well. Much like what's been going on in congress for the last 8 years as the death counts from suicides and attempted suicides went up but people in congress decided that taking care of our veterans was just not worth it politically when they could sucker them in just by claiming they supported them.
We keep hearing that we should do this, or we should do that, to really show that we are patriotic, but that's not the way it should be measured. We should take care of our veterans in the first place by never making them "troops" in combat unless it is absolutely necessary for our security instead of just being claimed to be. We do it by making sure when they are sent, they have everything they need from equipment to the plans to do it and win it. There has to be a end game so that no one will ever scratch their heads wondering if it's over or not. Then we do it by making sure they come home and never, ever, have to fight to have their wounds taken care of. That's how you do it. You don't do it with telling people to get rid of their flags or stain them with tea! You don't do it by tossing a frog into boiling water and wonder why it didn't do what it was supposed to do and you surely don't do it by avoiding any reporting on what is going on with them if it happens to look badly on someone you voted for!
People like Beck have a golden opportunity right now to bitch, moan and complain all they want about President Obama and actually make a difference by reporting on the numbers of suicides and attempted suicides among veterans as well as the "troops" but first he needs to be brought up to speed on the fact the VA numbers are different than the DOD and their numbers usually don't include totals from the Army, the Marines, Air Force or the Navy. He won't have a clue. Then he will also need to know that if he does report on what is happening to our "troops" that their backlog of claims is almost a million and that also means they are not receiving any paychecks, he'll also have report on the fact that this all started under Bush and people like him ignored all of it!
I doubt he'd do it. He would actually have to admit it and humble himself, but since we've seen him cry on his show, he should have no trouble finding the motivation to shed a tear or two for the men and women who should still be here instead of in the ground because we ignored their suffering.
When they all come out, on both sides, claiming to be patriotic, ask them where they were when some of the people on the above list were killing themselves waiting to really matter.
