Army leaders said Monday that they accept responsibility for substandard conditions at the service’s flagship Walter Reed Army Medical Center but also said that they weren’t aware of most of the problems.
Huh?
This brings me to something that I’ve felt passionate about for quite some time now. I’ve always been of the belief that anyone who fights for this country should never have to worry about being clothed, having a home, having food, and having adequate medical care. I’m not saying that it has to be a mansion stocked with steaks and a perpetual morphine drip, but the bare minimum should at least be provided. Hell, I’d even throw in tax free smokes for them.
Why is it so hard for us to take care of our soldiers in this fucking country? Shouldn’t that be our top priority? If not the top priority than at least ahead of say, I don’t know…sending a remote control car to Mars? I love animals, but it’s a shame that there are thousands of pets out there who are being treated better than our former soldiers, and if we are to consider ourselves a civilized society, then this has to be addressed. And while I’m not necessarily an entitlement guy, this is one group of people that have all the reason in the world to feel entitled and should never be reduced to having to hold up a sign on the side of the freeway, begging you for the change left over from your latest exorbitantly priced latte purchase.
I understand that we now implement a completely volunteer army, but how can we honestly expect anyone to want to join it after they witness veterans being treated slightly better than dog shit upon completing service? Unlike other groups in need, this one has actually retroactively done something for their country and should be cared for accordingly. To see a homeless veteran with worse accommodations than Anna Nicole’s corpse is sickening. On top of that, we have a president whose predilection for touting the word “morale” is usurped only by the number of times he mispronounces the word “nuclear”. Good ol’ Dubya even had the lack of human decency to raise the price of health care for veterans a few years ago. This after having the nerve to show up on an aircraft carrier as if he had done anything more militarily than decide that we are going to fight Iraq’s civil war for them whilst unnecessarily leading us in to the first preemptive war in the history of the United States.
People wonder why social security is running out faster than the minute glass during your turn in Cranium and the victims of Katrina are being assisted about as well as Kobe Bryant’s teammates? Hey, I’ve got some news for ya: if this is how we are now treating the people who literally put their lives on the line for us….then we’s all fucked!
Also inundating the media right now is the news of the blood clot in Vice President Dick Cheney’s leg–a condition that could be fatal if not treated in a timely manner. Well then, I think the pertinent thing to do in this instance is to throw Cheney’s tired ass into a dirty cot at Walter Reed and put the old fucker in the back of the line.
