I was fortunate to receive number 365 in the Vietnam draft lottery. Sadly others were not so fortunate and were shipped there to fight, die and come home maimed - physically and mentally! I lost 2 high school classmates within the last few years to cancers associated with agent orange. A HUGE thanks is due to Jon Stewart and a pox on the gQp for their phony rhetoric praising vets while shoving it up their backsides....I will bet good money that a good number of vets remain loyal to 45 and some even voted for Levy?!?
I'll assume that's true. My father was a staunch Republican until the day he died, but he wasn't marching in lock-step after he left the military. He was at my house when the U.S. launched the first Gulf War and we had long talks about the motivation for that. And we agreed it wasn't about protecting democracy.
Wow. My number was way up there, too, I think around 265 I’ll need to check again. I had already planned to leave the country and go to Canada or Sweden. I’m sorry I didn’t go anyway and become a citizen.
I’m reminded of my visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC. As you walk along the wall, you see up ahead family members of the fallen, etching the name with pencil and paper and you listen to them sniffling. And you realize as you leave with your own tears that it became so long ago unimportant which side of the divide you were on. We all grieve now.
I have an artist friend who is a Black nationalist. He doesn’t like white people (including me, initially) and for good reason, of course. In the past, he exhibited dislike for the Pete Seegers and all the protests for the war. He fought in Nam. Then he saw one of the movies about Mohammad Ali and realized that Ali gave up his fighting career to save his people that were being sent to the war in greater numbers than other groups. It has changed his mind about the war.
It’s so shameful how we lie about the reasons then go to war and later care nothing for the harm placed in their way. It’s been said that the Vietnam veterans are now at their greatest need for medical as they have aged. Suffice to say, the US is the most war-destined nation on earth. War contributed to the downfall of Rome as it will this nation. I had been active against that war from my earliest teens but now we must without question, insure medical for these folks.
Jon Stewart said it, I think: If we are going to send people to fight in a war, we damn well better be prepared to receive them with open arms and whatever support they need when they are done fighting. I'm paraphrasing.
Rand Paul said he voted against PACT because care would go to veterans who couldn't prove they were sick because of exposure to burn pits. So he was afraid a sick veteran might be "faking it" to get health care? That sounds like B.S. to me. Every veteran should receive health care in perpetuity. Their families, too. Can't afford it? Then stop making so many veterans.
There are a few elected officials (MTG, Hawley, Paul) who consistently say the worst thing you could ever think of, and a few times, they have said things that even I, on a bad day, couldn't imagine.
We need more public figures like Stewart to hold leaders’ feet to the fire while they’re in office, and we the people who are Not being well represented by them need to vote them out of office. I have a special place in my heart for the Viet Nam vets. My 20 yr old cousin was killed in combat there in his 1st month of service. As a nursing student I was dismayed to see Nam vets my age coming back for treatment in the US after losing limbs, suffering horrible wounds and burns or “screwed in the head” by what they had experienced. And that doesn’t include the ones harboring yet unknown toxic agents.
I wish them out, too. When they both come up for re-election, let’s get busy. I’m doing so now, especially with Hawley. He’s from Missouri and I feel vaguely responsible for helping him retire so he can go write a memoir I won’t read.
I was fortunate to receive number 365 in the Vietnam draft lottery. Sadly others were not so fortunate and were shipped there to fight, die and come home maimed - physically and mentally! I lost 2 high school classmates within the last few years to cancers associated with agent orange. A HUGE thanks is due to Jon Stewart and a pox on the gQp for their phony rhetoric praising vets while shoving it up their backsides....I will bet good money that a good number of vets remain loyal to 45 and some even voted for Levy?!?
I'll assume that's true. My father was a staunch Republican until the day he died, but he wasn't marching in lock-step after he left the military. He was at my house when the U.S. launched the first Gulf War and we had long talks about the motivation for that. And we agreed it wasn't about protecting democracy.
Wow. My number was way up there, too, I think around 265 I’ll need to check again. I had already planned to leave the country and go to Canada or Sweden. I’m sorry I didn’t go anyway and become a citizen.
I’m reminded of my visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in DC. As you walk along the wall, you see up ahead family members of the fallen, etching the name with pencil and paper and you listen to them sniffling. And you realize as you leave with your own tears that it became so long ago unimportant which side of the divide you were on. We all grieve now.
My dad and I had raging arguments about the war (and all I knew was what I read in the papers). He was angry that I wore a POW bracelet (for LtJG Norris Charles -- https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/27792#:~:text=CITATION%3A-,Lieutenant%2C%20Junior%20Grade%20Norris%20Alphonzo%20Charles%20(NSN%3A%20B%2D,release%20on%20September%2025%2C%201972.) but I never once heard him call protesters anything. I never once heard him speak derisively of military personnel who served stateside, and not in country, as he did on three tours to Vietnam. It wasn't an us v. them, unless he and I were arguing. He was a true soldier.
I have an artist friend who is a Black nationalist. He doesn’t like white people (including me, initially) and for good reason, of course. In the past, he exhibited dislike for the Pete Seegers and all the protests for the war. He fought in Nam. Then he saw one of the movies about Mohammad Ali and realized that Ali gave up his fighting career to save his people that were being sent to the war in greater numbers than other groups. It has changed his mind about the war.
It’s so shameful how we lie about the reasons then go to war and later care nothing for the harm placed in their way. It’s been said that the Vietnam veterans are now at their greatest need for medical as they have aged. Suffice to say, the US is the most war-destined nation on earth. War contributed to the downfall of Rome as it will this nation. I had been active against that war from my earliest teens but now we must without question, insure medical for these folks.
Jon Stewart said it, I think: If we are going to send people to fight in a war, we damn well better be prepared to receive them with open arms and whatever support they need when they are done fighting. I'm paraphrasing.
Rand Paul said he voted against PACT because care would go to veterans who couldn't prove they were sick because of exposure to burn pits. So he was afraid a sick veteran might be "faking it" to get health care? That sounds like B.S. to me. Every veteran should receive health care in perpetuity. Their families, too. Can't afford it? Then stop making so many veterans.
There are a few elected officials (MTG, Hawley, Paul) who consistently say the worst thing you could ever think of, and a few times, they have said things that even I, on a bad day, couldn't imagine.
Thank you Jon,
I too am a veteran as is my son, as is my brother.
I love how the most brutal attack on Jon Stewart by the right is that he’s too short to date
Forget the fact that Stewart is married
And that attack came from a hack that used to wear a bow tie
It amazes me that Skippy “I don’t recall going on a double date with Matt Gaetz and his girlfriend” Carlson doesn’t realize what a doofus he is.
https://www.vox.com/2021/3/31/22359953/matt-gaetz-tucker-carlson-interview-sex-trafficking-allegations
Yes, well said, Jon Stuart. As always.
We need more public figures like Stewart to hold leaders’ feet to the fire while they’re in office, and we the people who are Not being well represented by them need to vote them out of office. I have a special place in my heart for the Viet Nam vets. My 20 yr old cousin was killed in combat there in his 1st month of service. As a nursing student I was dismayed to see Nam vets my age coming back for treatment in the US after losing limbs, suffering horrible wounds and burns or “screwed in the head” by what they had experienced. And that doesn’t include the ones harboring yet unknown toxic agents.
I wish them out, too. When they both come up for re-election, let’s get busy. I’m doing so now, especially with Hawley. He’s from Missouri and I feel vaguely responsible for helping him retire so he can go write a memoir I won’t read.