Saturday, November 26, 2011

From a Greatful Nation

Originally Published on Facebook by Joaquin Rafael Roces on Friday, July 22, 2011 at 7:58pm

Taken by Joao Silva in October 2006 while on patrol with a US unit in Iraq. He managed to photograph a series showing a soldier being shot by a sniper and then recovered by other members of his unit. The series of shots won an honourable mention in the World Press Photo awards.
So, as the Repubs abandon the talks to raise the debt ceiling, I am left wondering whether I will be recieving my VA check in August. It's not enough that under George II, we had the largest and most significant cuts in VA benefits coincide with the largest influx of combat related wounded personnel. Unlike George I brief entanglement in 1999, this war is at 10+ years, so the impact is not just one generation of wounded personnel, but several generations. Unlike me, these men AND women, suffer far worse injuries. Of course, Boehner spent a total of 8 weeks in the US Navy during the Vietnam war, but never completed basic training. Cantor never served in the military but had no qualms pushing for the invasion of Iraq. While other men and women were sent off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, his son Evan finishes his fourth year at the University of Virginia and Jenna is a Sophomore at Univerisity of Michigan. From Dec 30 2007 to May 29 2011 while Evan was in college 555 Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2003 32,102 Americans have returned wounded, broken and scarred. At least Jenna and Barbara Bush joined the Air Force and served in Iraq. The first photo that pops up in Cantor's official website, is Cantor shaking hands with aging vets. Cantor loves to wrap himself in the American flag, while 'other' Americans are buried underneath it. Then he has the audacity to make his campaign speaches standing on their graves. Now, the two threaten to delay 70 million checks that many Americans depend on from disabled veterans to unemployed Americans to the elderly and disabled. Unlike Boehner and Cantor, for these Americans, these checks are their 'bread and butter' necessary for their survival. The VA estimates that 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. About another1.5 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing. These checks are not an "entitlement" but something they EARNED. Something we owe to them,to forfeit on such a debt would not only mean a fiscal betrayal - forfeiting not only on a debt of numbers, money and dollars, but on a debt of honor as well.

Check out this article from Veterans Today: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/01/deficit-hawkoprite-eric-cantor/

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