Happy Veterans' Day Options

[DoomedOne]

Today in the United States was the day decreed to celebrate all the Veterans. They have parades all over the place where the WW2 vets stand on floats and stuff like that. Me, being the anti-hat person, even sacrificed my sense of style for the day yesterday by wearing my Dad's Vietnam Veteran hat.

[DoomedOne]

My Grandpa was a POW at a Nazi prison is France. He was part of a big escape and as far as he knows he's the only guy that survived that night. He made it to England and served the rest of the war as a Liason between the Eisenhower staff and the Belgium underground.

My Dad finished top of his class at Officer school but they promised you go to Officer School for two years and you're exempt from the draft. They wanted him to finish Officer school and go on to become an officer but he refused, so they drafted him anyway. In Vietnam he served as First Cavalry, and his best friend was killed by Friendly Fire, half his Platoon was blown up by a rogue missile and he got shot twice losing 3/4 of his intestines. To this day he still has a bullet in him that the VA says is far too risky to remove. He has PTSD and a hernia caused by shot-wounds which he had repaired twice but kept coming back because he's ordered to stay off his feet for two months so his gut will set, but he can't, if he doesn't work for that long he'd end up on the streets. Meanwhile the Legislative and Executive branch in this country CONTINUE to lower Veterans' Benefits.

There, two war-stories from my family. Oh, one more, probably the most heroic thing my Dad did in Vietnam.

There was a prisoner these Officers had tied to a tree and they were trying to interrogate him. Meanwhile my Dad and his friend who were patrolling that night came across this scene. I forgot what they had my Dad and his friend doing but eventually they were finished interrogating and the commanding Officer just said, "Okay take care of him," and left so the other guy ordered his subordinate to shoot him in the head. My Dad and his friend were like, "What the? No, that's not what he meant!" and refused to let them kill the prisoner until the commanding officer returned. They confirmed it and he said, "No I meant helicoptor him out of here."

Of course, later the officer that was going to shoot him said, "You know the only reaosn he got helicoptored out of here was because of you two and once they reach 700 feet they're going to drop him."