2010/04/05

Veterans Group pushes Congress to help Unemployed Vets

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are pressing for Congress to address the staggering rate of unemployment among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. For me, this is another illuminating experience with de-ja-vu (the illusion of having already experienced something, which is actually being experienced for the first time.). Truly, as one of my Montagnard friends told me only a few weeks after I served as Civil Affairs Officer for the 1/10 Cavalry Squadron, told me when I first arrived in Vietnam: "All wars are the same, and the only things which remain are the scars." Fortunately, our new veterans have a good friend in Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont), the chairman of the Finance Committee, who has introduced a jobs bill for new veterans. When I returned from Vietnam, there was no-one who decided to speak for us, and we were outcasts in our own country.
Another useful development is a new Army school to boost 'mental fitness'. When I first arrived in America, with a raging case of PSDT, I bought a .45 caliber army pistol, and I walked the most crime-ridden part of our city, hoping that someone would attack me, so that I could "blow him" -(or her) away. Fortunately, no-one did.

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