A Blight on America's Soul

"Look, every time you go out to that mailbox and get your disability check, it tells you you're sick.",James Blake Miller, The "Marlboro Marine".

Before we get into this any further, I just want to say a quick thank you to Los Angeles Times Photographer Luis Sinco. Thank God for you sir, and thank God for EVERY journalist, who stands up for what is right, no matter what "The Rules" say. If there were more more Luis Sincos in this world, then maybe, just maybe there would be fewer Blake Millers!

You took it upon yourself to reach out to a soul drowning in despair and pulled him, if not to shore, at least to the shallows.

Of all the people that had the power to help when your wife called you with those fateful words, "Your boy is on TV. He has PTSD. They kicked him out the Marines." You stood, and leaped into the fray like a true warrior. You picked Blake Miller up, threw him across your shoulders, and you carried him to the LZ. You would not leave him wounded and forgotten. Of all those who had the power to help, only you did!

No one in the hallowed halls of Congress would help! Better that Haliburton, and Blackwater should be obscenely funded than funds be alloted for our damaged soldiers be treated! Oh they listened politely enough, or sent aides to inform this wounded warrior they didn't have time to meet, but no one would take up his cause!

PTSD is a scarey thing! To be avoided at all costs! Thank him for his service. Hang some pretty medals on him for the "Photo Op", and kick him out the door!

How much better it is, to put our wounded in some vermin-ridden room in "Walter Reed" where "We the People" won't have to see what the REAL price of President Pork Pie's misadventure REALLY is! And for God's sake don't let the High School kids see them before the youthfull cannon fodder turn up at the recruiters office! But Blake Miller wasn't even to get that much!

To the Marine Corps, Miller was damaged goods. Easier to boot him out on a "Medical Under Honorable" than to make any attempt to fix what had been done to this young man's mind and soul, in the service of this country! SOOOO much easier to send him home with a $2500.00 a month disability check, as a band-aid for his bullet wound, and wait for the bottle to finish what the battle had started! A sad, sad story that would be repeated many times in many different towns in this country when one third of the bravest, and best, come home broken and bleeding from wounds nobody can see! Trapped by horrors in their own minds that all the whisky ever distilled, and all the drugs ever made will never erase!

Now, as we speak the Veterans Administration is trying to weasle out of the promises made to our soldiers! They're actually stating in open court that Veterans have no right to medical care, and furthermore have no right to expect any!!!!!

An attorney for The Veteran's Administration stated "The scope of VA's mandate only reaches only 'to the extent and in the amount provided in advance in appropriations Acts for these purposes' [and] creates no such expectations [that veterans are entitled to care]."!!

That's right kids! Your recruiters are all lying out their asses! Believe it!!!!

War is a terrible thing, and it's NEVER to be entered in the slack-assed, "Sic 'em, boys" fashion that President Pork Pie has! Based on lies and scraps of questionable intell we will pay the price for this war with our broken and damaged youth! Young people with thousand yard stares, and spirits shattered by experiences most of you can't even imagine!

And now The VA wants to cut them adrift to sink in a sea of despair. They deserve better!