I've HAD it with the military!

**** is currently speaking to the American Legion or I should say reading to the AL and having a difficult time with it, too. He is giving his usual Iraq stump speech (They'll follow us home) and how he is protecting the U.S. and supporting the soldiers, etc.

And the applause and laughter at his little 'jokes' go on and on, even after yesterday's hearings showing he doesn't give crap about the military. WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THESE PEOPLE???! They are veterans and not presently in the active military. They should be sitting on their hands and giving him the cold shoulder. They should be demanding the best of equipment and care for the active duty, yet they fall right behind Bush like sheep.

I'm sick of it and have little sympathy anymore.

health care? elderly issues? transportation? food safety? environment?
Fuck it all ... if it's not military, it doesn't matter ... oh, unless it's Anna Nicole.

This is the STUPIDEST country on earth.

How I long for the day when a Democrat will stand up and say, "The military didn't stop 9/11, and it WON'T stop another 9/11. 90% of what we're spending in the military is a carry over from WWII/The cold war. Those days are over. We have no business being the world's policemen. We MUST cut the military..."

... and just kept getting lower. REMFs and SwiftBoaters and wannabes ... a detestable organization. I'll take the VFW over them ANY day.

I've been going to their Friday night fish fry (taking my 87-year-old mother) for quite a while and I've struck up a relationship with several of the members, including the post 'commander' ... who detests Junior just about as much as I do. He's both a Viet Nam veteran and someone who also sees this current adminstration as criminal. Like me, he's an independent who sees the Republican Party as completely taken over by neo-fascists. I can't even begin to describe how comfortable it is to meet another guy in my neighborhood with whom I have such an immediate sense of trust. (The retired high school teacher and track coach, member of MoveOn, who did our lawn for a couple of years left the area ... so I miss the 'sanity check' of chatting with him.)

Remember... There's enough rednecks out there for * to pander to for the rest of his misbegotten life.

...except in extreme cases. People who do this the best rise to the top (or end up killed).

Make it, after the first 10 minutes of boot camp. After that DI decked the guy next to me I thought, "I have made a very big mistake."

Good medical treatment, good pensions, a decent life with a good job that lasted until retirement after they mustered out....they see things through their own limited prism and can't see any other reality.

It's the old, "I got mine" attitude, which is just as alive and well there as anyplace else.

Good medical treatment, good pensions, a decent life with a good job that lasted until retirement...

Coming from a military family (dad was Navy vet serving in WWII and Korea; uncle was career Air Force), I've always been somewhat bemused at how the world's most sophisticated socialist system (the US military) is charged with protecting the world's most sophisticated capitalist system (the US corporations).

...or all Vets, these asshats in the AL and even some in the VFW don't give a damn about the troops, all they seem to be concerned with is showing their loyalty to a mad man, and his political party.

It's filled with a bunch of right-wing boot lickers.

judging the entire military by the American Legion is a big mistake.

Vets like Monkeyman give me hope for our party.We have some powerful veterans in Congress now-Webb and Murtha to name two-real combat veterans who will expose their hypocrisy.

The AL is an ultra-conservative veterans organization - supposedly open to all vets but it self-selects by making sure any non-conservative vets are very unwelcome, hence the other vet groups for them.

And the ones who spent a few years in a peacetime rear position and act like they deserve a Congreesional Medal of Honor medals for their "Sacrifice". These guys have no idea what they are demanding from the men and women serving today.

The Legion is a right wing front group. That is all they are.