Hard Stuff to Write About

This has been the most difficult post I've ever tried to write. It's been kickin' my butt on a daily basis  and every time I go back to the editorial that started it all, hoping that it had been deleted and discovering that it had not, it kicks me again.

The editorial I'm referring to surrounds the intentional posting of an inaccurate statement regarding the position of wounded warriors who are under the care of our VA. After the post was made, the guy that posted it admitted that he did it as a joke but by then, the damage was done. I don't find jokes about wounded warriors to be very funny at all.

To insure that there's no mistaking what happened I'll put into quotations a part of his statement that I found to be so offensive.

Quoting only part of the editorial, I'll simplify it be saying that he correctly referred to himself as a Veteran who was under the care of the VA but, as a joke, he incorrectly stated that he is now among the ranks of the "47% " who contribute nothing to our society.

It was obviously a political poke at Mitt Romney but using wounded warriors under care at the VA was a piss poor choice of places to make it. To me, that was a kick below the belt as I'm one of those Veterans that depends on the VA to help me with my Agent Orange Contamination and the malignant cancer that comes with the dioxin.

Adding insult to injury, as I saw it, he may have created an obstacle to the many wounded who are "trying" to get some help. If that wasn't enough damage, it may also be detrimental to others who are struggling with the "thoughts" about asking for help.

With that in mind, I hope like hell that any Veteran who might have been cruising the net and came across that editorial, wasn't one who was looking for information about the process other Veterans had gone through as they sought help.

I also hope that any member of that site that reads this, considers deleting the editorial and all of the comments made about that. I would make that request myself except any statements of a political nature are not allowed on that site.

As I was dealing with all of that, I finally found a little relief and a possible solution to all this when I recalled a notice that came from the Fighter Pilot's email system that we call the "Casbar".

I think this post is important enough to put that notice in numerical order because without having the organized details or the inside information, you may not be well informed enough to understand exactly where my head is at this point in time and why I've been having such a rough time writing about this.

With regard to the Fighter Pilot's email, I clearly remember the shock from the following:

1. They informed us about a horrible situation concerning a Veteran who was in
    bad shape and really needed some help.
2. He even had a tough time asking for help.
3. He reported to his local VA but was totally unfamiliar with the process there.
4. He had no idea that budget cuts eliminated staff members to help him get started.
5. He was handed a volume of paper work to fill out but was unable to do it by himself.
6. He went home, tried again but couldn't get through it on his own.
7. He was overpowered by the frustrations.
8. He decided to take his own life and killed himself later that evening.

I don't want to seem like a broken record that continues to repeat the successes of the the Red River Valley Fighter Pilot's Association but I'm finding more and more reasons to do that everyday.

I say that because I can clearly see on other Internet sites, that the statements describing our Nation as one that is suffering from divisiveness, are statements that are true. Fortunately, the closer we come to election day, the more we seem to learn about the things that produced the divide.

The Fighter Pilot's are not divided at all. They are totally united. Remember what that was like? Was pretty neat, wasn't it!

As I recognized that the divisiveness was a situation that could easily be demonstrated as true, I began to think about the River Rats and wondered what in the hell they were doing so well to keep all of us from falling into that trap.

I started off with thoughts about their Leadership. They've had  and continue to have some really great leaders over the  years but the more I thought about their Past Association Presidents and all of the daily posts I've read on the Casbar, I realized that all of the members that are active in the Casbar, possess various kinds or forms of leadership.

That may sound a bit corny but the evidence clearly shows that to be true.

Having said that and in view of my repeated horn tooting for them, I want you to accept that my statements are most serious and not statements that have resulted from an emotional thought process of any kind. "Evidence" in making a statement like that is my defense. It's the kind of evidence that generally proceeds the final statement of an attorney when he says: "I rest my case".

As an example of that, quite some time ago, I read a reply to one of the posts from a member in the Bar and I'd like to add that for you now so you'll have a better degree of understanding of what I mean.

I don't remember the specifics of the post that produced the answer below but in that light, it must have been somewhat inconsequential to me. What I do remember however, is the answer to the post and how it effected my thought process when making my own statements. Here's the answer:

1. When posting political statements, make sure to have source documents to back them up.
2. Statements that are found to be inaccurate only weaken your point.
3. Say what you mean but mean what you say.
4. If there ain't no picture, it didn't happen.

To me, the response explained that we all needed to be very careful about passing along information. Once that was explained, I began to check out some things that were posted in the Bar and I never found any inaccuracies. There are differences of opinion but no statements go unchecked.

With that in mind, I say that any military site would be proud to achieve that level of free speech and, at the same time,achieve that level of concern about accuracy of things that are said on their sites. In an analogous sense, accuracy in political statements from Veteran web sites are no different than the accuracy of your aim when you are making a strafing run on an enemy target. Being wrong, simply won't cut it.

I don't want to paint the impression that the Casbar is a place that allows no room for anything other than a rigid posture. That's as far from the truth as it can be. There is freedom of speech there but they come with rules of conduct. You won't find any porno, bashing of Christians or any kind of jokes about our wounded warriors on their site.

These are serious people who are serious about helping our wounded warriors. Go to their web site  by following the link that is on the front page of this blog. You will find  a number of National Awards for their work with wounded warriors and no jokes or negative implications about the Veterans. Donate a few bucks to help a wounded warrior out. There's a link on the opening page here. Tell em Fireball 28 sent you.

Questions about the VA from my buddy Curt

The VA system here and in Houston has been most effective and consistent with health care. That's true in my case and it encompasses every department from Neurosurgery, Oncology and  Radiology all the way down to helping us get from our cars in the parking lot to the front door of the hospital.

Lots of us use walking canes and wheel chairs and they are even prepared for that. It's a huge facility and one of the parking lots is a half mile away from the front door of the hospital, maybe a little more.

For the Fighter Pilots and the members of the Sharks and Dolphins, please know that last night, as I was checking the various military sites that I'm active with, I checked the site from one of my units in Vietnam.

I ran across a request for help from a pilot / friend I flew with but couldn't answer because politicizing the site is not allowed. Since the funding is a political process and that involves politicians, I am forced to answer it here instead of there and I will attempt to do that to the best of my ability.

Sorry to get off the path we had been on but I consider this to be another bit of evidence that we really need to get together and help each other out and do that through the Every-Veteran site I've been working on. There will be no restrictions to freedom of speech there.

Since my printer doesn't work, I'll have to recall most of this from memory so if it isn't exactly to the dollar and cent, you will have to give me a mulligan. I have a hell of a doctor's excuse.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that they are roughly 99% accurate but will add that you can go to the VA site and get the numbers yourself. That's where I got mine. Here's a list of things that I've uncovered and experienced personally.

1.   The VA system requires an annual budget of roughly 58 Billion dollars to run the hospitals.
2.   The benefit package requires another 65 Billion.
3.   Those budgetary requirements are funded by the tax payer and allocated by the government.
4.   The Shreveport VA has a budget that was stated to me to be 364 million dollars.
5.   This is not an entitlement, it is a benefit from your service to your Country.
6.   You paid your premium in Vietnam and Cambodia.
7.   There are horrible shortfalls in the budget.
8.   It causes a shortfall in funding for the VA staff and it includes doctors and administrators.
9.   It causes a shortfall in medical equipment like the kind that was required for my brain surgery.
10. To understand the budget process, you must involve yourself in the political aspect of it.

I'm not in a position to say exactly what Tim Jr did to accomplish the same goal you have as I was unconscious when they brought me there by ambulance and I don't remember anything except the hot rod magazine my brother brought to me. Thanks to Leland, Tim Jr and Kristin.

I do remember that they did not have some kind of medical equipment that was needed for my brain surgery and that was explained to me as a function of another shortfall in the budget.

I also remember that I could not have surgery at the highly respected Neurosurgery Department at the LSU Medical Center in Shreveport because the budget shortfall would not allow payment to that hospital.

In view of that, I had to be transferred to Debakey Medical Center in Houston where the VA is set up as the brain trauma center for the wounded Vets returning from the Middle East.

I was already in the system and being treated and medicated to stop the bloody feet and hands that came with the Agent Orange problem. That was already in place when the brain surgery requirement surfaced. Thanks again to my USMC brother Leland for getting me to sign up before the bleeding became too bad for me to do it myself like you are having to do.

After the brain surgery, the biopsy was determined to be malignant and I was given 3 to 12 months to live. When that was issued, I remember Tim Jr being directed to the Patient Advocate office where he met Rosemary Mason, another high achiever in the system and a great credit to the VA staff.

I don't know if you have already been directed to the Patient Advocate Office in California but if not, I suggest you go there immediately as the PAO worked wonders for me and hopefully, the one at your VA can do the same thing for you.

All of this happened while I was basically living on the ward at the VA in a semi private room that I shared with a World War II Veteran. At some point during that time, I remember hearing that Tim Jr's frustrations had a chance of being reduced as he had been directed to the DAV where the Disabled American Veteran's representative, Bob Petrus, was located.

I don't have any idea what happened during that time but I know that when he returned he had a smile on his face when he told me that the DAV officer knew what was up and would assist with the paper work situation that was somewhat like the one you are experiencing now.

If I had to guess I would say that the DAV meeting took place somewhere close to a month or so after my brain surgery. As I understand it, you've already been there for a year so maybe you are already in contact with them.

In any event, they put together the paper work and with the help of Doug Haywood, Mike Olinger and many others, my service in Vietnam was confirmed and my records were mysteriously no longer missing and finally wound up at the VA thus providing the truth that I was in Vietnam. It even included my OER's but not the information regarding the Flight Surgeon grounding me because of the concussion I suffered during my time with the 199th.

With all of that in place, the records went to the main service center in New Orleans. Unfortunately, under staffing there, another function of the budgetary shortfall from the government, caused that to be another long process. The suicide prevention counselor, the PAO and the DAV communicated with them on a direct basis and did a great job in helping the process along.

I hope that this account will let you fill in the blanks or answer the unknown and lead you to a faster path to being in the system like I am.

I hate to say this but I will ask you not to copy this and post it on the site as I've already been dressed down through their definition of statistics like this being something that makes me guilty of politicizing the site.

I hate to feel like I need to defend myself by helping a pilot from my old unit but with that in mind, I will finish with this:

The above ten point list is information that I am NOT responsible for. I can not help the fact that the budget is a function of the political system and one that, in some cases, classifies this information as politicizing.

I will say that it's okay to send it to Don via his personal email as I don't want him to incorrectly confuse his earned Veterans benefit package as one that puts him in, as he stated, the "47% column".

I'm sorry it took so many hours to answer this but please understand that I tried to provide an answer until I finally gave up at 3 a.m. I gave it as good a shot as I could but only found myself saying: "I didn't make the rules or set the definition of politicizing the site". With that, I went to bed.

If I can help you further, please communicate directly with me on my personal email so that both of us won't have to suffer from the time wasted through restrictions of speaking freely. Good luck and hollar if you need me. Will put Pam on the prayer list and pray for her to have the endurance that Tim Jr and Kristin had to get me through it.

A previous post from 9/25 and more Churchill.

If you missed the previous post, you may want to scroll down and read it before you get into this one.

Whether you did or didn't, know that I'm in really good spirits. I had what I consider to be a great appointment with the Neurology Department at the VA hospital in Shreveport Monday morning and I'm feeling really good about it all. There was no pain, no prodding of the skull, no sticking with needles or anything at all that was unpleasant or painful.

I'll confess however, that I didn't sleep well Sunday  night. The fact that some of those visits had been painful for me in the past, might make it easier to understand how I've become somewhat concerned and uneasy about appointments that have proven to be painful. It's like Pavlov's dog.

In any event, everything came out just fine and after a 3 hour long nap, I'm still tired but not to the same point I was this morning. It's 3:30 p.m. now and after two cups of coffee, I'm back on the computer checking out the Fighter Pilot's emails. Those always produce good feelings for me as the members there remind me so much of what it was like when I was in a better environment.

You might think that it's strange for anyone to relate their experiences in Vietnam as "a better environment". Having said that, I guess it's an appropriate time for me to explain that comment and remove any doubt that I've fallen off the earth and consider war time to be better than the times we see now.

In pursuit of that, let me mention how wonderful it was to be in the midst of so many men who shared the same goals that I did and how the brotherhood from that was so great that they even made a movie about it. I think that everybody knows about the Band of Brothers even though most have never experienced it.

I've already written about some of the great pilots I flew with like Jim Rohrer. I tried my best to cover what it was like to sit beside him when he was teaching me how to survive the Hunter Killer missions when I was flying Scouts. He's gone now and I really miss the connection we maintained until his unfortunate death from cancer.

I've also written about one of the greatest aircraft commanders I flew with when I was flying Hueys with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Craig Wollman was so good at doing that it's almost hard to write about him and the influences he had on me.

Let it suffice to say that whether it was combat operations that went on during the daylight missions we flew or the many hours I spent flying as his co pilot during Nighthawk missions, I consider him to be the father of my Band of Brothers.

Unfortunately, not all the pilots operated at the same level. In the latter part of my tour, we had a couple of pilots who never flew. I don't know how or why that happened, but for whatever reason existing at the time, they didn't fly any combat missions at all.

As I thought about the reality of things such as that and how that strengthened the brotherhood among those of us who did fly, more quotations from Churchill came to mind.

1. "Never worry about action, but only, inaction".
2. "One ought never turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If 
      you do that you will double the danger but if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will
      reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything".

In view of the things I've been writing about lately, I hope that explains that life goes on and just because we aren't taking off to fly another combat mission, we're still in a position to do something beneficial and no matter how hard or difficult it may be, never run away from anything. Not everybody feels the same way I do but in a sense, those of us who don't give up continue to pull pitch and take off on another mission.

Uh oh. Hold that thought a second. I'll go look up some more of Churchill's quotes and see what he has to say about a bad spouse, bad politician......




.   

Great Generals, great points.

The following quote comes from Winston Churchill. He's one of my favorites and has been a wonderful, intellectual and entertaining study. My printer is out of ink at the moment so I may miss it word for word, but this should be close enough to make my point:

"Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he delivers in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter".

The point I wanted to make through Churchill's quote focuses on the choices we have in life, career and family situations, not in war. As an example of that, in my life, using Churchill's thoughts about maneuver worked like a charm. This is especially true when you are trying to overcome any obstacle that's blocking your path to a particular goal.

I'm not wanting to claim that I was any kind of a "Field General" but I will say that the studies I've made about war led me to do many things that weren't exactly in the mission briefing. I'll be the first to confess that Lorin Bustin and I didn't exactly follow the orders we were given before we crossed the border into Cambodia and that Craig Wollman was a great mentor and pretty much taught me how to do those things. Thanks again to both of you.

For the Fighter Pilots that read this epistle, they already know the values of "The Thatch Weave", an aerial combat maneuver that produced a higher kill ratio than had ever been achieved before it's discovery. For the readers who aren't used to the term, Google "Thatch Weave" and enjoy the story and the great results of that maneuver.

With regard to Churchill's theory being used in business, I'll give you a paragraph to explain.

In the 1980's I owned an industrial supply company. As a  distributor, my goal was to sell rock crusher parts to 88 asphalt plants in my territory. A steel foundry I did business with came up with an idea to consign my inventory instead of demanding a purchase that required tons of money to fund. It worked like a charm and resulted in a market domination that lasted for years and years and allowed me to be ranked as the number 1 parts distributor in the Country. Talk about a successful maneuver, that was one for sure.

I could go on and on for hours and tell stories about maneuvering through a whole lot of situations that were very tough for me. Instead of doing that to make a point, I'll refer to a couple of quotes again and hopefully connect all of them on the next post which I will make shortly.

I will add that I hope to effectively connect all the dots here to an obstacle that I'm trying to overcome in my efforts to help the Veterans who are having trouble making it through the system. Here are the quotes.

"The Pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty".

"If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons".

"If you have an important point to make, don't try to be suttle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once then come back and hit it again, then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack".

That's it for today. I have an appointment with the Neurosurgeon tomorrow so I may not finish this by then but I will as soon as I can. Stand by for more. .

Hand Salute to Fighter Pilot's Association

I've mentioned the Red River Valley Fighter Pilot's Association many times on this blog but I probably haven't done it enough. They do an incredible job in every aspect of our combat history and, as a part of that, they also include the present and the future.

For those of us who flew helicopters, let me offer a personal thank you for accomplishing the mission of owning the sky above us. It's often referred to as "Air Superiority" and they are the ones who delivered it.

The anti aircraft fire was bad enough but without the Fighter Pilots, I can only imagine what the helicopter losses would have been like had they not been around. I can not imagine how bad it would have been to fight Migs at the same time we were trying to dodge the radar guided anti aircraft position and small arms fire that I experienced in Vietnam and especially Cambodia.

Moving from the past and all of the historically important aspects of their part in the war, and proceeding to the present, they have put together a great organization to help with the wounded that we now see coming out of our military.

With regard to the future, they work very hard to help out the men and women of our military who will face difficult times as they try to re-enter society as our Wounded Warriors.

Among many things that makes them so extraordinary, their work for the future needs of our Veterans is probably the one that is the most admirable. I say that because it requires so much work. It goes far beyond fund raisers and hitting their check books to make the donations that are required.

They've gone far beyond the norm and I say that because they focus on intelligence gathering to point out and specifically identify the problems we have within our own system and how those problems negatively effect all of us.

Through them and their efforts, I have discovered a number of people who are more than unfriendly to the military and the Veterans. Despite the assumption that this might be a political statement, please be advised that it is more a statement of "fact" that should be described as "reality" instead of "politicizing".

With that in mind, I remain somewhat amazed at the officials who vote against the budgetary items that are good for our Veterans and current military men and women and instead, vote for foreign aid packages that degrade the necessary funding to do what George Washington wrote about during the founding times of our great Country.

I don't have the exact quotation in front of me at the moment but it basically says that" The effectiveness of your military is directly connected to the way they are treated after they leave the service and become Veterans".That may not be word for word but it's close.

As an example of that kind of statement being put into a context that focuses on the Red River Valley Fighter Pilot's Association, I have a very brief example to give you.

Recently, I received two emails from the Association. One came from headquarters and the other came from Mike Sloniker who was a good friend of my buddy from flight school, Fred Thompson. HQ and Mike told me that I was listed as missing in action. For the most part, that means that they had no address for me and they wanted to know where I was.

I understood how easy that could be as I had been in the VA hospital in Shreveport and Houston, then back to Shreveport and was no longer in Leesville near Ft. Polk, my last known address.

In addition to that, Tim Jr and Kristin had come home from the Navy to take care of me during the brain surgery, chemo and radiation treatments when I was unable to do anything for myself. That brought about 3 other changes of address that only further complicated the trail.

When I found out that I was MIA, I contacted headquarters and discovered that I was not a life member and that my dues was extended even though I was a year behind. I'm a life member of the 11th Armored Cavalry Veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia and assumed that I was also a life time member of the RRVFPA. Not so.

Despite that, they knew about my health situation and had extended my membership anyway. Needless to say, I immediately fixed the address situation and prepaid my dues for years to come. Hopefully, that will give you some idea of the kind of characters that are in and run the Association. I say, that the way that the RRVFPA treats me now, is the way I hope our Veterans will be treated when this budgetary mess is fixed.

Having said all this, let me make one last point. Some of our members are wounded, some are former POWs and some are still working. Despite all of these things, they are still quite active in the day to day mission of keeping our Country and our Constitution safe..........even though it is no longer done from the cockpit.

This is a clear example of what true leadership is all about and how effective an organization can be when it spans the entire time frame from World War II and goes all the way to the battles.we will be forced to fight in the future.

Talk about the "Big Picture"! This is where it can be found. We even have a nurse with us and to say that "Dot" is a key player simply doesn't correctly identify who she is. Thank God for the Fighter Pilots, the Big Picture that they've given me, and the fearless work that they continue to provide for all Veterans and all Americans.

Hand Salute to all of you from CWO Timothy L. "Tim"  Butler, USA (Frmr)

 





     

Thanks, Wayne

 I'm getting closer and closer to a start up date. Meeting tomorrow with attorney to set up the "not for profit" Corporation. When that's finished, we will be legal to begin the work of fund raising. Those funds will be used to pay for the web site, computer and the costs to web page itself. The VFW and American Legion has over 5 million members and I've already talked to some of the members and they seem to think that direct contact at the National Level will work wonders. I hope that happens and the donations start pouring in. We will see.

Glad to see you on here. Please tell the Chip Quality Lab that I said hello. I miss the good times there.

Tim