Flashbacks, Study and Understanding

Over the past couple of months, I've noticed a large change in a couple of sites I follow. One of the owners has been sick and completely off the day to day posting. He's been fighting cancer and I completely understand how he was unable to post anything.

Oddly enough, the owner of the second site published an editorial that indicated a concern that things weren't correct and he didn't like the direction his site was moving toward even though it depended on member participation for input. In all fairness to the owner, let me qualify his statement as one that came during the election and he didn't want to see the site "politicized".

His concerns that the input from the membership was moving his military site in the wrong direction, apparently didn't sit well with the group as it stopped the participation and it's been dead as a hammer since September 21st when he posted his concerns about "Site Correctness". Since both sites are hosted by military men, I began to wonder what in the hell happened to the second one.

As I considered everything, I concluded that the total input from all the members would only cover a short period of time spent in combat during the war in Vietnam. A year doesn't seem to be a short period of time when you are in combat but 43 years later, it seems to be only a flashback of some real intense experiences as we weren't in combat every, single day.

After we had submitted photos, movies and stories of combat missions, we seemed to progress from who we were then toward a more current explanation of who we were now or who we had become.

There were great stories from some of our wounded who went on to obtain Doctorates and MD's from the GI Bill. Other stories of success in careers followed with one that included a 37 year long career as a professional photographer and another one that surrounded a career in construction.

After that, things seemed to slow down a bit and I suggested that we input information that might be considered as "who we would become". Some of the guys stood up to the plate and began work to get the lost pay checks and awards and decorations squared away. It may be hard to believe but some of the troops missed paychecks completely and others who earned a number of medals, received none.

Since I was one of the members who never received a single award or decoration during the last 7 months of my tour, I really appreciated the thoughts and efforts to push the paper work through. When I came to this particular unit, I had already been awarded a Bronze Star and a load of air medals so I wasn't very interested in awards and decorations.

Unit Citations were earned by everybody in the troop but many never received them. I'm also one of the many from that group. Air medals, an award that came with the number of combat assault hours we spent flying in combat were more or less automatic. Despite that, many never received a single one. I spent hundreds of hours flying combat assault missions but so did my co pilots, gunners and crew chiefs. They didn't get them either.

Somewhere between the story of who we would become and the editorial called "the direction of the site", it crashed.

I began to read everything I could about the history of our Country. The Revolutionary War was one that brought about a specific bit of information and in a sense, opened the door to understanding how political statements can be troublesome to a certain number of people in our society. I'm glad to say that despite that, we had enough real patriots in our midst to overcome that and we went on to establish the land of the free.........as in freedom of speech.

Having said that, and knowing well what my short comings are, I've decided to completely disengage from the site. I check it several times every day but only find myself being dissappointed with the never ending nothingness that exists there.

I'm not certain that I will disengage from my efforts to get "EveryVeteran.com" formed but in view of a couple of comments that I received from the Veterans I've invited to join in with the efforts to help the VA hospital out, I think it's time for me to simply pass the baton on to others.

You may have noticed that I've deleted the "get started" post I made a couple of weeks ago but if you haven't, the negative comments have produced in me a level of understanding that I'm not the guy to lead the way.

I've admitted that since day one and hoped to find some leadership with my postings about it, but at this point, I've only found nay sayers instead of real leaders.

That's just the way some people are and the way I am, doesn't allow nay sayers to even have a say. I concluded that they weren't going to offer anything positive anyway and would rather focus on finger pointing instead of leading the way.

In view of that, let me wish whoever may step up to the plate, the best of luck and my support of any efforts they pursue to help the wounded warriors with their plight. I will finish by sharing the advice to watch out for the assholes who will try to block your efforts to help. Believe it or not, they are out there and would rather take from than add to your efforts to help.





 














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Birthday, Grandbaby and a new thought

November 4th, 1948 was a long time ago. I'm starting another year off with really good news as Tim Jr and Kristin have just announced that there will be a new Butler Family member coming along sometime around the end of May or early June.

My skull is doing better but my legs need a bit of work. I'm back on the walking cane but I think it's due to the long period of time of not working. I don't necessarily like the VA's term that I'm "un-employable" but I understand it and totally accept that they are right. Some days are good and some days are bad but even on the good ones I would have a  hard time meeting any kind of commitment with any degree of certainty.

Melissa said I need to go to the physical therapy lab but I told her that it looked more like a torture chamber to me. I made a trip there about two weeks ago and instead of seeing a good looking nurse like the ones that were in Oncology and Radiation, Attilla the Hun answered the door. This guy has arms bigger than most people's legs. He's  huge and I guess that catching 200 pound Veterans as they fall, is the reason they have him there instead of a nice, petite nurse.

I've made a ton of progress in my efforts to form Every Veteran Dot Com but the progress has mostly surrounded meetings with attorneys, web site people and an "IT guy" that knows how to put all that together. I wish I could have made it a reality before the election but I never intended it to be something that would effect that race anyway.

It's always been about organizing all of the Veterans across the Country into a single organization that would allow us to lobby every Congressman and Senator to help the Veterans with their Benefit Packages by insuring that those who are elected to represent us, vote the way we need them to vote.

Anything that involves 22.7 million people is a difficult thing to organize and not being in the best physical shape makes it more difficult than I had imagined. I've met with two attorneys already but the one that was a perfect fit as a Veteran was an oil and gas attorney. He gave me some great advice and put me on the path to meet a tax attorney. That was a great first step but the tax guy wasn't a Veteran.

I don't think I'm being too picky I just believe that the best possible players in this deal have to be Veterans who totally understand what it's like to do the things we've done, see the things we've seen and suffer the wounds we've suffered.

Once I get the best of the best lined out in the legal department, I'll be able to find someone to help with the leadership end of it. I may be the one that came up with the idea but I know I'm not the guy to carry the load.

I've been dissappointed with a few of the things I've bumped into along the way. I initially figured that there wouldn't be a single Veteran in the entire Country who wouldn't totally support the concept of filling the budgetary needs of the VA. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

I'm really not all that surprised to find some Veterans who are afraid to get involved especially now that I understand the politically divisive issues that have been eating away at our society and our very way of life.

More than anything, I think it's been difficult to get everybody lined up because, as my older brother warned me, some people will either disagree with the thoughts of addressing every elected official directly or afraid that their favorite man has made a mistake in how they've handled Veteran budgets and that they made a mistake by voting him in. I understand that admitting a mistake is tough to do but turning your back on your fellow Veterans because of that, is really hard for me to swallow.

It's still a bit strange that things are that way and that political support for an elected official would ever out weigh the support one Veteran would have for another but unfortunately, that's the way it is in some cases and I've accepted that and simply moved on.

Despite those short comings, I continue to go elsewhere with the message and continue to gain support. In that light, life is good, it just isn't completely good. Like Eastwood said: we have "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".

Still committed. Still enthusiastic about it all. Will continue with the updates especially the one that I will be proud to make when the legal end of it is accomplished. More to come.