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.