Is that Birdy?

It was a great weekend, the kind that make you forget how pissed off you may have been all week about this or that, or how much of a jerk your boss is, or maybe even how crazy things have gotten in our country and the world.

An epic battle unfolded right in front of my eyes, but nothing was resolved, at least not while I was there.  My wife and I went to see what was scheduled to be the final day of the US Open.  I’m not a golfer but any event this big is going to be fun, and and you have to love a rowdy (at least but golf crowd standards) crowd cheering on the underdog.

But of course nothing was settles yesterday.  An epic play off took place today.  Tiger on top once again.

Yesterday was great but it’s always nice to see a conclusion, that’s the thing about golf it’s slow, and when the game ends in a tie you have to come back for one more day to finish the damn thing off.

It’s kind of like that in Afghanistan.  When we went it it felt like we had everything on our side, but it’s been so long and how much has really changed?  In fact have we failed completely?  The Taliban may have been removed from power but certainly not from the game.  Three days ago they rolled into Kandahar’s prison and busted out more than 400 “insurgent” fighters.  I guess insurgent is another word for rebel or defier or resister.  I have no idea who these guys are or why they are were in jail.  Today—at least it’s still today for me—the Taliban struck again and took over villages near Kandahar.

Flexing muscle instead of cowering in the face of a record number of NATO and US troops in the country?  Our defeated enemy massing on the doorstep of there former power base.

"It's fair to say that the jail break has put a lot of people (militants) into circulation who weren't there before, and so obviously you're going to respond to that potential threat," Mark Laity is quoted as saying.  I’m glad this guy is on our side.

How did we go from totally kicking ass, to holding our own, to getting our asses handed to us.  Handed to us by a bunch of people living in caves.

Alone I clench my gun

No matter what you think of the war on terror, or our presence in Iraq, most of us think the young men and women serving our country and in harms way are heros.  Most of them are kids, and they are risking there lives to keep us safe, or at least that’s the idea.  These aren’t the people making the policy they are the ones doing the dirty work and paying the price.

It’s an unfortunate thing when they come home in a box but it’s a reality of the job.  But what happens to them when they come home a little more intact.

Conservatively, one out of every three homeless men who is sleeping in a doorway, alley or box in our cities and rural communities has put on a uniform and served this country.

http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm#questions

I find it increasingly difficult to keep track of who is full of shit and who is telling the truth, maybe it’s people even when people are telling you the truth they are lying, I don’t profess to have the answers, but I can tell when there is a rat rotting under my bed cause it stinks.

We could go on looking at statistics about how miserably the VA fails our veterans or we could jump to conclusions like something more sinister is happening.

I can remember since my childhood hearing stories on the news about how badly we’ve failed our vets and that’s a long time.  But as a society we have a tendency to hide our trash under the rug.

But can we sit by and ignore even the possibility that we are being malicious in our treatment of vets?  Shouldn’t just the suggestion of abuse of our countries finest cause us all to stop and at least look?

It’s one thing to not care and another to do intensional harm?  Is the VA exempt from the Hippocratic Oath?

A joint investigation from ABC News and the Washington suggests that the VA may be guilty of doing intensional harm.  Recruiting them for dangerous drug without giving them the whole story.

"Lab rat, guinea pig, disposable hero," said former US Army sniper James Elliott.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5180437&page=1

We’re at war, call it whatever you want but we have troops in harms way.  The longer this goes on the more vets we will have going throw the VA system.  I’ve been worried based on our track record how we’re going to do in taking care of them, now I am more worried about who is taking care of them.