Emergency Donations Needed

Cookie sent me an email that I must respond to and I hope you feel moved to do likewise.

Our soldiers are facing incredible challenges as our enemies become emboldened by a traitorous administration, hazardous deloyments mount and they survive injuries that would have proved fatal a generation ago. But their blessed survival means something else - crippling injuries that maim and disfigure them physically and emotionally.

Our vets rely upon the government to help them through service-related crisis, and we all know how reliable the government is if you are not a major political donor, a Black Panther or an illegal alien.

Apparently the VA's disability claims system has collapsed with a backlog of over 1 million claims. Wounded troops who have been discharged from the military have to wait an average of six months to get their first disability check. Those who appeal the size of their check can wait for years.

So please drop by this site and evaluate the The Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. These are good people who provide:

[...] emergency financial aid and other assistance to troops who have been severely wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The Coalition focuses on helping servicemen and women with the most debilitating injuries, such as those who have been severely burned, blinded, paralyzed or brain-damaged.

There are literally hundreds of groups such as The Coalition who seek to help wounded GI's and their families. I can't list them all here but here are some sites that provide an index for many of them.

SupportOurTroops

Military.com

Please be generous.

Why A Memorial Day?

Why do we bother with memorials and remembrances? Why should we care whether or not events peculiar to our culture are observed for all time by future generations?



Unfortunately things have progressed to the point in America where perhaps we need to have discussion like this. Memorials have been observed for thousands of years. The earliest indications of human existence are recorded in some part due to man's need to remember (also to serve some rather colossal egos!), to hold near and dear the memory of important lives and events in order for the culture to survive; not merely to survive - but to remain intact. We can survive, but will we recognize the end result in a few generations?

Will the image displayed above pertaining to the war my father and his brothers fought have the same emotional impact on my great grandchildren as it does for me? That is one of the cultural issues that memorials are created for.

One of the earliest surviving memorials is the Passover, as detailed in the Book of Exodus. The observation of Passover celebrates the deliverance of Israel from the tyranny of an Egyptian Pharaoh approximately thirty-five hundred years ago. The Hebrew Feasts and holidays, in effect their memorials, are what kept the identity of the Jews alive despite two thousand years of persecution, murder and dispersion.

Our Memorial Day started as Decoration Day on May 30, 1868, to honor the dead from the Civil War. There have been many wars since. In all, since 1775 over 1,316,000 men and women have sacrificed their lives for our country.

War of Independence ----(1775-1783)------25,000
Quasi-War -----------------(1798-1800)-----------20
Barbary Wars -------------(1801-1815)------------35
War of 1812 ---------------(1812-1815)-------20,000
1st Seminole War ---------(1817-1818) -----------30
2nd Seminole War --------(1835-1842) -------1,500
Mexican-American War - (1846-1848) -----13,283
3rd Seminole War ---------(1855-1858)-----------26
Civil War --------------------(1861-1865) ---623,026
Indian Wars ----------------(1865-1898)----------919
Spanish-American War ----(1898)--------------2,446
Philippine War -------------(1898-1902) -------4,196
Boxer Rebellion ------------(1900-1901)-----------37
Mexican Revolution -------(1914-1919)-----------35
Haiti Occupation ----------(1915-1934)----------146
World War 1 ---------------(1917-1918)----116,708
World War 2 ---------------(1941-1945)-----407,316
Korean War ----------------(1950-1953)------36,914
Vietnam War ---------------(1964-1973)------58,169
El Salvador -----------------(1980-1992)-----------20
Beirut-------------------------(1982-1984)---------266
Persian Gulf Support ------(1987-1988)-----------39
Invasion of Grenada -------(1983)------------------19
Invasion of Panama --------(1989)-----------------40
Persian Gulf War ------------(1991) ---------------269
Somalia -----------------------(1992-1993) ---------43
Bosnia -------------------------(1995) ---------------12
Afghanistan ------------------(2002-2010) -----1,084+
Iraq ----------------------------(2003-2010) -----4,400+

It is said that men do not necessarily die in combat for their Cause or their Country; they die for their friends. Jesus said in John 15:13

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for His friends".

If we are to be true to the precepts that founded this Nation, then we must also accept the sacrifice that our friends made for us. That is why there is a Memorial Day - a Day of Remembrance for our friends: past, present and future. We will never forget the blood sacrifice that Christ made for our sins and we must never forget the blood sacrifice that our vets made for our freedom. To forget these sacrifices is to deny what we are.

And then what will we be?

Thanks

God Bless Our Vets.

The New York Post

From Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

A YEAR ago this month, the Post ran a week-long series of columns on the courage and grit of our wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their medical treatment was state of the art, but the "off duty" facilities serving them and their families were a shame.

Those who gave so much asked for nothing for themselves. Fortunately, others stepped in.

Brooke Army Medical Center staffers and benefactors in San Antonio, Texas, saw that the local one-room Warrior and Family Support Center that helped prepare badly wounded vets for their return to the "real world" was overwhelmed.

The good people of San Antonio needed four million dollars to renovate the facility to enable it to provide the services needed for out vets. Readers of the NY Post were invited to donate to this cause. And they responded.

When those profiles of our wounded warriors ran last December, you stepped up with contributions great and small. Post readers came through with about a million dollars - a quarter of the funding.

Despite the financial demands we all feel every holiday season, you gave to those who had given so much to us.

The result? On Dec. 1, military authorities received the keys to a magnificent 12,500-square-foot facility.

Instead of one crowded room up a flight of stairs, our wounded vets have a beautiful building specifically designed to meet their needs. The quality is impeccable - this "home" will be there for generations of vets. For once, our troops received a worthy thanks.

Congress, tax dollars and war profiteers didn't give it. You did.

[...]In these challenging times, it's easy to lapse into selfishness. We all have fears and worries. For some of us, this holiday season's a difficult one. But it's going to be a great deal better for hundreds of our wounded warriors because of what you did to welcome them home.

Amen to that and many thanks to the New York Post and it's many readers who saw the need and did something about it where others turned away.

For links to some of these articles go here, here and please check out the Wounded Warrior Project.

VA Hospital Care

John DiBello is my father in law. For the past week he has been in the local VA hospital after he fell while on an escalator at the mall. Complications from the fall have seriously degraded his condition because of his congestive heart failure and renal failure. Yesterday they put him in the ICU. He is 81 and has had CHF for the past 21 years. We just got home from the hospital and I wanted to say the following.

I don't think I have seen a finer staff of doctors and nurses than the ones at the Syracuse VA Hospital. They are outstanding, simply outstanding. They are supportive of us as Dad's immediate family and the staff go out of their way to inform us of what they are doing, why they are doing it and to answer any questions we may have.

I have read so many criticisms of the health care provided by the Veteran's Administration and I hope they are not true because our vets deserve the very best. But after seeing the level of care and commitment offered at this facility, I wonder if some of this criticism is not politically motivated.