"A Normal Job"

The NY Times has a column from a military spouse whose friends don't understand her lifestyle.

It never occurred to me that my lifestyle was a foreign concept to civilians until a conversation I shared with a nonmilitary friend during my husband’s second combat deployment. After asking the usual questions about how he was doing and how long he’d been gone, she startled me with this one: “So how long after he returns home can he get out?”

“Get out of the military?” I asked, somewhat confused.

“Of course,” she continued, somewhat confused herself. “Doesn’t he want a normal job? Don’t you want him to have a normal job?”

I offered a feeble attempt at explaining that my husband had no intention of leaving the military anytime in the near future and that I wholeheartedly supported his career despite the hardships. But as her eyes glazed over and her attention waned, I felt my words were falling on deaf ears. That’s when I realized how wide the chasm was between civilian and military communities. If a close friend, someone who has an emotional connection to a service member, isn’t able to comprehend our lifestyle, then how can I expect the general public to understand?

Two things:

1. "a normal job" - oy! Really? A "normal" job? What's really a problem here is that so many Americans are perfectly happy to offload the military "job" to someone else. It's bad enough the military isn't considered a perfectly normal choice for someone to make. One of the biggest problems we have in the military is that we've raised multiple generations who think it's a perfectly respectable thing to not serve their country, in the military, police, fire department, EMT, or some other form of government service. Any conversation that includes the line "Don’t you want him to have a normal job?” should be met with a retort of "Why would you want to do something extraordinary? We are."

2. This divide has gone on for a loooooong time. As an Army brat, I grew up explaining to folks that we loved growing up in the Army, and their eyes glazed over. My mom spent years explaining that moving around every so often was perfectly fine by us. Once I graduated college, I had to spend years justifying to people why I was in the Army. They didn't get that it was something important, and meaningful, and worthwhile. And until they join, they never will.

By: Brant

Study Abroad Program

Ranger Up, a veteran-owned and -operated vendor of great morale gear and accessories, has just announced a new pair of T-shirts for veterans of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM and IRAQI FREEDOM. Very apropos.

By: Guardian

Canada's Veterans Charter To Change

Under heavy criticism for its treatment of Canadian veterans, the Conservative government is scrambling to enact policy changes for Veterans Affairs.

Changes to the controversial New Veterans Charter could come as early as next week, Veterans Affairs Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Thursday.

Blackburn, who participated in his first national Remembrance Day ceremony, said the responsibility he has to care for Canada’s veterans weighed heavily on his shoulders as he placed a wreath at the National War Memorial.

“I’m responsible for these people. I saw them walking in front of me, older, younger, and I have great responsibilities to ensure that we are correct with them and for their future,” he told QMI Agency.

Blackburn said he is particularly concerned about Canada’s modern veterans.

“Am I doing the good thing for them?,” the minister asked. “I believe I am.” Blackburn said he hopes to introduce legislation next week that will update the new charter with “a new chapter.”

Most of the proposed changes were announced in September after outgoing veterans ombudsman, Pat Stogran, held a press conference criticizing the Conservative government for failing to take care of veterans.

The lost earnings minimum will be bumped up to $40,000 a year and eligibility requirements will be stretched so seriously injured veterans can receive monthly allowance between $536 and $1,609.

The lump-sum payment, which was been criticized by veterans and the Chief of the Defence Staff Walt Natynczyk, will also be reformed so vets will have the choice of a one-time payment or staggered payments worth the same amount.

Blackburn said the changes mean the most seriously wounded soldiers would receive a minimum of $58,000 a year plus the lump-sum payment.

By: Shelldrake

Today's Veterans

Newsweek's website has a very good article about today's veterans and the challenges they face.

By: Brant

UK In Action: Overseas Service

Remembering overseas



image: guardian.co.uk


By: Widow 6-7

Yes, This Is A Sports Story. Read it Anyway

SI.com has an awesome article about the kids of Ft Campbell High and their football team.

Somewhere in Kuwait in late 2007, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Chris Croft handed a package to a convoy commander bound for Baghdad. Croft told the commander to deliver the package to Lt. Col. Fred Wintrich.
The phone rang at midnight Baghdad time. Wintrich answered. The convoy commander explained that he had a package to deliver before he continued his journey. Wintrich, the executive officer for the second brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, set out from Camp Victory to a refueling depot about two miles to the north. There he met the commander, who handed Wintrich a brown paper bag.
Inside were game DVDs featuring the soon-to-be Class 2A Kentucky state champion Fort Campbell High Falcons. Croft's son, C.J., was the starting quarterback. Wintrich's son, Josh McWherter, was a star linebacker. "For an hour, you get to be somewhere else besides Baghdad," Wintrich said of watching the DVDs of the Falcons' midseason surge in his tiny office after his 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. workday ended. "You get to be at Fryar Stadium. You get to be part of your kid's life."

By: Brant

Veterans Celebrate WWII Glider Forces

Sixty-six years ago, a bunch of braver-than-me guy strapped themselves into a bunch of balsa-wood air-frames and nose-dived into Nazi-occupied Europe in gliders that supported the airborne invasion of the continent.

Robert Herriot's sister Evelyn sent him a four-leaf clover while he was stationed in England during World War II.

It was in his uniform chest pocket as he sat on a bench in a plywood glider in the skies over Holland on Sept. 17, 1944, one of many sent to take the bridges and countryside from the Germans. As it was towed behind a C-47 plane, the pilot and co-pilot pulled a lever to sever the tie between the large cargo plane and the engineless glider. As the aircraft glided earthward, it almost immediately came under heavy anti-aircraft attack.

About 100 feet from the ground, the pilot and co-pilot slumped over dead from shrapnel piercing upward through the flimsy fuselage. Herriot had never been in a glider before and didn't know how to fly one, but he happened to be the guy sitting right behind the pilot.

"I pushed the pilot out of the way and got in his seat," Herriot, 90, of Friendship, recalled Thursday afternoon. "I went through a barbed wire fence and ended nose up in a ditch. I think that saved us from enemy fire."

Herriot and the dozen other soldiers in the back of the glider survived unscathed, and he earned a Bronze Star a short time later for taking over his platoon and leading them across a bridge while under fire.

Herriot and about 80 other World War II glider pilots and riders are in Madison for a three-day symposium on the relatively little-known aircraft that made a huge difference in a half dozen combat operations in Europe, including D-Day and Operation Market Garden. The symposium continues Friday and ends Saturday.

Thursday's event was held at the U.S. Forest Products Lab in Madison because of the connection of Wisconsin's forests to the Army's Glider Corps. Plywood from Roddis Lumber and Veneer in Marshfield was sent to eight of the 16 wartime glider manufacturers, so it's quite possible that Herriot journeyed thousands of miles from his central Wisconsin home to fly a plane made from wood logged not far from where he grew up.

h/t to Dan for sharing this article...

By: Brant

The Social Impacts of 10 Years of War

David Wood has a fascinating article about the separation of the public and the armed forces in our society, especially as the wars have wound on.

But above all, I think, is a perilous shrinking of common ground, the shared values and knowledge and beliefs that have shaped the way Americans think about war. Without it, how will soldiers and civilians ever see this war and its outcome in the same way? Are those faded "Support the Troops'' magnets enough to guide us through what is likely to be the murky and unsatisfactory conclusions and aftermaths of this era's conflicts?

I saw the problem clearly when I got home from my most recent reporting trip in Afghanistan, where I was embedded with soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Brigade. Many of them were on their second or third combat deployment, a few on their fourth or fifth. Almost without exception they were excited about what they were doing, proud of the progress they could see, confident in their piece of the mission.

By: Brant

Stolen Valor Cases Cracked By Vietnam Vet

Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran, maintains a comprehensive database with over 200,000 entries that record approximately 40% of all U.S. valor awards above the Bronze Star. Sterner's encyclopedic knowledge of the military's top decoration and keen eye has allowed him to root out "phoney heroes" who falsely claim military awards for bravery, such as Richart Thibodeau who for many years bragged about the Navy Cross that he never earned. Sterner has made this quest his life's mission "driven by a desire to prevent the real heroes from being lost to history".

Keep up the good work!

It certainly looked real. It had the right font, the right seal. It was even signed by the secretary of the Navy.

But Doug Sterner, self-appointed guardian of the nation's military decorations, immediately suspected that there was something fishy about the Marine's citation for the Navy Cross, one of the military's most prestigious awards.

First, it said that the president "takes pride" in presenting the prize. "Pride," Sterner knew, is typically used only when the recipient is dead. This Marine was very much alive, which meant the citation should have said the president "takes pleasure."

Then Sterner noticed that the citation was supposedly signed in 1968 by Navy Secretary Paul H. Nitze. But Nitze was secretary only until 1967.

Sterner, who lives in Alexandria, knew that in his obsessive quest to compile a database of recipients of the military's top decorations, he had found yet another phony. This time, the man for years had proudly spun tales of heroism and even had his awards hung in a veterans museum.

Since 2006, thanks to a federal law Sterner helped craft, claiming an unearned military decoration has been a federal offense. The FBI says the crime is on the rise as an increasing number of wannabes impersonate vets coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with fictional tales of heroism.

Read more about military imposters here.

By: Shelldrake

What not to say to a veteran

h/t Blackfive

Based on an article at DiversityInc.com, The Kitchen Dispatch has
seven things never to say to a veteran, and they are worth sharing.

SEVEN THINGS NEVER TO SAY TO A VETERAN
1. "Thank you for your service, but I don't think we should have been there in the first place."
2. "Is it worth it?"
3. "Are you a lesbian?"
4. "You're too rigid to deal with sudden changes."
5. "Do you have post-traumatic stress disorder?"
6. "What's the worst thing that happened to you over there?"
7. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

Go read the whole article for some good perspective.

By: Brant

Veterans' Day

Found around the web...

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.' That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'

By: Brant