Memorial Day 2009 ... with an addendum

Memorial Day was first enacted to honor the Union soldiers of the Civil War. After World War I, it was expanded to include American casualties of any war or military action.

On Memorial Day, there may be parades to honor those who went before, and group observances and individual remembrances at veterans' cemeteries and the gravesides of family members.

Memorial Day is a day when we typically remember and honor the dead.

Memorial Day is not a day when we, as a nation, remember the lost who are still among us.

I am not talking about those missing in action (MIA) or prisoners of war (POW) - they should be remembered all the time by us all, not just the families who love and miss them.

I am talking about the vast number of active duty service members and veterans--and their families--who are suffering from the effects of post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD.

PTSD has suffered badly at the hands of the Department of Defense and the military establishment. Throughout our history of war--Independence, Civil, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam--those who came back deeply scarred by the horrors were treated as though their suffering was caused by an inherent personal weakness, a lack of inner will or strength. After all, everyone didn't come back experiencing the flashbacks, the hypervigilence, the nightmares, the black hole that eats both the outside reality and the soul.

PTSD is a lot like rape: people who suffer it rarely report it. I heard on the news last night that 20 percent of returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from PTSD. Given the feelings of shame, and "it must be something wrong with me, because everyone else seems to be okay, so I'll just try to keep it buried", and the general "Suck it up, soldier!" attitude that is still so prevalent, both in the military and, for that matter, in law enforcement (a field where a lot of our vets end up once back in civilian life), the actual number is much, much higher.

PTSD does not go away if ignored. PTSD affects the active duty service member as well as the veteran. PTSD affects the service member's and veteran's family, affects their children, and may ultimately affect the adults those children grow into.

So, on this day when we remember those who died in war or after, of the injuries both physical and otherwise, let us also remember and honor those still among us, especially those who need ongoing support and help.

Let us not just give lip service to the fact of PTSD, but get actively involved in helping those service members, vets, and families who are experiencing the harsh reality of it now, and those who will in the not too distant future when their deployed loved ones return home to them.

Where to start? Here is a list of some of the resources for service members, vets and military families I've compiled over the last couple of years as a volunteer caseworker in the American Red Cross's Service to the Armed Forces unit at my local Red Cross Chapter.

AfterDeployment.org

American Legion's Guide to PTSD

The Coming Home Project

Military OneSource

Reintegration Action Plan (RAP) - eBook; PDF

Sesame Street: Military Families Cope with Change

V.A. Mental Health Resources

To find local health and mental health resources for service members, vets, and dispersed military families, contact your county's Veterans Service Office, which is often a department within the county's social services or health & human services agency.

Find out more about the American Red Cross's Service to the Armed Forces. To volunteer in SAF, contact your local Red Cross chapter.


Update 5 June 2009: Some articles and new resource I came across today:

VFW chief: Look out for struggling soldiers

The military's war on stigma

Real Warriors
The Real Warriors Campaign is an initiative launched by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury (DCoE) to promote the processes of building resilience, facilitating recovery and supporting reintegration of returning service members, veterans and their families. For Active Duty, National Guard & Reserves, Families, & Health Professionals. Call 24/7: 866-966-1020. They also have a Live Chat available with one of their health resources consultants.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
For crisis intervention, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255), Press "1"


MilitaryOneSource also has a 24/7 toll free number and online assistance for actives (including National Guard & Reserves.

And let me just say something about our National Guard and Reservists.... Some of these men and women were in the regular military, during peacetime and wartime and those in between times when we weren't technically at war but there were periods when things got hairy nonetheless. Some of these men and women were never in the regular military, but joined the Army or Air National Guard or Reserves to serve their country when called upon by their state or the feds. Spending much or all of their annual vacation leave from work in training with their unit, not to speak of a weekend a month, all unpaid, away from their families, these individuals sacrificed time and knew that at the state or federal governments could at any time pull them away from their lives and their families...and that they may lose their life when answering that call.

Despite an honorable tradition that dates back to 1636, when the first militia units were formed, and 1906 when the states' militias were organized into the National Guard system, regular military types often have a snarky attitude about the Guards and Reserves, inferring they are toy soldiers, weekend warriors who are sent out to mop up a flood or do some other non-warrior-like thing, which just ain't so.

NG units made up 40% of the fighting force in France during World War I. In WWII, there were 19 NG units activated under Title 10. Over 140,000 NG were mobilized for the Korean War. More recently, Desert Storm utilized 63,000 NG personnel. Some of the "in between" actions found the NG serving peacekeeping missions in such far-flung places as Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

They may be weekend warriors, but they are weekend warriors trained by the Army and Air Force (and, for some of the ex-military members, by the Navy and Marines) and when called up under Title 10, they go to war and do all the things the regular military men and women do. And they suffer the same injuries, physical, emotional and mental, and their families suffer the stresses and strains of long deployments PLUS financial insecurity, as the feds rarely pay as much as their civilian jobs did.

Members of hte National Guard and Reserves and their families deserve no less than the full support and entitlements we give to regular military and vets.

Get(ting) Serious! about ig poo stains

Mikey has been taking to pooping where he ought not, and seems to want to find the same places to poop on after I've cleaned them up. The carpet was starting to get stained and me very annoyed. I asked my friend Phyllis what she recommends for cats and dogs - she gets to test lots of pet products out as a product reviewer, so I knew she'd tested a lot with her own canine and feline critters.

She recommended Get Serious, which is available at the big box pet stores as well as from some online stores. It is a fragrance-free enzyme mixture that lifts the biological remnants from the carpet and other surfaces.

Squirt the GS on in a zig-zag pattern - don't soak the area. Rub the brush side-to-side, side-to-side, then up-and-down, up-and-down, repeating the sideways and up-and-down for 15 seconds, then blot with the towel til nothing more comes up. That's it.

I have been using it, and it really does work well. It works best on new deposits, but also on older stuff. And it's easy to use. You just need the squirt bottle of Get Serious (they make versions for dog and cat, but they really are the same and can be used interchangeably), a scrub brush, and a terry cloth towel or, if its a small area, one or two Viva Paper Towels (my preference, for their thickness and capacity to soak up stuff without ripping and shredding).

It also removes dried blood, as I found when I cleaned up the blood that dried on the carpet several weeks after my last iguana bite.

Got stains? Get Serious!

Ship Your Reptiles the Right Way

Pro Exotics has been breeding reptiles and selling supplies for quite some time. As any hobbyist knows who has tried to ship reptiles, it isn't easy to find a carrier who will accept them, and there's a lot to know and do to pack them and ship them - if you care to do it responsibly, that is. It is because too many have, through the years, done so irresponsibly, most carriers won't accept them (which, alas, doesn't stop people from shipping them anyway...).

Well, that's changed, thanks to Pro Exotics. They have worked out an arrangement with United Parcel Service (UPS) to be a shipping portal for people who need to ship reptiles. The new portal, called ShipYourReptiles.com, provides an easy way to set up and pay for UPS shipping. You can request UPS to pick up from your home or business, or take the box to any UPS store, or hand it to any UPS driver you see. If you don't have the proper materials you need to ship your reptile (or any other LEGAL animal), SYRs has a selection of kits you can order that has everything you need to ship safely and humanely. There's even a how-to video on their site.

Their other portal is AllProShipping.com, through which you can order up and pay for USP to ship anything else you need to ship. I used it recently to ship my neice and grandnephew's birthday presents.

Oh, and did I forget to mention that when you use SYR and APS shipping portals, you get 30% off the regular UPS price? Sweet!

4 Days To Go...

Eight years ago, even four years ago, John McCain was the Republican I would have voted for, had he been the candidate.

Now? No. What cinched it was his (approval of his advisers') choice of VP.



Of all the women governors, representatives and senators, this is what they pick? Proof positive that most men think with their little brain rather than the one in their heads.

In case you still have questions, how about these articles:

The Real Story About How McCain Chose Palin

The Triumph of Ignorance: How Morons Succeed in U.S. Politics

'Nuf said.

BFF

There are friends, and then there are friends. Some friends you want to have in your life forever, and not just because you could soooo blackmail each other.

Here is an exchange of email with my BFF that says it all.

From Me:

My third eye hurts. Maybe something is trying to eat its way thru my forehead.

How are you today? Kill anybody yet?


My BFF Responds

No, but I have a list.


This exchanged followed our both figuring out we are probably Rednecks.

"Hell yeah!" - Gretchen Wilson

Stalking the Wild Tortoise

Okay, so maybe not so wild, and maybe not so much of the stalking...









This is Treppie, my 13 year old desert tortoise. It is illegal to take these out of the wild, and they cannot be sold, only given by someone who has grandfathered-in wild-caughts, or descendants of captive bred tortoises. I was given Treppie when he was six months old, by the fellow who had his parents and several clutches of their offspring.

Here's Treppie (short for Intrepid, since he's pretty much a fearless explorer) shot from above, enjoying a bit of sun on a sometimes cloudy, sometimes drizzly May day. He's about 14 inches carapace length.



Yes, and not so much of the writing of rants lately. Not that they haven't been percolating through my head, but I've been busy and sick (well, busy, then sick), so I've been rather quiet overall. But, hey! Enjoy the peace while it lasts!

Get Politics and Pork Out of Government and the Military!

It matters not what your feeling is about whether or not we should be in Iraq, or what is happening in Afghanistan, or what is possibly go to happen down the line in Syria and Iran (though let me say that so long as Western PTB and PTWannaB continue to treat Muslim psychopaths and other fundamentalists as if they can be reasoned with, well, we ARE going to be involved on the ground and in the air), the fact that we are sending our men and women into combat and terrorist areas without outfitting them with proven armor and weapons is insane, not to speak of costly, both in terms of lives lost and lives irrevocably altered through severe dismemberment and lifelong disability.

When I first heard about the Army blocking the Pentagon's order for several of Israel's Trophy anti-RPG systems because the Army, in cahoots with Rayethon, had an anti-RPG system in the planning and design stages, a system which won't be ready until at least 2011, while Trophy is ready to install NOW, I was mightily pissed. (Army shuns system to combat RPGs)

That was several months ago. When the Army claimed that Trophy was not yet ready, not as effective as claimed, NBC continued to investigate, and found that not only had the Army lied, but that other US military personnel were bullied and ordered to screw up the US military testing and falsify the results.

The only people benefiting from this are Rayethon, already getting billions as one of the US defense contractors, and the upper echelon military and federal government personnel who will ultimately be employed by Rayethon and other such contractors through the good ol' boy network. Such refusal to install and put into service a system that is 90+ percent effective and available NOW puts the lives of servicemembers at risk, the outcomes of which will ripple throughout their families and communities for years to come.

One of the theories floating around about why this decision was made is that why pay for and install Trophy if we are going to be exiting Iraq anytime soon. How blooding effin' short-sighted do you have to be to not see that RPGs in enemy and terrorist hands are here to stay, regardless of whether the US troops they are shooting at are in Iraq or any other place where the locals love attacking us as much as they enjoy slaughtering each other?

That's as short-sighted--and too often lethal or permanently disabling--as not providing properly cushioned and strapped helmet liners to all military personal deployed to countries where they are likely to be shot at, blown up by RPGs and IEDs, or otherwise subjected to forces that can cause severe brain damage, assuming they survive the attack?

Frankly, I think the Army brains lying about Trophy should be busted down to private and sent to Baghdad. Perhaps then they'd start to see why it is more important to get a working system in place now, while their engineers and designers back home continue to design and try to manufacturer a better system, instead of hoping like hell that they produce a system at least as good and ready to deploy in 2011 as Trophy is right now.

A Little Something Extra? A very little something.

"WASHINGTON - In a yearly ritual that dates back more than three decades, nearly 49 million Americans will be getting a little something extra in their Social Security checks come January. " (from Social Security Increase is Due, L.A. Daily News, October 20, 2006).

Some of you may have read my blog entry last year when we got a whopping four percent COLA increase (Social Security's 'Generous' Cost of Living Increase for 2006), and will remember that poor Mabel, like most of us on SSA retirement or disability, can't afford to live on it without drawing from ever dwindling savings...or living in grossly substandard housing or doing without necessities.

Well, this year, despite that booming Republican economy we keep hearing about, despite the ever increasing cost of fuel, food, health care (including the all too many things that Medicare does not pay for, like vision exams and glasses, dental care, and the vast majority of my medical care), rent, taxes, and basic maintenance, let alone luxuries like occasionally going to the movies or out to dinner with friends, gift giving on birthdays and holidays, charitable donations, and other such extravagances: the "little something extra", the 2007 COL adjustment is 3.3 percent.

For the average SSA retirement and disability recipient, that will work out to $33 a month.

Wow.

Let's see how long my $33 will last.

$33.00 minus:
$ 5.00 - increase Medicare Part B premium (to $93.50/month)
$11.85 - the 106% increase in my Part D premium *
$ 6.00 - the increase in the Part B Deductible, to $131**
----------
$10.15 - net increase, which will be eaten up as soon as the insurance companies increase their per-prescription co-pays for 2007 for both generic and brand drugs.

* up from $11.25 to $23.10
** up from $125 in 2006, which was up from $100 in 2005

Gee, thanks. You'll excuse me if I'm a little ferklempt at your generosity (and a little appalled at the vast disconnect in what is happening in the real world versus the world of the bean counters who figure out what the COL is and what the COLA should thus be).

But, hey! Let's keep providing free health care and other services to the legions of illegals in this country who are expected to send $60 BILLION home to Mexico and much of the rest of Latin America in 2007, more than double the amount they sent home in 2005.

What is the same, what is not alike

I just listened to a Muslim woman who was wearing a hijab without a veil, inform the interviewer that Muslim women wearing veils and burqas are no different than Jews wearing skull caps or Jewish stars, and Christians wearing crosses.

This was in response to British politician Jack Straw's stated request that veiled constituents remove their veils when in his office speaking to him so that he could read their facial expressions, an important factor in his being able to effectively communicate with them, just as he does with all of his other constituents.

If Muslim women in the West want to wear the traditional scarves to cover their hair, fine. Ditto the hijab without the veil. If they feel so religious as to have to wear the full veil or a burqa, then they ought to get back home to where they or their family came from, so they can live the restrictive reclusive lives that originally mandated such coverings, first forced on women by sexually repressed men who are so tempted by seeing any part of the female form that they must violate the female, resulting in the females' male relatives being forced to kill them. The ultimate in blaming the victim.

It's wonderful that Muslim women in the West actually (most of them, at least) have a choice as to cover up or not. Women in Afghanistan are not so lucky. Despite burqas being made optional after the Taliban was more or less kicked out, men are still forcing their daughters, sisters, fiances and wives to wear them, else they cannot leave the house. Ditto for working out of the house, or even going to school. (For sad albeit enlightening and sometimes horrifying view of the male Muslim psyche, please see the documentaries Cut From A Different Cloth: Burqas and Beliefs, and Psychology of a Suicide Bomber).

So, if you feel you must cover everything but your eyes, or cover your eyes, too, then go back to whatever repressed country you or your parents originally came from. It is clear that Western freedoms and education have done you no good if you cannot tell the difference between the amount of body surface area covered by a full hijab or burqa, and a skull cap, Star of David pendant, or cross pendant. Anytime you want to compare and contrast your hijab or burqa with my Star of David pendant, bring it on, sistah!

My Magan David


A traditional hijab with veil:


This hijab photo is from the Nomads Land Film's page on their documentary, The Price of Honor, about the culture that breeds the "honor killing" of women.

Since the vast majority of shooters are male...

...and the ACLU would probably fight any effort to pass laws prohibiting the males of our species in any way, shape, or form having firearms, access to firearms, or the physical capability of using firearms, I say we should just ban men and skip right to parthenogenesis. I'm not so impressed with the latest variations made possibility by sexual reproduction anyway, so let's just skip the XY input and male reproductive participation.

Well, okay, so maybe a sport male now and then.

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking
What a strange world this would be
If the men were all transported
Far beyond the northern sea.

Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking
Life would be so easy then
What a lovely world this would be
If there were no tiresome men.

I'm having a hard time seeing the downside to this...

Shut up.

Back in the day (623 AD), Muslims killed Infidels (that would be pagans, polytheists, and fellow monotheists who were practicing their religions long before Mohammed had his vision - that would be Jews and Christians, for those of you who haven't been paying attention) who refused to convert to Islam. In those days they used the sword and arrow and other tactics that became popular in the Middle Ages.

Today, Muslims are killing Infidels with suicide bombs, truck bombs, car bombs, donkey bombs, IEDs, RPGs, and assorted rockets, when they're not trying to use even bigger trucks and explosives on airplanes.

Until Muslims start protesting these killings, they should shut up and take a good look in the mirror, instead of getting upset because the Pope quoted a medieval text referring to their earlier terrorist acts.

"We are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism" wrote Thomas Jefferson, the first American president to stand up to Islamic terrorists, the Barbary "Pirates". (The French, of course, kept paying ‘tribute’ to them. Funny how some things never change…)