This is a classic example of reality in this country. On the one hand you have a bunch of right-wing ideologues righteously claiming the U.S. people should support our troops, and those same elitist people funnel billions of dollars to their own inner circle of arms manufacturers, contractors and private security forces while our own soldiers can’t even get their own mail! While Bush once said: “We should and must provide the best care for anybody who is willing to put their life in harm’s way,†he has proven that even in the light of the Walter Reed scandals, they haven’t even been able to turn around the mail system in our nation’s most prominent military hospital.
That’s right, a recent backlog of 4,500 pieces of mail was found at Walter Reed. That’s the same Walter Reed that proved incapable of taking care of our nation’s bravest, subjecting them to deplorable conditions and now, proving that they can’t even deliver the mail to the wounded, the very people Mr. Bush used and continues to use to sell his bloody war to the American public. These poor souls are facing the fact that their lives have been completely changed, they may be learning to write with their sole remaining hand or walk with artificial legs, a letter from home may be the only comfort they will receive. It may be the one thing that keeps them going, keeps them fighting to recover and reconstruct their place in this world. It is well known that a positive patient is one that is faster on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, this valuable medicine from home was sitting in some room aging to the point of meaningless.
Mail, by the way, has always been the one guarantee the government could not shutter on. Soldiers in the Civil War, World War I & II, Vietnam, to name a few, all made sure that mail was delivered, even to the front. In the case of the Civil War, you had a better chance getting mail than medical attention. The Battle of Cold Harbor left wounded soldiers on the battlefield for four days and a wound obtained in any battle of the war almost certainly meant death or amputation. Yet the mail continued to be delivered with little record of criticism in a time before computers and automobiles.
The fact that this current administration uses the argument that we need to keep throwing money at this pointless war for the benefit of our soldiers is another, in a long line of abuses Bush has inflicted our nation’s armed forces. First by using them to fight a War they cannot win because it was a terrible idea to begin with, then by sending them into battle without body armor and other standard issue equipment. He’s neglected the wounded by not adequately funding hospitals, while throwing Billions at Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton. Worst of all, is the President’s record vs. his rhetoric. He claims he’s kept soldiers pay high, protected benefits of veterans and supported military families while simultaneously attempting to cut soldiers pay, strip veterans of benefits and take money out of military house funding. Don’t take my word for it, take a look at this comparison of direct Presidential quotes vs. the facts. We have a word for folks like that out in these parts, it’s called a hypocrite.
Every time he wants to get his way on this war, he evokes the image of our soldiers, firemen and the American Flag. It’s ironic, because he’s pissed on all three.
