Service Dogs for Vets

Sen. Franken's Service Dog for Vets Bill Passes Senate

The Senate passed Sen. Al Franken's first piece of legislation, a bill aimed at providing service dogs to more disabled veterans.

The Service Dogs for Veterans Act would create a pilot program within the Veterans Administration. The VA would partner with non-profit groups which train service dogs.

The bill was incorporated into the Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2010 and passed as part of the larger bill............

From this 'Nam Vet: Congratulations to the Very New Senator Franken for putting this forward as his First Senate Bill and it getting passed!

But it brings up the questions "Why?" as to why it waited till He finally was seated, why didn't anyone else think of this need or the many others! Why are we finally seeing Congressional Investigations and Hearings these last couple of years but Especially a number of positive movements within the VA alone these last couple of months, with the new Administration and after the seating of Gen. Shinseki as Veterans Administration Head! Why wasn't there much more done not only in the lead up to these two occupations but threw the years prior to a change in Congress and Administrations, especially by a political party that labels itself "Strong on National Defense!", and why are some of them Now coming on board for the Veterans of these two Conflicts as well as the rest of us who served! Why weren't the supporters of these conflicts Demanding more be done for the Veterans Of! So many "Why's?" asked over and over, no answers given when asked!!

Person {Persons} of the Week: Playing for Change

Founder Travels the World to Promote Peace Through Music
Mark Johnson's Foundation, Playing for Change, Funds Music Schools Across the Globe.

Filmmaker Mark Johnson had a simple idea -- that the world can be connected through music.

Johnson's dream began a decade ago in a New York City subway. He heard two monks playing music -- one had a nylon guitar and the other was singing. They were wearing robes and painted white from head to toe. About 200 people had stopped to watch them, ignoring the train as it came and went. Johnson realized he was standing in the midst of a group that normally wouldn't converge -- they were brought together by the music.

Along the way, Johnson founded Playing for Change, a foundation that seeks to unite musicians and bring people together while promoting peace. It funds music schools around the world -- the first just opened in South Africa........Rest Here

Stand By Me


Visit Playing for Change for a number of video's of this group, and the songs, of talented musicians from around the World.

Mystery Train

It was a hot afternoon in New Orleans when we first recorded Washboard Chaz in front of the Spotted Cat playing his version of Mystery Train. Chaz and Roberto often played shows together and we thought Roberto's steel guitar would be a great addition to the track. Months later on a return visit to New Orleans, we recorded Roberto on a stoop in the French Quarter. Together they are the Mystery Train moving on down the tracks.

Playing for Change: Songs Around The World
Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music.

A Mass Grave In Afghanistan Raises Questions

The subject title comes from an important discussion on the NPR show 'Freshair' today, 7.23.09.

I caught this earlier, if you didn't you really should listen in to the Discussion, it's a needed report added to those that have started coming out, Finally, we cannot forget, nor let pass, these Atrocities committed because of and under the previous administration!!

In 2001, shortly after the American invasion of Afghanistan, hundreds or possibly thousands of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord on the payroll of the C.I.A.

Over the course of three days, the captured prisoners were allegedly packed into shipping containers without food or water. Many suffocated, while others were reportedly shot by guards.......more can be found here with a linkback to an '02 report and ability to listen in, or you can click on this link to bring up the NPR player.

There's also a writeup here with further linkbacks on more information.

To give light on Atrocities, abiding by what we say we are and as we condemn others for, as we did and tried to do while in or after 'Nam, helps minimize the damage done to us as a Nation, our moral souls!

But more importantly, as the occupations are ongoing, it helps save others lives, our soldiers and supporters in-country, from the known coming 'Blowback' by an insurgency or just rage from relations and friends!

But as they touch on in this report, this is extremely important for the Afghans themselves as they try and move forward as a country, someday!!

Tax the rich to pay for health care?

Wolff: "Rich people do not make an economy strong. What makes the country wealthy is its people."

The Blue Dogs refuse to support the House health reform bill as long as it includes the surtax on the rich. Some Democrats have backed away from their previous statements regarding surtax, fearing they would not be able to pass the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has 7 Blue Dog Democrats. Richard Wolff, Professor of Economics, says we need to.

Families Send Basics To Marines In Afghanistan

For Marines serving in Afghanistan, mail call can be a little bit like Christmas in July. A package from home can supply everything from basic needs to small luxuries.

snip

At a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in North Carolina, customers have been donating goods for Marines deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment out of nearby Camp Lejeune.

Assistant Manager Rosa Hamilton says some of the items catch shoppers off guard. "They were like, 'Clothes pins, huh? I never would have thought about that.' And we're like, 'Well, they don't have anywhere to hang their clothes,' " she says...........Rest Here

Or bring up the NPR Player with this link amd listen to the report

Listening to this report, or reading.......

But already known by many, it is frankly more then criminal the contrast between Afghanistan and Iraq. We went into Afghanistan to supposedly get the leaders of those who carried out 9/11 with promises of the sun and the moon on reconstruction, once again like after we supported the Mujahadeen against the Soviets but never kept those promises, for the Afghans after we rid them of the Taliban government.

"A lot of people think that Afghanistan is like Iraq right now, and it's not. They're two totally different things. Iraq is more set up with everything that the guys need," she says. "Afghanistan — they went in with nothing."

We quickly left and invaded Iraq taking our Military, everyone we could payoff to join us and all those promises, once again, of rebuilding monies. Dumping Billions, loosing same as well, in building bases, a huge Embassy, and in doing so much of that work was shoddy and unrecorded in a paper trail, paying off once insurgents so they wouldn't fight us, and on and on and on. And now we're back in Afghanistan, not yet leaving Iraq, trying to once again win 'Hearts and Minds!'.

Why Iraq, one reason it is centrally located not only for the oil in that region but the rivers, water, as well! The Neo-Cons, and their War Profitteers, wanted, and still want, the control over that region that occupying Iraq would give them, Afghanistan is none of that!!

And much of those billions are going to private contractors apparently because our leaders feel the professional military can't carry out their failed policy decisions alone, or their supporters need the War Profits of Blood Money:

Unfit translators struggling in Afghanistan

U.S. troops say companies that recruit military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are unprepared to serve in combat, even as more are needed...........

Wartime Contracting...

Wartime contracting commission heads back to Iraq

A team investigating wartime contracting abuses has begun a 10-day trip to Kuwait and Iraq to examine the Defense Department's plans for transferring or disposing of $3 billion worth of in-theater property and equipment.

As U.S. troops begin to withdraw from Iraq, members of the congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting want to know the Pentagon's plan for removing more than 615,000 items of contractor-acquired, government-owned property from American bases in Iraq.......

The report said that as a result of poor documentation in the early days of Iraq operations and a shortage of property management officers, base commanders cannot account for every piece of property, document its ownership or confirm that it has been maintained properly......Rest Here

Soldiers of Conscience

Receives an Emmy® Award Nomination!

Trailer

Last week, Soldiers of Conscience was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Editing!

As many of you know, the Emmy is the highest television award there is - an equivalent of an Oscar for TV.

A special congrats goes to the film's editors - Gary Weimberg and Josh Peterson.

As you can imagine, this is the kind of recognition that helps the film bring greater attention to the critical issues of conscience and war facing us all - service members and civilians alike.

The award winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York City in late September. We'll keep you posted - but keep your fingers crossed!

For a full list of the nominees, visit: EmmyOnline.tv

A Chance Encounter in Afghanistan

Bob Woodruff Thanks the Men Who Saved His Life

Three years ago ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff suffered a severe brain injury in a roadside IED attack in Iraq. He was flown to a military hospital in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq, where the medical team there saved his life.................

Recruitment!!

This is going to be short, but should get the notice it needs and the corrections in a system that is broken, in a military breaking, in many ways, because of the failed policies of the previous administration and those beating the drums of war but unwilling to serve!

Joshua Fry Was Recruited Out of Group Home for Mentally Disabled

Autistic Marine Court Martialed and Given Bad Conduct Discharge

This had just started coming out yet this kid has been jailed apparently for slightly over a year. Not only was he recruited he went through boot, in the Marines, and was integrated into the Corps with No Objections, then did time as it was going through the military system, and was sentenced to more military prison time!

A Marine whose recruitment is under investigation because he is autistic was sentenced to four years in prison at his court martial Monday, but in a plea deal he will be released for time already served and receive a bad conduct discharge.

This now Marine suffers from Autism, and known condition. The recruitment should never have happened, but how was it nobody, from Command on Down, at a number of places, stopped this all from happening. And how did it even get to incarceration, a Courts Martial, and sentencing!

The conclusion of Fry's court martial turns the attention to suggestions by Fry's family and members of Congress that he should never have been recruited into the elite force that bills itself as "The Few. The Proud. The Marines."

There should be a whole lot of prison sentences that should be coming, from the recruiting to the command, Especially the Command!

When you see or hear about an incident they aren't isolated.

I'd like to see the Record Cleared, his discharge changed to Honorable, and His Care Come Under The VA!

After all that's gone on and said over these past years, I Want The Greater Majority To Pay Up and Don't Even Try Arguing A 'Pre-Existing Condition' as they have continually under the previous administration!

Whatever else comes out of this, He Served His Country, unlike the 'kombat keyboarders'!!!

Meanwhile............

Soldiers Question the Defense Secretary About Long Deployments

Outside the military, not much attention is paid to the personal problems of families caught up in the endless rotational deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that mark serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines...............

God and Guns

With More Children at Peril, a Call to Unarm

Pfleger is taking aim against gun violence and using the church to do so. He is flying the flag outside his parish upside down, a sign of distress used only in extreme emergencies. He says the city of Chicago is in just such an emergency.

"It's an epidemic," says Pfleger. "I've had four funerals of young children so far this year. A 13-year-old going to the store, a 15-year-old killed on a bus. All gun [crimes]."........

The report, and video of, above follows a report from the previous day, below, about a preacher allowing the parishioners of his church to bear arms during church services.

The Right to Bear Arms Heats Up

They clutched their Bibles and wore their handguns on their hips at New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky., after Rev. Ken Pagano encouraged parishioners to pack both their Bibles and heat to celebrate their right to bear arms -- even in a church sanctuary......

"To have someone bring a gun into that kind of space and to lift it up as if it were a symbol of goodness is horrific," says Rev. Serene Jones, president of the Union Theological Seminary........

As is further stated in the Video, if church's, or any house of worship, allow this that church ceases to be a church!

America in the 21st century, heading into the 19th, advancing backwards, rapidly, while the rest of the planet continues trying to move forward!

"Camp Hell" Afghanistan

"Camp Hell"!! Pay attention 'kombat keyboard chickenhawk rambo' cheerleaders, as well as the greater majority of this population that have forgotten our Two Occupations and the Veterans of, this is what Service in and War, Wars of Choice, Occupations, Look and Sound like!!

Despite 100 Attacks, Unit Leaves Afghan War With No Casualties
'Camp Hell' Attacked More Than Any Other Outpost in Afghanistan

Its job has been to disrupt al Qaeda and Taliban smuggling routes through the area.

Over the past year, the several dozen U.S. troops hunkered down in Combat Outpost Lowell have seen more firefights than any unit in Afghanistan.

Located on the northern part of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, the troops in Combat Outpost Lowell did not see any reinforcements from the U.S. surge, which has been concentrated in southern part of the country.

But the Taliban has had a surge of its own, making July the bloodiest month of the Afghan war so far for U.S. troops. Part of the Taliban offensive was a determined effort to erase Lowell from the map. The Taliban attacked the outpost nearly 100 times in the past year.

With words of True Wisdom from one Soldier:

"After experiencing this, what I will say ... if I ever do a job interview again and they say have you ever found yourself in a stressful situation, I'll try not to smile," said Sgt. Matthew Bertran of San Jose, Calif.

And while this unit, now replaced with another, miraculously didn't suffer any casualties, this speaks of the Priorities, and Attention Spans of this Nation:

A Life Lost Out of the Spotlight

This is what Brian Bradshaw's, killed by an IED in Afghanistan, aunt Martha Gillis said, with tears in her eyes and overwhelming love showing in those eyes and words as well!

While a Nation and World Paid Tribute to a Passing Singer, a Small Town Mourned a Young Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

Members of the Patriot Guard salute the flag-draped casket of Brian N. Bradshaw, after it was loaded into a hearse at St. John's Bosco Church in Lakewood, Wash. on Monday, July 6, 2009. Bradshaw, from Steilacoom, Wash., was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on June 25. (AP/Dean J. Koepfler, News Tribune)

Millions around the world will remember the day Michael Jackson died. Martha Gillis will, too - but she'll be thinking of someone else. She shares her Opinion with us now: The Rest Here

Not A "SuperStar"........July 12, 2009

Watch CBS Videos Online

A Soldier Comes Home July 15 2009

On July 5, The Post published a letter from Martha Gillis of Springfield, whose nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, was killed in Afghanistan on June 25, the day that Michael Jackson died. The letter criticized the extensive media coverage of Jackson's death compared with the brief coverage of Lt. Bradshaw's death. Among the responses was the following letter, written July 9 by an Air National Guard pilot and a fellow member of the crew that flew Lt. Bradshaw's body from a forward base in Afghanistan to Bagram Air Base. Capt. James Adair, one of the plane's pilots, asked the editorial page staff to forward the letter to the Bradshaw family. He and Brian Bradshaw's parents then agreed to publication of these excerpts.......Read Rest Here

The above letter, to the family, is a must read to fathom the deep Respect at least the Fallen receive from their brothers and sisters as a Nation pays little heed!