Group Therapy

Well, the hip is not progressing as fast as I had hoped but it is getting better. We have been doing a lot of walking and going to a lot of the grandkids baseball and softball games so that is exercise for the leg. Guess by now I wanted to be back to completely normal. At least going to the games gets me out of the house and my hibernating mode. I am having no more flashbacks or bad nightmares so that is good news.

Still going to Group every week and some weeks are better then others. Sometimes we just talk about our weekly problems and other weeks we just talk about miscellaneous things in our lives. We usually, at least weekly, talk about Roosevelt and Pearl Harbor. Our oldest member (87) of the Group is a WWII veteran and was in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theater. He was in the Navy before the war started and saw a lot of communications just prior to the war starting that our government knew a war was about to start. Pearl Harbor really upsets him and he will get mad when he gets into that subject.

We also have a Korean War veteran in the group that was a military photographer and he still carries those pictures in his mind. He says he is much improved since starting therapy and medication.

Another in our group was in the Navy, landed Marines into Vietnam, and did some riverboat duty in Nam. We have one from the Air Force that was in ordinance and he has some physical problems along with PTSD. The one Marine in our Group probably has the most physical problems (other than our oldest member and that is just from old age) plus PTSD from Nam.

The other two regular members are both Army draftees. One was a convoy driver and the other did both driving and miscellaneous military duties in the southern part of Vietnam. We are a real mixed group of veterans from many wars. There are a couple of members that no longer attend Group meetings. One was an Iraqi vet that is well enough to find and keep a job so he has not attended in a long time. The other Army vet is really messed up and does not attend much because he does not like to leave his safe zone. I will have to see if maybe if I pick him up that maybe he might attend.

The Group has varying percentages of disability from as little as 30% up to a couple of us with 100%. Some of the guys should have a lot higher percentage then they are getting. The WWII and Korean War vet should both have 100% but the government probably figures they are too old so why bother. They will not be around much longer. Actually, they are cantankerous enough to last many more years and the government should give them what they deserve.

Enough rambling for today. God Bless America.

Wish I Knew Who Wrote This

"Wish I knew who wrote this."

I know everyone has a different opinion on the war and our current President. But, this article makes a lot of sense, and I hope you will take 2 minutes and read it and give it some thought. I have never seen the 'situation' expressed any better in words! Recently I was talking to a friend about the upcoming election and the candidates. As we ended our discussion he said 'the only decision you have to make is who you want sitting in that seat in the White House when - not if - but when we get hit again and millions of American lives are put at risk!'

This is from: 'You ain't gonna like losing.'
Author unknown.

President Bush did make a bad mistake in the war on terrorism. But the mistake was not his decision to go to war in Iraq

Bush's mistake came in his belief that this country is the same one his father fought for in WWII. It is not.

Back then, they had just come out of a vicious depression. The country was steeled by the hardship of that depression, but they still believed fervently in this country. They knew that the people had elected their leaders, so it was the people's duty to back those leaders.

Therefore, when the war broke out the people came together, rallied behind, and stuck with their leaders, whether they had voted for them or not or whether the war was going badly or not.

And war was just as distasteful and the anguish just as great then as it is today. Often there were more casualties in one day in WWII than we have had in the entire Iraq war. But that did not matter. The people stuck with the President because it was their patriotic duty. Americans put aside their differences in WWII and worked together to win that war.

Everyone from every strata of society, from young to old pitched in. Small children pulled little wagons around to gather scrap metal for the war effort. Grade school students saved their pennies to buy stamps for war bonds to help the effort.

Men who were too old or medically 4F lied about their age or condition trying their best to join the military. Women doubled their work to keep things going at home. Harsh rationing of everything from gasoline to soap, to butter was imposed, yet there was very little complaining.

You never heard prominent people on the radio belittling the President. Interestingly enough in those days there were no fat cat actors and entertainers who ran off to visit and fawn over dictators of hostile countries and complain to them about our President. Instead, they made upbeat films and entertained our troops to help the troops' morale. And a bunch even enlisted.

And imagine this: Teachers in schools actually started the day off with a Pledge of Allegiance, and with prayers for our country and our troops!

Back then, no newspaper would have dared point out certain weak spots in our cities where bombs could be set off to cause the maximum damage. No newspaper would have dared complain about what we were doing to catch spies.

A newspaper would have been laughed out of existence if it had complained that German or Japanese soldiers were being 'tortured' by being forced to wear women's underwear, or subjected to interrogation by a woman, or being scared by a dog or did not have air conditioning.

There were a lot of things different back then. We were not subjected to a constant bombardment of pornography, perversion and promiscuity in movies or on radio. We did not have legions of crack heads, dope pushers and armed gangs roaming our streets.

No, President Bush did not make a mistake in his handling of terrorism. He made the mistake of believing that we still had the courage and fortitude of our fathers. He believed that this was still the country that our fathers fought so dearly to preserve.

It is not the same country. It is now a cross between Sodom and Gomorra and the land of Oz. We did unite for a short while after 9/11, but our attitude changed when we found out that defending our country would require some sacrifices.

We are in great danger. The terrorists are fanatic Muslims. They believe that it is okay, even their duty, to kill anyone who will not convert to Islam. It has been estimated that about one third or over three hundred million Muslims are sympathetic to the terrorists cause... Hitler and Tojo combined did not have nearly that many potential recruits. So...We either win it - or lose it - and you ain't gonna like losing.

America is not at war....the military is at war.
America is at the mall.