I think four year service ex military should have all Healthcare paid for the rest of their lives (unless you saw combat in a 2 year service) Even if non- combat. Joining the military is the biggest sacrifice and commitment a person can make in this country, and we should honor every single one of them for the rest of their lives.
This hits home with me. My father went 3 tours in nam, to come back and be called a baby killer. The shit he saw, the shit he went through, the friends that died in his arms caused major ptsd for him. It was not an easy childhood for me to say the least. He definitely needed help n but couldn't get it. Now they the va he has full medical and 100% disability. He's 70 this year, and shouldn't have had to wait this long for help. This country literally abandoned our combat heroes from nam and its disgusting.
ramble follows....
Maybe the best thing that GenX has done, other than the idiots in Portland and the Henry Rollins worshippers, is to hold up respect for our Vietnam Vets. The Vets stood up for themselves first, and people like our families did it because of the Baby Killer bullshit. IMO that made the 1980s conservative.
You don't see too many faggots bagging on the military these days, although they're trying to start again because of Chinese and Russian influence.
All of my family except my step-dad and his brother went to Vietnam. My Uncle was too old and had already gotten out of the Navy in '66 or so, my dad was too short and 'fat' (it was all muscle back then). My bio-dad joined the Army and got sent to Germany. My other Uncle was a Silver Star Marine. All of our other family and friends we hunted and fished with were in Vietnam. Most of the dads of the kids I went to school with.
So I grew up hearing about Vietnam, and I know that my cousins and friends whose dads went didn't. Didn't get mentioned in the house until maybe the late 1980s. My own personality is definitely formed on the fact that watching TV, Vietnam would get mentioned and my parents would grumble and talk about how bullshit the treatment of the Vets was. Gee, why is Evernoob so distrustful of the media and government, even though he was in the actual Navy?
I was always hard on myself about my short 6 years. I rode around on a boat and ate 4 hot meals a day, so much steak and lobster I got sick of it, had hot showers that mostly did not reek of lube oil and DFM. My space was A/C and so cold that I wore foul-weather jackets and a watch cap in Florida in summer. (that used to piss the snipes off when I showed up for chow that way). My tour was probably the safest period to be in the Navy since the 1920s. Didn't have to go to Desert Storm. The only time I carried a loaded firearm on duty was about 40 minute transferring 1,000 kilos of cocaine to Rosey Roads. I mean, I carried a gun every time POOW in port, and guarding Cartel prisoners, but not loaded.
But I also put up with a lot of shit for a 19 year old kid and now I look back on it, I'm sort of amazed I didn't just bow out. Look at my personality: I am a person that does not belong in the military. But I toughed that shit out and my stuff worked and worked good, and it's probably why I didn't get into more trouble. 2 primary duties. Several secondaries. I'm glad I was in and I'm glad I experienced a lot of stuff that I did, but I paid a fairly severe personal price over that. Not going into details but everyone that did peacetime service knows what i'm talking about.
Plus you hold yourself up to an impossible standard. WWII were the vets that we were looking up to, I guess we kind of ignored the fact that a good 10% of Vietnam Vets were completely ruined by their experience and treatment when they came home. But WWII vets did what they wanted and got away with anything. They drank their sorrows away and nobody fucked with them.
As fewer and fewer people serve in the military and see combat, we have to stick up for them because it's not like the late 1940s when the idea of calling a WWII vet a baby killer would get your teeth knocked down your throat and no DA would touch that assault.
So my reverence for Combat Vets is that much more, b/c I know what i put up with and we had literally just defeated the Soviet Union and were the world's undisputed Superpower that wiped out the world's 4th largest military in 2 weeks. I didn't have to sleep with camel spiders, burn shit, or dig latrines so that the ladies could show up and play Soldier Girl.
Sit in a fucking jungle with ball rot. Come home and have some rich faggot spit in your face, it's a wonder more hippies didn't get offed. Honestly, it's fortunate for the faggots that the best people usually end up in the military, and it teaches self-control. Then the US took in loads of Boat People from Vietnam, kids I went to school with, and now rich white kids are saying the US is the worst most racist nation on Earth.
I don't think these media people and Tech overlords and politicians understand what they're dealing with.