Alright! What you get after me being hideously busy and foully ill over the last few days, is not a long and thought out philosophical piece, and it's not a highly political piece that The Sniper can try to pick apart. It's a lot of bits and pieces of what I've noticed over the past few days, that may be of interest to you.
First, because I don't want anyone to think it's somehow falling off the table, I reiterate: Bloggers are wanted for Winter Soldier, of all political stripes. Active duty military may get transportation paid if necessary, whether you agree with the war or not.
Next: New York State's Governor Promises Soldiers the Benefits Congress Just Can't Seem To Pass. Full SUNY or CUNY tuition isn't something to sneeze at, folks, and if every returning soldier to New York actually got that, Eliot Spitzer would be getting letters of appreciation from me so often he'd think I was a crazed stalker. The problem with this as I see it? 1) Eliot Spitzer does not actually make the laws, so New York natives, don't get your hopes up yet. 2) I have a feeling when he realizes how many soldiers actually come from NY, he's going to limit it to National Guard and Reserve. 3) Others may argue that the GI bill covers that, and thus, it will never come to pass. However, I'm looking to be proven wrong on this one! Really!
And I know that some of you are obsessive Adam Kokesh watchers. Well, I've got something new for you. Something so new, so shocking, you just won't be able to contain yourselves, with your expressions of hatred and loathing. That's right, Adam Kokesh...visited Walter Reed and gave blood for wounded soldiers. No doubt some of you, in order to reconcile this strange, strange happening in your minds, are convincing yourselves as we speak that he secretly poisoned it first. No worries. Whatever you have to believe to sleep at night. I'm sure a bunch of people will now start crying, "Oh, he did it for political reasons". You know what? I don't care, and I don't think any soldier recipient of that blood will care either. I know if I'm wounded and need blood, the first thing on my mind is not going to be, "Hey, did the guy who donated that blood make political capital off the donation?" It's going to be, "Hey, doc, am I going to live?" And I rather suspect much the same goes on for most of the rest.
Also, all of you nitwits that moaned and groaned about how "In the Valley of Elah" was so unrealistic and anti-soldier, even though it was based on real events? Well, hey, looky-look, it's happened again, this time in Colorado Springs, at Fort Carson. Can anyone seriously now say that the stuff doesn't happen? It shouldn't happen, you're absolutely right, it shouldn't. But unfortunately, it does. And I think we need to figure out why.
That's it for a while, folks: and as always, please to remember that all hate/love mail should be directed to sgtivaw@gmail.com. And spambots. I'm sure spambots are full of the love too. Go ahead, do your worst!
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9 comments:
I once gave blood regularly, couldn't in Ft Benning because I lacked iron - I was in OCS. And then my blood pressure took off, and more recently because of fear of MAD COW, I had best try again - I have iron, the blood pressure is besser and those cows got to be dead or cured by now. Blood only worries about matching, plasma is bulk and the wounded need more than I ever hope to. Giving blood in thanks...
Wow dare you suggest I can't pick it apart? Are you threatening me?
:)
I acknowledge that bad things happen. The problem I have is that Hollywood seems to always stress them nowadays, whereas in the past, Hollywood coalesced around the mission.
Either way, marketplace of ideas and all that. No one is going to these movies, make them all you want, doesn't bother me, I just won't see them.
Big whoop - Adam Kokesh gave blood. Yeah, that really proves he's a real patriot. I take back everything I ever said about him. (If you can't detect it, that's sarcasm)
If you IVAW guys want bloggers to cover the Winter Soldier theater, why are you playing times and places so close to your vest? Some of us have jobs and families and we need details, but ya'all secret squirrels aren't giving us the planning time we need.
TSO: Nah, no threat. If I started doing that, I'm sure I'd find even a paragraph-long post about not posting grammatically analyzed, all in red font. :)
I can see what you mean about the stress being placed in different places. Personally, I think it's because this mission is hard to seriously glorify. It's hard to even understand fully, whether you understand it or not, unless you go along with "Big Bad Islam Is Attempting to Take Over the World". Which, I'll be honest, I'd beat my head in with a brick rather than watch in a theater.
And hey, I bet I could make a great soldier movie. I'd have the advantage of having real soldiers nearby, anyway. You'd totally watch it.
Jonn: I don't think anybody's being secret squirrel about it. I've been pretty upfront: if you want to blog about Winter Soldier, drop me an email or comment on the blog post which gives the rules. I hate to be all 'alpha and omega' about it, but the fact is, I'm the point man on this. People aren't going to just be let in at the door if they wave a laptop around and make some noise about blogging. Coordination has to be in advance. The link to that post is in this one-I can't see how I'm making this at all difficult.
Yeah, the Kokesh thing is pretty weak. I was told last time i went I wasn't eligible to give blood (Malarial country) but even so, he takes pictures and posts them about how wonderful he is.
Kokesh is his own cult of personality, always has been. Whatever brings him attention must be good. The rest of us just do it, he takes photos and praises himself.
It does kind of suck that soldiers wind up less able to donate blood than everyone else because of all the countries you go to. Weird world!
But on the self-promotion thing or what have you-what if taking pictures of blood donation and asking others to do the same encourages more people to do it than would have without the pictures? In that case, wouldn't it be a positive thing because it brought more positive around?
I will concede that my personal animus towards Kokesh perhaps clouds my judgement, but the guy really hasn't done much to earn my giving him the benefit of the doubt. When he's not putting up racist flyers all over GWU or trying to sneak firearms into the states I'm sure he occassionally stumbles on a good deed.
You still haven't given the story there, I note.
But hey. I'll take that. Admitting people aren't all evil or all good is the first step to a place where everyone can talk differences out amicably and all go drink beer afterwards. That's my dreamworld, anyway.
"You still haven't given the story there, I note."
Really not much of a story. I've only run into him 4 times, and they were all bad. He wouldn't remember them, but it kind of pissed me off.
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