I couldn't get to sleep tonight due to pain from my service injuries(chronic), so I started looking over my e-mail & found your posting. . . . .

It's too bad that more congressmen and senators don't comprehend what it means to sacrifice yourself for the cause of freedom. I had an interesting encounter at a Vet's Rights rally in DC on the Mall. An Israeli tourist asked me what was going on. I explained that disabled vets were treated pretty shabbily by the VA bureaucracy and others in our country.

He was astounded! You see, in Israel, they personalize their soldiers as their sons,daughters,fathers,sisters,brothers. To not feel a personal debt to them is considered disgraceful behavior! They do everything they can to help them. He walked away shaking his head in disbelief!

America's treatment of vets IS a disgrace! We have been given a VA system that DOESN'T WORK, pensions that allow us to live in abject poverty after sacrificing to our country the ability to earn a livelihood, and we are marginalized when we speak up about it.

Do we really need B-2 bombers? How much weaponry is enough? Believe me, living in the DC area, I see who that money benefits, and it ain't the troops! How many kids could that money feed? How many people could be helped to lead more dignified lives with that money? But that's my rambling...and probably pain talking...

What I do know is that veterans must stick together and support each other. I am a life member of the DAV and a member of the VVA.

Things are getting worse for vets, with the loss of our WWII and Korea comrades. I wonder if it might be better for us to start making more noise and get a lot more politically active than we have in the past...out of sight IS out of mind!

I really do care deeply about this stuff, as I see how it affects me, my family, and the people I served with. As long as America is free, and has the ability to help those who paid the price, it is incumbent upon every citizen to help, in some way, to repay that debt.

Those of us who are forced to remember, every day, year after year, the sacrifice that brought us suffering have to reconcile why we did what we did...and to try to feel pride and satisfaction rather than self pity or resentment.

JG, RN (Army medic '71-75, AF Nurse 92-96)

This is an email I received and I reprinted parts of it with the senders permission.