Has the whole world gone mad? What the hell is going on out there? It’s like the earth has been caught up in a nearby passing comet’s trail and all the machines humans have gone bat-shit crazy. Only difference is there is no cool AC/DC soundtrack and Emilio Esteves isn’t a short order cook at a truck stop gas station.
Cris Kyle, Navy Seal, and the greatest sniper to come out of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars was killed this weekend by another broken veteran on a gun range in Texas. I can’t help but notice how Obama’s liberal media machine is all over anything to do with gun violence. Its a shame really the media can’t report unbiased and news worthy facts. The facts are simple. Every single day, TWENTY-TWO war veterans commit suicide. Let that sink in and read it again. I’ll help you. Every single day, TWENTY-TWO war veterans commit suicide. The same exact veterans that are getting there medical and healthcare benefits reduced more and more by the very President sitting in the oval office right now.
I wish I had spoke to someone after I got back from the first Gulf War. Instead I just kept my mouth shut, didnt talk much about what I saw, and kept on and carried on. After all hearing my father moan and groan in bed with nightmares from Vietnam as a kid was normal. As I look and think back now, aside from pissing them off with snoring, I have probably scared the shit out of every woman I have ever slept in the same bed with since 1993 with occasional nightmares and waking up in cold sweats. Sorry ladies, where ever you may be now.
Last week this wackjob (another fucked up veteran) jumps on a school bus, blasts the driver and takes a kid hostage into an underground bunker for a week. Thankfully today that all ended with the child safe and the veteran dead.
What could go so bad in your head to make one do that? I can’t say I know or understand, but I will say what some see in battle is some horrendous shit. In my case bad, but not bad in as much as my buddies getting hurt next to me. But in the subsequent Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Beirut, Vietnam, that high intensity close in combat seeing your friends get hurt/killed or injured yourself doesn’t leave your mind. It hasn’t for me and comparatively speaking what I did and saw was a cakewalk.
It’s sad, but more infuriating that mental health aid isn’t more available to veterans. When it is the stigma attached to it is like you’re some kind of pussy is a real issue. The ironic thing is and you can mark my words now, in the near future all kinds of mental health assets and federal funds are going to be made available all over this country to make sure someone who wants to buy a hand gun is suitable to own one. There will be so much bureaucratic bullshit involved with mental health and gun ownership all while the veterans who need the help will not get it and continue on in pain and hell between their ears. Only thing is they probably wont get a gun to kill themselves with, so its back to the pills. booze, highway overpasses.
The Super Bowl was weird this year. The game was great in the second half. Beyonce was good. The commercials? Eh. Was I the only one thinking in my head when they pulled out the Newtown or whatever elementary school choir and thought to myself, WTF? Is it now pretty much accepted that every single national tragedy we go through we must rally up the survivors and somehow make a spectacle of them at championship sporting events? First its Captain Sully. Now the kids who didn’t get blown away. Whats next? Little Ethan who was saved from the bunker in Alabama today, gets to wave the green flag at the Indy 500?
I watched the brand new Netflix series House of Cards this weekend. Thirteen episodes of season one. Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright. About a congressman from South Carolina. It was the best thing I have watched since Sopranos, Mad Men, Sons of Anarchy, and Walking Dead. Do yourself a favor sign up for Netflix for thirty days free and watch this series. If you like politics, you will love this series. Its brand new, on Netflix only and its absolutely awesome. There is a second season coming out with another thirteen episodes probably towards the end of the year. I can not wait. David Fincher produces and directs some episodes. Its well done. Two thumbs up, five stars, highly recommend. Here is the best part. Netflix put out all the episodes of the entire season at one time. I binged the entire season Friday night and Saturday morning.
I’ll close this for now and hope that all the crazy in the world calms down a little.
Let ‘er rip, tater chip!
Morning Brock. I saw this last night and wanted to jump right on it, but you’ve seen me do that before and I’m really trying to get better. So I took the usual meds with an extra pill for the nightmares I knew that would bring on. You posted statistics of veterans who commit suicide, but i saw recently that more troops in Afghanistan commmited suicide last year than were killed in conflict. People can’t figure out why that dude in Leavenworth went apeshit and killed a bunch of civilians over there. He was arrested in 2010 (if I remember correctly) an there was this huge fucking outrage about how could he do that. I would put his balls up against anybody else’s and see how they would end up after FIVE count em – FIVE deployments. How can that even be possible!!!! I don’t live far from Leavenworth and wanted to go to support him at his trial, but was busy trying to survive my own PTSD. Now, going to climb on the old soapbox here.
The VA (vindictive assclowns) is a very dangerous place, especially for those of us with mental disorders, which are mostly PTSD. I’d been going there for many years and any time my mood changes they’d say “damn you’re on a whole bunch of meds – here take THIS!” and for a long time I did. I was so numb I did a lot of stupid shit just to FEEL anything. I think that’s what they want – a bunch of numbed out veterans. That may be why lot of vets won’t go there for help. I don’t anymore – they have been very harmful to this vet. One day I decided that I wasn’t gonna quit taking a bunch of that stuff and the past couple of years have been, shall we say,
very “mentally entertaining”. A good number of the docs out there are people of KU and are just studying to “practice” medicine. I have spent the better part of the past 2 years walking right the fuck out of various doctors offices because I refuse to let anymore of those assclowns decide what does and does not work for ME based on a book. I have finally gotten in with a bunch who specializes in PTSD and wish everybody could do the same. I think many of the homeless vets are homeless because they, like I, just refuse to be controlled by those manics who, by the way, get up every morning and drink the daily dose of condescending koolaid. They are very rude and I paid a very high price for them to have such a good job with such good bennies. And if you happen to have a mental disorder AND a drug problem, past or present and they see that in your records, they immediately write you off as a waste product. Again, I paid a very high price. And when I submitted my paperwork for my PTSD the letter I got back basically said that I was crazy before they got me, crazy while I was there, still crazy and don’t ever bother us again. And I did not because I was numbed out and pretty much unable to fight anybody or anything. There is a 5 month waiting period between appointments for the one single doctor who treats PTSD. Huh? A person could die in the meantime. I will add one more thing and then stop. I went to a civilian doctor yesterday and he wanted to see the inhaler i was using. He looked at it and asked me where the hell I got it because it had been outlawed BY THE GOVERNMENT several years ago! and who prescribed it? the V fucking A. Am thinking our government was supporting the big pharma and bought up all their stock at a cheapo price so pharma would not take a financial hit on the stockpile they had of that product. I am so grateful for my social security disability which provides me the luxury of outside medical services. If I lose those benefits, I too will be pushing my shopping cart around the streets mumbling to myself and diving for cover every time I feel threatened.
Guess it’s a good thing I waited to get on here til this morning. No telling what would have come out here if I wasn’t so calm. I love your blog. Onward, by all means!
okay, just reread that and perhaps did not make clear that the VA docs are not “people” from KU – they are STUDENTS. “Practicing medcine in the true sense of the word. Another thing I forgot was this question: If I was crazy before I joined the Army, just how and why did you allow me to join in the first place? Hmmm.