Browsing the archives for the military tag.

How Quickly We Forget

Military/War, Politics, Society/Culture

“Congress is presumed to know the terrain against which it legislates… If Congress can appropriate billions for this aspect of national defense and not know how it is accounted for, then God save the Republic.” - Chief Justice Mayer - U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit

Today’s veterans enjoy unprecedented care and support, but we have not always offered previous generations of veterans all of the support that we indeed owe them. How quickly we forget that if not for their sacrifices, we’d speaking German or saluting the Rising Sun.

The Korean war was called the Forgotten War because it was sandwiched between and overshadowed by the dual traumas of WWII and Vietnam. We forget that in three years of fighting in Korea, we lost nearly 37,000 men. Contrast that with 4,000 dead in Iraq,  the 10,000 or so casualties since September of 2001 or even the 58,000 U.S. servicemen killed in Vietnam over 10 years. Korean War vets served just as valiantly as any generation of soldiers. They sacrificed heavily; indeed proportionately even more so than present-day veterans, but while Presidential candidates dangle free college tuition, fewer, shorter deployments and cutting-edge medicine in front of today’s veterans, most of these retirees have been forgotten, as have many of their brethren who served in WWII and the broken the promises that were made to them in return for their service. Read More »

Technorati Tags: MGRG, military, Military Retiree Grass Roots Group, political commentary, Politics

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