If I hear one more politician tell me how much they care for and support our veterans, I’m going to hurl.

While spending nearly six months in Balboa Naval Hospital in the early 1990’s, they brought me in a “roomie”. He was about 19; a young Airborne Private who was on a night training jump. His parachute did deploy, but he thinks someone else’s chute underneath him stole his air. He fell pretty hard from about three thousand feet. They brought him in late at night and after determining there was no paralysis or other serious injury, decided to transfer him the next day. But it was late, he was hungry and the galley was closed. The nurse told him he’d have to wait until breakfast to eat.

Absolutely fuming, I shot her a death glance and I then took it upon myself to walk -IV pole trailing- to the base McDonald’s to buy that kid a cheeseburger and a Coke®. I came to the cold realization that this country will never do enough to repay it’s veterans; that we’d have to take care of ourselves. He left the next day. I never saw him again. We shook hands as he was wheeled out and that was it. I never caught more than his last name - now long forgotten. It didn’t matter. I knew if we ever crossed paths again, that he was good for it.

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