Remembrance Day

On this day we should think more of those veterans who served as private, pfc, or nco rather than four star David.  Is there a similar day in Greece, Al?   Seydlitz, what about Portugal?  Sven, Germany? 

I still remember my great-uncle Dinty, a ww1 vet who got a taste of the mustard gas, and who lived with us in the forties and early fifties because he could not afford a place of his own.  Until my sister was born anyway, and the room was needed so he moved on to my Aunt Alice's house, and later to another Aunt before he finally passed away peacefully.  At least he was with family.  For many today that is not an option, although it should be.

I spent a few hours yesterday passing out paper poppies and shaking a can to raise funds for impoverished vets.  There are many 80 and 90-year old veterans or their widows on a small fixed income.  Many cannot afford to get back and forth to the VA hospital or even to a local Doc.  Some need help navigating the VA bureaucracy.  Some are living in houses with leaky roof that they cannot afford to get fixed.  I have seen them in the market staring at the prices in the meat display fridge and finally settle for spam or items past their expiration date.  My bride has been known to drop a $20-bill on the floor behind them, then tap them on the shoulder and press it into their hands saying they dropped it.  Beats me how the economic pundits can say there is no inflation.  They, those vets and their wives and widows have been called the greatest generation but they are fading fast and should not pass on while cold and hungry.

As for Petraeus he is in good company: Ike, Kennedy, and a few others like FDChief pointed out.  All of us may (or may not) even have strayed from the straight-arrow path ourselves in the bad old days of long peacetime deployments.   Perhaps we were not so full of hubris to think we could get away with it.  We need to stop policing the morals and sexual behavior of others.  We (or at least I) should be more concerned with our own.  King David will do fine.  

A number of those vets or widows are preyed upon by scam artists and phone hustlers.  Good for Holly Petraeus for standing up for military families, for consumer protection, and against illegal foreclosures with Senator-Elect Warren.  A lot of vets were affected by those foreclosures.  The discussion should be about her accomplishments for vets and not her husbands human weakness.

Here is one link Holly Petraeus