Veterans Day

[Uncle Sparky]

And it was written by a Canadian, of course.

[Berzerker]

nice pic sloww

[SlowwHand]

Thanks. There's a bond between college friends, and high school friends and work friends; but they pale in comparison to the link between veterans.
The photo captures it perfectly.

[dannubis]

I was asked to post this, and I'm glad to do it.

I find it sickening how someone who has nothing to do with WW1 thinks it necessary to profilate himself on it.

[dannubis]

Actually, it's generally read at Post Memorial Day ceremonies, right here in the U.S. of A., although it fits today, too.

That poem is about WW1 Tex.

[molly bloom]

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. I'll be going to a memorial service in about an hour.
I am proud of Canada's men & women in uniform, and sad we currently have an adventurist government that will keep them deployed.
Sadly too, our hypocritical government, like the US, treats the men & women who sacrifice everything for our freedom like crap when they come back physically and mentaly broken, but put them on public display once a year.

Not just Canada, unfortunately:

Mark and Helen Mullins are thought to have killed themselves at their rundown home after being reduced to despair as they struggled to live off just £57.50 a week.


The couple, who suffered a series of health and benefits setbacks and had their 12-year-old daughter taken into care, were found lying side by side.
Friends said they were let down by social services.

Military man: Mark Mullins said he found ‘Civvy Street’ difficult

Kervin Julien, from the Salvation Army, said: ‘This couple were simply allowed to slip through the net with tragic consequences. They just wanted support. This should never have happened.’


Mr Mullins, 48, worked in the Army as a PE instructor but fell on hard times after leaving the service, admitting he struggled to cope with ‘Civvy Street’.

His wife, also 48, suffered from learning difficulties and was deemed unfit to look after her daughter last year.
They walked 10km (six miles) a day to a soup kitchen, collecting free vegetables to cook into a broth on a camping gas stove.
They stored it in plastic bags in the shed because they didn’t have a fridge in their council home.

Mr Mullins told a TV interviewer last year how the pair were ‘living hand to mouth’ after struggling for 14 months to win some benefits for Mrs Mullins.
They were terrified that she was about to be sectioned, having long suffered from learning disabilities.

On Thursday last week, their bodies were found at their home in Bedworth, Warwickshire.

The cause of death has yet to be determined.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/881136-married-couple-driven-to-commit-suicide-by-utter-poverty

I simply don't understand how we can expect people to risk their lives for a country and then when they retire, or are made invalids in action simply leave them without any support. It seems to be a form of neglect that has persisted (at least in this country) since Elizabethan times.

[Pax]

Robert Heinlein -

[Pax]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036868/

This is a great movie about what it's like to be a veteran. Funny that it was made in 1946 and it's still relevant today.

[giblets]

he STILL reads poly even though he's been banned?

He must think it's really important that veterans get proper recognition on an internet forum.