the PTB have played on people's patriotic feelings and ramped up the fervor. Bush played up the terror scare with his bogus color alerts. Tillman became more famous after he quit the NFL and joined the military. Remember the Jessica Lynch rescue which was a lie?
Look at how upset they got when Kaepernick dared to kneel during the anthem. Trump played this well. He took this constitutionally supported act and made it about disrespecting the troops, the military and the country. The message of why Kaepernick knelt in the first place got buried and replaced with anger towards him and anyone else who knelt.

Then there's the playing gawd bless America during the 7th inning, the military hoopla before every damned game, etc.

I was too young when Vietnam was happening, but I do remember people's anger about what they were told the troops were doing over there. That's when we had a functioning press. The PTB knew what to do to make sure that the press only told us the story that they wanted us to know.

Now with every new terrorist attack, people's patriotism is stirred up over and over...
The truth about 9/11 will never be told because the event has unending returns.

I recently read an article about the burn pits in war zones. Each soldier has 7-10 lbs of waste every day and instead of hauling it out, it's burned in huge pits. Soldiers tell the new guys that they will be sick for a few days every time the burn pits are active.

Surprise! They create toxic poisonous clouds that everyone has to breathe in and now they are getting all kinds of illnesses from those pits and just like agent orange, gulf war syndrome, congress won't allocate funding for treatment.

People are told that their illnesses are what happens when they get older and there is no evidence that their illnesses were caused by the pits.

Biden's son died from brain cancer and people in his unit blamed it on the pits. I want to know if Joe is aware that his son's cancer might have been caused by them and if he does, why would he not tell congress? I don't know how he could stay silent about this and watch as other people's sons and daughters continue to get sick and not say that this has to stop.

People see homeless veterans and say that they need to pull themselves together so they aren't living on the streets or gawd forbid, using social programs to survive.
They could start petitioning congress to take better care of their heroes and thank them this way.

for the Iraq war. It's a subsidy of Halliburton, Cheney's company. Veterans have been trying to hold them accountable for their burn pits, but I'm sure I don't have to tell you how that's going.

Judge dismisses veterans’ suit over Iraq, Afghan burn pits

A couple articles on the burn pits

US military burn pits built on chemical weapons facilities tied to soldiers' illness

“They really don’t want this out”: The biggest Iraq War scandal that nobody’s talking about

This is what happened to police and firefighters who worked at ground zero after they were told that the air was safe to breathe. After 100's of them died, congress finally passed the 9/11 bill to help them with their medical bills.
They started getting sick months after they worked at the site, yet it took over a decade for congress to find some money for them.

Client hired me to get custody of his 2 kids.
Done.
I did some probate/estate planning for him.
Done.
He was just at serving 22 years in the Army, talked to me about serving in combat, as that significantly raised his pay grade for retirment.
He was 40 years old.
I remember describing in detail, horrible detail, about Dad, me picking shrapnel out of him with tweezers 30 years after battle, about how any sudden noise sent him to his knees, looking for a weapon when he was 91. To a WWII vet, a fork is a weapon.
I remember crying, I remember grabbing him, crying hard on his shoulder. A lawyer break down. I got down on my knees.
He took his last tour in Southeast Asia. He brought me 2 elephant print pants from Thailand. He comes by to see me often.
He is ok, his kids come to say hello, his mom comes to the office regularly, and he is ok.
No PTDS.
Doesn't someone who posts here talk about the little things we can do?

are worth using. We saved a fair amount of dough on several major appliances purchased at Lowe's. IIRC, it's 10 percent.

So far, we've only used this discount in a state with a 9.75 state/local tax rate; so, it was the equivalent of a tax-free purchase.

Mollie

A young waitress passed this on to me.
She works at a small rural Big boys. They offered a free breakfast buffet to veterans.
Busy as hell but no tips. Hell. The food was free. Why not the service?
I guess we should expect service and not have to appreciate it.
I'm so proud. /s

and I remembered that I have one of those that it occurred to me that, well, yeah I'm a vet. Been running from those USAFA memories for decades now. Happy whatever, Big Al.

I know Combat Veterans who are so broken that they became unable to accept those "benefits" of the VA, like the Post 9-11 GI bill, which originally made them join the military, and hated the labels thrown at them.

You know it is all utter bullshit to use men for those wars that have absolutely nothing to do with self-defense and protecting Democracy inside United States.

As always while reading your links I ran into others. And I end up listening to Hedges again:
Look at what he said already in 2012.
Chris Hedges on the Horrifying Decline of the American Empire and the Economic Collapse (2012)

Ok, I have to let it go. My plans to use my retirement in peace and read all the books I have gathered still haven't realized. I wonder when I get to the point, if at all. I am constantly worried about the mental health well being of Combat Veterans. And I heard people talking about some of the few German soldiers who were involved in some of those wars of late, breaking mentally as well. WTF as it is said the Germans do the same thing as the US just with a delay of 5 to 10 years.

take everything you can as partial payment for the gap between what servicemen, servicewomen and veterans were promised and what they get.

It's important to distinguish between people who enlisted or were drafted into the armed forces and the bastards who put them in harm's way. By the time I was old enough to protest the Vietnam War the protests were lead by veterans. The role of Vietnam vets in changing the view of Americans toward the war cannot be overstated. It's hard to call someone who was there a liar.

Go out and grab a meal on us. It's the least we can do and the least we can do is an apt description of what the patriots safe in this country do for veterans.