First post

Well here it is my first post...I guess I should quickly talk about what led me to start this blog. I got news this morning that a friend of mine's son was killed in Iraq yesterday. I'm heartsick about this. She and her husband are simply the kindest people I have ever met. When I really sit down and think about it, I'm really pissed off. Where is the outrage? Over 3,000 US men and women killed and we still don't have a PLAN? How are we measuring this war? What are the benchmarks? This is not about liberal vs. conservative it is about the simpless of right and wrong.

I don't think our leaders live in reality. Do you think that for one second if any of them had to send a son or daughter over to any of the "actions" we are currently invoved in that wouldn't start the ball rolling for some massive change? Well think again, I'm 100% sure that it would. This is my opinion, not fact. No one should ever have to deal with the loss of a child and whatever the army pays out in life insurance is not nearly enough. A friend of mine (in the service) told me that each person has $400,000 worth of life insurance. That means over 1.2 trillion dollars has been spent. In my opinion it is not nearly enough. It's been said over and over again...you can't put a price on a person's life. Well folks, it looks like we have.

This is a sad time in America. It makes me think of Vietnam. We were involved in Vietnam so the "red menace" (communism) would not spread and take over the world. We couldn't fight that war successfully so we pulled out. After the loss of over 54,000 men and women the red menace pretty much stayed were it was...it did not take over the world as our leaders constantly threatened that it would. Huh, imagine that.

We are still cleaning up from Vietnam. Here is a fact that I just learned. More Vietnam Veterans have committed suicide than there are names on the Vietnam Memorial. There are over 54,000 names on the Vietnam Wall. Read the book Flashback by Penny Coleman, she's done the research. This gives us a heads up as to what we our mental health system will be dealing with when our soldiers return. Its already been proven that we are not ready. There are people from within the Veterans Administration trying to get the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder eliminated from the diagnois vernacular. These are people who have worked within the system with Vets truley suffering after doing their duty for our country. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

I promise not every post will be about war...there will be music, art etc...some may even be light hearted!