wonderingmind42's video: America s shame--our debt to service members is still shamefully unpaid

PLEASE READ THIS VIDEO DESCRIPTION. When I watch this, I'm speechless, and tearful. This video is not mine--I found it elsewhere, and don't know the creator or copyright owners. ***YOUTUBE: PLEASE DON'T TAKE THE VIDEO OR SOUNDTRACK DOWN. I have NOT submitted it for revenue sharing, but simply as a patriotic public service. Please respect that and leave the video up.*** Some military action is both abhorrent and necessary--I'm both old and young enough to know that. But we in modern America have forgotten the cost. In our video-game, media-saturated, narcissistic society of today, war has become just another policy football, just another budget wrangle. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, both businesses and the government urged civilians to conserve, to recycle, to contribute money (in taxes and war bonds), and to grow their own food. When the World Trade Centers were leveled, the government told us to go about our business, and that the most patriotic thing we could do was go out and consume more. My father was a marine in Vietnam, my uncle one in Korea, but they've never talked much about it. But after having two young daughters, and then losing one of my favorite students during his first month in Baghdad, war has become very personal for me. This video perfectly conveys one of the greatest costs of war--the separation of families. Particularly of parents and young children, who need their parent more at that time than at any other time of life. War is necessary at times. But we as a nation have forgotten the cost. Before we reach for that ultimate tool, we must make ourselves feel very clearly the cost. Very sure that the need is so high--and that all other possible options have been eliminated--so that the extreme cost of war on our society and our people is worth it. And when the vets get home, our neglect of their health and well-being is one of the greatest shames of our nation. They risked their ALL for the benefit of the whole--not just their own lives, but the father or mother of their children, the husband or wife of their spouse, the son or the daughter of their parents, and their very own mental health and happiness of they do come home whole. Why the HELL are we not giving them the best damn health care on the planet--both physical and mental, WITHOUT hassling them about it?? Why the HELL can a rich CEO get whatever he needs done to take care of whatever ailment he may have, yet a young vet can't get a decent prosthetic, or respect for very real ailments that are dismissed by the establishment as "in your head," or "not related to your service," like "Gulf War Syndrome" was for so long? In my opinion, vets who saw combat should be given health care for life. Part of the social contract: you risk your life for your society, and society will take care of the needs that arise out of that risk. Anything less seems, well, barbaric. At the least it is below us, especially if we want to go around waving flags and chanting "U. S. A.--U. S. A" like it's some football game. We love to say we are the greatest nation on earth. But on this subject especially, we are an abomination. It's time to live up to your ideals America--put up or shut up. And what boggles my mind is how invisible the problem is on the political agenda. How it seems to be swept under the carpet by BOTH sides. That's what totally befuddles me. The Republicans are normally war hawks and should be lauded the vets up and down, and calling anyone who votes against funding health care for them unpatriotic. And the Democrats are the great lovers of social services. Of all our most vulnerable populations to be served, shouldn't we put at the top of the list the ones who became disabled BY CHOICE because they wanted to protect and serve the rest of us? I just don't get it. In all frankness, when I think of how we treat our returned vets (even those physically healthy, but mentally effected), I am ashamed to be American. Proud as hell of those selfless and brave men and women who risked everything to protect the rest of us. But ashamed to be American. After I read Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation," I took to saying simply "Thank you for your service" to anyone in uniform or a vet baseball cap, regardless of whether I was against that particular war or not. I hope you do some soul-searching on this, and ask others to do it as well. We owe it to our servicemen and women, as well as to our own self-respect in thinking that being American means something special.