Malkin: Requiem for a VA Victim

This story tugged at my heart, as it should for every red-blooded patriot. Society’s attitude towards our military is much different than it was fifty years ago , or even twenty-three years ago when I retired. I am constantly thanked for my service, and while I do appreciate it very much, there is a growing feeling within me that thinks it may be a facade. Has it merely become a fade to thank a Vet? Do these kind, well-meaning folks really appreciate what we have done? Or are they simply following the crowd? I don’t want to demean in anyway their show of gratitude as it can go a long way to help our Vets. However, do these well-meaning and kind folks really know what is going on with our Vets? I think not. Our government needs to establish some priorities and put its money were the people’s mouth is. Surely, let me rephrase that, “hopefully” our Vets deserve a higher priority than the illegals streaming across our borders, the fraudulent millions on welfare , and the refugees welcomed to our shores by the Chicago Street Hustler and his band of cronies. Politicians rant and rave, promise to help, get re-elected, then disappear. Michelle puts forth some very interesting thoughts and ideas — will anyone listen? Donald, you promised, so please do something in January 2017 to help our Veterans! 

Why was this incident not on every evening news cast? You’ll have to answer that one, I have to go take my blood pressure meds!

michelle_malkin_55What does a suffering military veteran have to do to force an unresponsive government to change its ways?

How about self-immolating in front of his VA clinic? Hello, paper-pushers and desk jockeys? Are you there? Would the heat, the smoke and the smell of burning flesh rouse you in the least?

Nope. Apparently, even this horror is not enough to move the inert bureaucrats at the Department of Veterans Affairs — let alone the indifferent tango dancer-in-chief.

While President Obama sashayed in Buenos Aires two weeks ago, proud Navy veteran Charles Richard Ingram III, 51, made his last life’s journey. He walked nine miles from his home in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., to the curb in front of the Northfield, N.J., VA clinic on New Road.

With a large blue wooden cross looming on the side of a chapel in the background, Ingram stood on the lawn, poured gas all over his body and lit a match. A firefighter told The Daily Beast that the retired chief petty officer, known as “Rich” to family and friends, was “100 percent burned.” A bystander had rushed to his side with blankets to snuff out the flames and first responders arrived within minutes.

But it was too late.

CPO Ingram leaves behind a grieving wife, two young children ages 3 and 5, and a charred patch of brown and blackened grass 75 feet from the entrance of the VA’s Atlantic County Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC).

The bloated VA system now employs nearly 400,000 people to carry out its purported “mission of caring.” The CBOCs were established to “to more efficiently and effectively serve eligible veterans and provide care in the most appropriate setting,” according to the feds. But nobody from Ingram’s CBOC — one of 800 such offices run by the VA, which boasts a record $150 billion budget — was there to help on that Saturday when Ingram perished. Why not? Because the facility is closed on weekends. Its daytime, weekday hours (8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.) serve the convenience of the government employees, not of the men and women who put their lives on the line for their country.

Area veterans’ advocates and local officials in both political parties have pushed for years to address chronic under staffing and Soviet-era wait times. The Atlantic City Press reports that there is just one lone psychologist to provide therapy to 200 veterans on any given day.

“To make matters worse,” local Democratic state senator Jeff Van Drew (who worked in the VA system as a dentist) pointed out last week, “there are no Veterans Affairs hospitals in the region, so even if a veteran is able to schedule a timely appointment at the nearest VA hospital, he or she would have to travel hours to Philadelphia, Penn., northern New Jersey or Delaware to receive care.”

Would it have been too much to ask the VA’s employees to open for just one day of weekend appointments and one weekday of late-night appointments? Apparently, that was too much of a sacrifice for the 8-to-4:30-ers. Vets’ groups petitioned for extended hours for years. Nothing happened.

How about a pilot program to free the VA’s hostages and allow vets to receive health care from personal doctors and local hospitals, as Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., has long proposed? There must be no escape hatches, anti-privatization special interests have decreed. All must suffer for the Greater Good.

Flacks for the Wilmington, Delaware, VA Medical Services facility, which oversees Ingram’s South Jersey clinic, downplayed appointment delays and vets’ complaints after Ingram’s sacrificial act. Instead, the bureaucrats blithely touted their “telehealth” services via computer, “group therapy” and “additional social workers.” Nothing to see here, move along.

When Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burned himself to death on a Saigon street corner to protest abuses by the Diem government in 1963, the world took notice. The monk left behind his crystallized bones, intact heart and an inflamed movement to end repression against his people. American journalists played a key role in amplifying Duc’s message and ensuring that his death wasn’t in vain.

Where are the national media voices and advocates for U.S. Navy CPO Charles Ingram and the countless other martyrs victimized by the VA?

If a loyal veteran burns himself to the ground in a forest of government bureaucrats, will anybody hear him?

NOTE: God bless you Michelle for keeping these sort of tragedies front and center.

Originally posted 2016-04-07 11:26:28.

The Hero of Del Rio, TX

A Marine friend from Texas sent me the following link. As I began watching  I could not help but be moved with compassion, sorrow, empathy, and even a desire to find some way to help. However, the longer I watched and the more I learned, my feelings turned to rancor, disgust, and outright rage. All that came to mind was the millions of Americans — and non-Americans — drawing welfare checks, food stamps, housing subsidies, health care, ad infinitum. Yes, I know there are many valid recipients who need help — here is a perfect example — but I am certain there are as many, if not more,  near-do-wells, do-nothings, parasites who were born and raised by generations of takers who have proudly become a member of the new slavery created by our own  government. What an example Chito sets for all of us but especially society’s new slave. How gratifying it is to find that we still have Americans like Chito. God bless him. Comments welcome.

Originally posted 2016-04-05 10:57:27.

The Castration of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff-1 (1)Another great article from Ray Starmann of the U.S. Defense Watch. Sadly, for those of you “out of the know,” everything he states is true. We have become a nation of followers, no moral leaders to be found. If our arch enemies only knew. God help us if we get into a real “shoot-em-up” before we get someone to right the course of this once great nation. This photo of puppets makes me want to throw up!

 

Will the Joint Chiefs ever make a stand against the Obama Administration?

Will the Joint Chiefs ever stand up against the insane social engineering policies which are eviscerating the military like a late night Ginsu chef?

Last September, General Martin Dempsey retired as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and escaped in a rowboat down the Potomac as the Pentagon began to sink into the cold depths of the wide, grey river.

Dempsey’s reign of cowardice and political correctness was a genuine disaster for the US military. Under Dempsey and his sidekick, Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed, transgenders were authorized to serve in the military and we departed Iraq leaving a power vacuum and the keys to a Pandora’s Box.

Under Dempsey, crippling rules of engagement in Afghanistan continued, which make our soldiers and Marines pop up targets of opportunity. Under Dempsey, military personnel were subjected to hours and hours of sensitivity training, doing physical training wearing pregnancy simulators, lactation and breastfeeding memos distributed to combat commands, a war in the ranks against Christianity, a purge of hundreds of general officers and admirals and my personal favorite…the ordering of US Army ROTC male cadets to parade around college campuses in red high heels, in order to feel sympathy for rape victims.

Under Dempsey, the US began Operation Inherent Resolve, the Five O’Clock Charlie air campaign against ISIS that is the laughing stock of the Middle East.

Under Dempsey, the graduation of three women at Ranger School took place, including a 37 year old woman, in what is still a giant cover up. So much obfuscation and Kool Aid drinking is taking place at Benning, it should be renamed Fort Cognitive Dissonance.

Did Dempsey really believe in all of these lunatic radical cultural Marxist policies? Probably not; I’m sure when Dempsey was a Major in the 3rd Armored Division in Desert Storm he probably never thought, “Well, one day I will command men who will wear red high heels in uniform.” “One day, my boys will run PT in pregnancy simulators in order to feel what it’s like to be pregnant.” One day, when I’m Chairman of the JCS, my soldiers will take classes that will instruct them how the Bible and the Declaration of Independence are sexist documents.”

Most military people are conservative and live to defend the tradition of their service branch, their division, their regiment, their MOS. What did Dempsey believe in? What did Dempsey defend? Dempsey believed in the greater good of Dempsey. Dempsey defended Dempsey’s retirement benefits.

While Dempsey was Chairman of the JCS there was not one iota of criticism from him or Odierno or the other Joint Chiefs against any of the looney directives being issued from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

With Dempsey gone, it was hoped that the new Chairman, General Fighting Joe Dunford, a Marine would take the helm and put a stop to the radical left wing policy initiatives that are killing the US military. If anyone could save the US military it was a Marine. Right?

Wrong…

Sadly, we haven’t seen much fighting from General Joe. He appears to be as lost in the Pentagon as Dempsey, wandering the halls in a surreal fugue state like a late night ghost on the Queen Mary.

I saw him on TV today. He looked like a Marine who had been just been taken off the line after two months of continual combat on Guadalcanal.

Yeah, Ole General Joe had the 1,000 Yard Stare. You know he isn’t a happy camper in Ash Carter’s Pentagon right now.

Under General Joe’s reign as Chairman of the JCS, he’s said nothing as Ash Carter authorized women to serve in the combat arms branches of the military and in special operations units.

In your wildest dreams, do you really believe Joe Dunford thinks women can make it through US Navy SEALs training?

General Joe said nothing as Ray Mabus ordered the military to rewrite its manuals and acronym dictionaries with gender neutral terms.

General Joe has done nothing as Marines have been ordered to undergo unconscious bias training, the Corps wide brainwashing that will attempt to convince Marines that a 5 foot two inch, 95 pound woman can go up against a 6 foot two inch, 200 pound Jihadi in hand to hand combat and live to fight another day.

Uh huh…

General Joe said nothing as the US Navy surrendered two of its heavily armed Riverine craft to Iranian thugs in bass boats.

General Joe said nothing as the commanding officer, Lieutenant David Nartker, violated Articles II and V of the US Military Code of Conduct, while a prisoner of the Iranians.

General Joe has done nothing as the US continues its feckless air campaign against ISIS. While Dunford and the other Joint Chiefs surely know that two bombs a day, doesn’t keep ISIS away, they’ve said nothing.

In lockstep with Ash Carter and Obama, the Joint Chiefs support women signing up and being subjected to a military draft. It’s hard to believe that General Mark Milley, a former Special Forces officer really believes this is a great idea. Milley believes becoming the Chairman of the JCS or the NATO Commander is a great idea though.

Silence is golden in the Pentagon.

Readers might well ask, well, what can these men do? They’re in the military. They take orders.

They can advise the President and Ash Carter and Ray Mabus and Eric Fanny that their policies are lunatic. They can resign en masse.

Imagine a press conference where the Chairman of the JCS and the Joint Chiefs all resign over their problems with current military policies.

That would probably end their careers. So what? What else is there for a four star general to do; Command of the Pentagon Library? These guys are so bogged down in fear of the outside that the thought of not following procedures and orders is anathema to them.

Newsflash boys; this isn’t Nazi Germany. The “I’m only following orders” excuse went out the window at Nuremberg in 1946.

The moral cowards of the JCS are endangering the country they have sworn to defend and the troops they claim to love.

Frankly, my best advice to a future President Trump or Cruz is to fire Dunford and the JCS and to keep firing feather merchants and perfumed princes until this country can once again have some senior leaders with backbone.

Until then, turn up the volume on your TV. The Benny Hill theme is playing at the Pentagon.

Originally posted 2016-04-04 11:58:29.