Peace (eight silly characters)
Played Taps at 3:00 outside on my front porch this afternoon.
(3:00 is the national moment of remembrance.)
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good lad
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I find it meaningful.
Taps has power. I start to play and, no matter what people are doing, they stop and listen.
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It took me 4 years of testimony during the 1990s to the House, Senate, White House, DOD, DVA, and documentaries about my work by 60 Minutes and BBC (and huge loans) to defend 100,000 Gulf War veterans (and their families) and establish the reality and significant causes of both their diseases and PTSD willfully induced. DOD and DVA spent over $100 million to prove me wrong. They failed, eventually admitting their role and funding veterans health care for diseases that they had testified again and again falsely under oath that they did not existâŚthat the veterans and families were making it up. Finally in 2008, DOD and DVA agreed with my testimonies a decade earlier.
In 1997, I publishedâŚ
âMemorial Day: A time for nation to reflect.
Today is Memorial Day, a solemn day of reflection since 1866 and the end of the Civil War. We honor these men and women who sacrificed their lives, the ultimate sacrifice, in all American wars.
Our collective memorial is symbolized by a silent ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers in the National Cemetery on the southern bank of the Potomac River opposite Washington. Everyone who attends â and everyone should at least once in their lives â will be humbled and inspired.
Also, we honor our fallen patriots in every town and city in the United States.
We will display our most treasured and unifying symbol â the U. S. flag. It waves and snaps our bold red, white, and blue arrangement of 50 stars representing our 50 states and 13 stripes representing our 13 original colonies.
We will organize parades to tie our community together. We will assemble our trans-generation families, from toddlers to grandparents for a holiday dinner.
As we should. We owe our freedom to our fallen patriots.
And we owe them for their most unambiguous message â that their lives mattered, and by subtle-but-stirring implication so do our own lives. These Americans deserve every ounce of respect we can muster.
We are proud of our country â what it was, what it is, and what it will be.
The United States, its glorious land, and ideals, is the stage for the American Dream. We have the worldâs stage for equality and equal employment for all.
As an evolving experiment of human intellect and pursuit, the United States is the most successful social experiment on earth.
Letâs keep it that way.â
Sadly, its seems too many of us forget.
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Is this a relevant 1997 document to the Gulf War case you mention? House Report 105-388 - GULF WAR VETERANSâ ILLNESSES: VA, DOD CONTINUE TO RESIST STRONG EVIDENCE LINKING TOXIC CAUSES TO CHRONIC HEALTH EFFECTS (govinfo.gov)
Do you know, what changes have there been since then, not just in the VA regarding diagnoses for troops returning from later actions (e.g., Afghanistan), but also earlier when troops are deployed to reduce risk?
PS: This 2019 article also seems relevant on PTSD in general: Postâtraumatic stress disorder: a stateâofâtheâart review of evidence and challenges - PMC (nih.gov)
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The infamous Agent Orange was recognized for damaging humans long ago, though not before thousands of troops suffered. (although my draft lottery number was 8, I was rejectedâŚnot believing me, I had to appear for my âphysicalâ with several broken bones, hundreds of stitches, crutches, and diagnosis of 30% lifelong disability and never being able to walk again without crutches (fortunately, the diagnosis was not entirely correct; I donât use crutches but I have to take great care))
Recently, Paul Stewartâs years of advocacy paid off regarding burn pits. Finally recognized was that toxins long known to harm humans and all other life also harm soldiers.
Until my testimonies, PTSD was considered a fake disease of fakers looking for handouts, âpsychosomatic freeloadersâ they were called. Nonsense it was.
Notably, my studies pivotal to convincing DOD/DVA were published in 1978!!! and replicated often prior to the Gulf War by my co-authors when they went to work at DOD chemical warfare labs, which DOD lied under oath about April 1997, testifying to Congress that DOD had no such labsâŚin total contradiction to a briefcase full of published studies I had at that hearing. I sat immediately behind the DOD witness, who was passed a note by the CIA saying that I was sitting behind himâŚclassified document I suppose, but I was able to read it. If iPhones existed then, I would have taken a picture. Bernie Saunders brought a line of lawyers and told the DOD witness that there would be a subsequent expert who would likely disagree with their likely answer. I did. But DOD was not prosecuted for perjury.
Health care is a dangerous saga.
But I felt it my duty to speak out. Later asked if I was vindicated, I said noâŚthe veterans were. They needed to be believed. I also worked with Senator Rockefeller for his 1994 report that soldiers were used as guinea pigs many times since at least the Civil War. I conclude that this will never change. During a break, I witnessed the DOD and CIA reps in heated argument in the hallway outside the hearing room; both blaming the other for the debacle of Gulf War illnesses.
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one of many, including several DOD/DVA monographs
btw, all the lies of and harm caused by DOD/DVA is taxpayer funded
I went into significant debt and feverishly worked around the clock for nearly 4 years to fight over $100 million of taxpayer funds spent to prove me wrong. DOD/DVAâs strategy backfired. They were proven to be wrong and illicit.
My battle began in 1994 when watching a CSPAN broadcast of a Senate hearing wherein DOD/DVA/FDA stood, raising their right hand to tell the truth, testifying that the drug they forced onto 700,000 soldiers had no known toxicity. FALSE. I went for a 24-hour walk horrified by such a lie, I was so naive at the time. I wrote Senator Rockefeller June 1994âŚand the rest is history, including that this illicit experiment, as I published in 1997 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, violated the Declaration of Helsinki, Nuremberg Code, and federal law. Contrary to DOD promises to secure informed consent from soldiers, none were administered. FBI executed a criminal search warrant at Macdill Air Force Base for records the day of my last congressional testimony; none were produced. Representative and others applauded my efforts during official hearing and in letter form.
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Please forgive my soapbox. I am very passionate about lying and harm no one has the right to cause. And I support veterans in the best way I can regardless of personal sacrifice.
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I have no Idea, but who started most of those conflicts?
itâs always complicated
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