I come from a military family.

I currently have 2 active duty servicepeople in my immediate circle of relatives, one of whom is trying to get sent to Afghanistan as we speak.

I never went myself…while I have regrets about that, I think I made the right choice.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t value our soldiers as much as the reddest red stater.

So when I read about homeless veterans, it totally kills me.  It wrecks me to think that we ask so much of these folks and then for whatever reason they fall off the wheel.  It is our duty as a nation under God to respect their sacrifices, and we can start by getting them off the street.

I don’t know how people here feel about Secretary Sinseki, but I applaud the attention he’s giving to the plight of the homeless.

But I’m not here only to draw attention to something I think the administration is doing well, because if I was, I’d be in the wrong place.  =)  I’m asking any of you, vets or not, for places I can work to help homeless vets.  I have some time on my hands…Michigan economy and whatnot, and I want to spend it doing some good.  So, please, any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks!

Okay, here’s the deal.

Let’s play a game.  I’ll write something that I sincereley believe President Bush was excellent at, that helped the our nation and the world, and someone else responds with something that they sincereley believe that President Obama has done well.

Snark is expected, if not exactly encouraged, but truly snarky responses should be followed up with something nice.

I guess I’m hoping that we can find some common ground, and spend at least a few posts realizing that we live in what is unquestionably the best nation in the world (and I’m a Danish citizen, so me saying that is HUGE.  Danes are insanley nationalistic.  I was taught to hate Swedes over a war that ended 600 years ago or something.  I do not hate Swedes fwiw.  I overcame my racist upbringing).

I’ll go first:

1) President Bush was an amazing leader after 9/11.  I was scared, angry, confused; Bush got up there and convinced me that he was in charge, and that my government was going to do everything in its power to keep me safe.

2) President Bush was an incredible humanitarian when it came to preventing and treating AIDS.  This means a lot to me, because my Uncle died of AIDS before there was real treatment.  A relic of his misspent youth, but regardless, untreated AIDS is a horrible, horrible, thing.  President Bush showed incredible compassion and vision in promoting his AIDS policies.

Earlier you all may remember the post about the Indian Navy destroying a pirate mother ship. At the news of the ship’s destruction, many people, including myself, expressed happiness at the destruction.

I read this article today, which changed my enthusiasm into disgust and sadness.

Pirate ‘Mother Ship’ or Thai Trawler

The article is short, but the part that upset me was the assertion that the ship was not in fact a mothership, but actually a fishing vessel which was under pirate attack, yet not fully under pirate control. Apparently, there were sixteen sailors on board, one of whom has been found alive, one confirmed dead, and fourteen still missing.

Moe had me rewrite this diary, because, I believe, he found it to be misleading and overly provocative. I’ll apologize for that, because in my effort to be alarmist, I foolishly detracted from my original point.

That point was: I believe that there’s a reason we have to follow legal and military procedure. Yes, sometimes doing things cautiously lets bad guys go. But sometimes being aggressive kills innocent people. I think there’s a reason police don’t storm hostage situations, and there’s a reason we don’t carpet bomb enemy nations.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s the lefty in me, but I think that we, as a society, are better served letting 100 people go free rather than killing one innocent. I hate state violence, because I see how it can be clumsily used. What do you think?