Where are the Republicans?

Today I am having a horrible migraine..I can barely see out of my left eye, and have it covered up like I am some damn pirate. Having been to the V.A. Hospital, I see the big campaign signs along I-5 for the upcoming elections. Now, my problem is that I have been a registered republican since I was old enough to vote. Now, after being sent off to war by a Republican Presidential Administration I come home with a bunch of problems which I need help with.

Where are the people from the Republican Party? Not one Republican office holder has contacted me, even on a local state level and I am talking about you Kevin Cameron!
My Local State Representative (Republican) I have not heard a word from you...neither have my fellow veterans!

We have been helped tremendously by Chip Shields and Suzanne VanOrmand, both are Democrats...and neither from my area. I am beginning to think that if you do not have anything to offer the Republican party in the way of being able to help make them money, then you are not a person they care about. What a sad realization this has become for me. I guess G.O.P. stands not for Grand Old party, but more like Gas Oil Petroleum. It seems like the party that freed the slaves in the 1860's wishes to create another class of slaves by stomping on the back of hard working and hard FIGHTING Americans to make more money for themselves.

I do not agree with the Tea Baggers and their philosophy and the only people who will help ordinary folks are the Democrats, so I guess I am going to have to do what my conscious tells me and disavow the Republican Party. Sometimes you just have to recognize a poor investment and cut your losses. I am now an INDEPENDENT that leans Democrat!!

I borrowed the pic from www.mssparky.com
I Love Ms. Sparky, she can write a hell of a blog!!

Overwhelmed? Hug a Pug!!

This blog entry is about one of the people in my life..That's right, I said people, but he is really my Pug, or I am his human... I think he owns me!! His name is Emperor Xuanzong and he is a fawn Chinese Pug. I just call him Frank after the "Frank from Men in Black movies" I received him as a gift for my 40th birthday shortly after I got home from Iraq/Kuwait.

I seemed to be having a hard time adjusting to life, and my wife had read about how the Ancient Chinese nobility would keep Pugs because of their great companionship. I always have had big dogs, but figured if I had to have a small one that a Pug would be Ideal. Boy was I in for a shock.... Frank turned out to be a 1 & 1/2 foot tall Marmaduke. If you have not seen a Marmaduke comic...you are missing out.

From 8 weeks old, he was into everything!! No kitty at my house was safe and even my older dog Dryfuss was at his mercy!! Dryfuss was a good sized Shepard & Lab mix dog with a super temperament. Frank would basically attach himself to Dryfuss's neck and Dryfuss would just drag him around. Frank always seems to know when I have not taken my medication or something is not right with me. He has stood on my chest, pinning me to the bed and barking in my face to alert me if he thought something is or was wrong.

He always knows if I am worried and or depressed and he will bark at me and incessantly lick my face to try to calm me down, I am not sure how he knows, he just knows. The Ancient Chinese knew a winner when they chose the Pug as a companion animal, and Frank is definitely an angel in a fur suit..he has not earned his Halo yet, but he is working on that...Just don't take your eyes off him while you are eating next to him, he may be pudgy, but he is fast!!

So this weekend I turn 45 and my wife will bake Frank a couple of plain vanilla cupcakes with dog treats in them because he celebrates his birthday with me. It is always so much fun to watch him enjoy those cupcakes. I hope to Have many more years with Frank, Lord knows I need someone to keep me out of trouble.

Friends, Who needs them, when you have Battle Buddies!!

Did you ever notice that the word "Friend" is just the word "Fiend" with the letter "R" thrown in for camouflage? Since I have been home, a lot of people I have thought were my "Friends" have turned to be just "Fiends" Even family members, when they call, ask stupid stuff of me like "Are you sick enough that you're dying?"...Yeah, like I got a big pot full of 100 dollar bills that I use as toilet paper, and I am saving the big bills to leave them in my will....NOT!!

Some Upper Command soldiers I worked for for have even told me, when you have time, YOU call me and we can set up some time to visit, like the phone doesn't work both ways. Well, when you are sick and in bed half the time what the heck are you supposed to do, I'm not out partying every night and getting laid every day!! And then you have the fair weather friends, the ones that only treat you fairly only if you do what they want you to do.

The friends I like the best are the ones I served with overseas, the ones that were my Battle Buddies...They are the ones that call me up and ask "Hey you old grumpy bastard...ya still kicking? You know they mean nothing but the best and in their own way are reaching out to hug you. It is a lot for these guys to pick up the phone and it means a lot to me. Of course there is no way in hell I am going to meet a group of these guys at a restaurant for dinner. You ever see a bunch of guys with PTSD try to all sit in the back seat of a booth in a restaurant? That would quickly escalate into a full fledged game of rock, paper, scissors, revolver...

And Speaking of PTSD, Remember, Please don't laugh at me or other veterans when some hammerhead tosses 3 large firecrackers on the street and I immediately drop to the ground for cover and roll behind something. And when you try talking to me, I am breathing and sweating so hard that I can hardly talk, like my sphincter has just jumped up and choked off my windpipe. That shit is not funny!!. When we finally die,we will come back and haunt your asses for the rest of your lives...so if you don't want to be hearing creaking and chains and stuff like that in your attic every night, don't make fun of Veterans. And to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite Clint Eastwood Movies "Gran Torino" from
Walt Kowalski "GET OFF MY LAWN"

It's On..The internet that is!!

Alright...What the hell is wrong with this country. Ok, don't answer that question, I dont have eternity. I am talking about KBR. The government didn't give them their 25 million dollars in bonus bucks because they supposedly did not meet standards. So what do we do next...we reward failure with a multi billion dollar contract?

Who is the dork in Washington DC who signed this contract? he or she needs to be looking for a new job, because they obviously are not qualified to do the one they are at now. Why KBR? With the withdrawl from Iraq only a short time away, it is time to kick KBR's keister to the curb and say good riddance. The Military has always been able to take care of it's own and needs to start doing so again.

It makes me sick to see KBR always blaming the Army for everything it does wrong...kinda like that saying "The Devil Made Me Do It" I read the stories about the truck drivers who get blown to hell and left to rot in nursing homes fighting AIG and KBR for benefits, all the while KBR hires retired generals to give "Expert Opinions" to try to keep them from having to pay out money. This makes me all kinds of sick...How do you bums sleep at night?

Cool that the search engines finally picked up my blog.
Be back later

How did I end up here? Part 2

I now realized that anywhere I had gotten that stuff on me that had a sore or was naturally sensitive, like my eyes mouth and such were burning. Where the stuff was stuck to my skin and uniform, I looked like a damn giant Cheetoh. So I started brushing the stuff off me, because I knew I had to get into the KBR contractor's SUV, and I am sure they wouldn't want that stuff inside.

After I had most of the stuff off of me, I thought I had better go see just what I had gotten myself into. I went over to where the bags I was sitting on were, and noticed that they said "Sodium Dichromate" I was puzzled...why the hell would there be big bags of salt stacked all over, and some strewn about..I know damn good and well it doesn't freeze here. Anyway, some of the Iraqi workers came over to my location and started telling me that they were happy that the Americans had come and that they were a little upset that we let them suffer so long under Saddam after the first war. When I took off my Kevlar to make them feel more at ease, they were shocked to see that my hair was greying.

One Iraqi told me "You're too old to be in the army" I told him the reason my hair was grey, was because my wife made me crazy. They all burst into laughter. I was surprised to learn that most of them spoke English pretty good. One gentleman totally freaked me out when he started talking, he had a perfect British accent. I asked them why their hair was not grey, I asked "Don't you all have 4 wives each?" Again, they started laughing, they told me that 4 wives would eat too much. They were interested in how the U.S. was going to make their country better, I told them when we catch Saddam, he won't be coming back, and that seemed to make them real happy.

Then they wanted to trade money...I am pretty sure I was fleeced real good, but I figured what the heck, I had a good interaction with the Iraqi workers and they were just folks like me.

well, I am getting a migraine, so I will have to continue later..can't look at the screen anymore...ouch

How did I end up here? Part 1

Well, I am wondering how and why I ended up in the situation I am in. All I wanted to do is find a shady spot to try to eat my chicken patty MRE real quick and literally ended up biting off more than I could chew. The wind was blowing a little and it all the sudden blew this dirt and orange crud up into my face, mouth and my left eye. and my chicken patty was all nasty with the same stuff all over it.

Now, anyone who has ever eaten a MRE Chicken Patty, knows what I am talking about....the clear gel that covers the damn thing is like a glue. I am not sure what that stuff is, but it is really slimy, probably because the chicken is pretty dry, maybe it is a lubricant so it doesn't tear your bowels out when you go to crap. Well after I get covered in that stuff...I try to wipe my face and eye out...all the while swearing up a storm. My eye was burning and my mouth was on fire and the damn wind kept blowing that stuff up everywhere.

Now, as an infantryman of quite a few years, I have chewed my share of dirt, but this was no dirt like I had ever tasted. It had this horrendous metallic taste and I wanted to barf real bad. Some of the crap I ended up swallowing and I could still taste it in my mouth. I swished some water around and washed my mouth out, but could still feel the stuff at the back of my throat. I drank some of my water to wash it down, figuring the stomach acid would do it in, NOT...up it came, it burned going down and coming back up. I was stunned...what the hell was this about? I looked up into the sky and asked G-D "Was that really necessary?" anyway, I left the area and stood by this big tank and tried to clean myself up. The Iraqi workers were laughing at me, they were wearing shemaghs and other things to protect themselves from breathing in the sand and debris..I guess they would know better. while I was washing my eye out and rewashing my mouth out, I realized that I had tasted that before while being at the plant on a previous occasion.

While trading MRE components with the British Contingent, there was a hint of the same metallic taste in the air..and I thought that was weird. The British soldiers I was trading with were sleeping outside on cots with mosquito nets covering them and they had dirt with orange colored stuff all over. Now for the folks who were not there, when you think of Iraq and places like that, you think of sand...I would say it is more like talcum powder and sticks like glue to anything moist. Anyway, after my encounter with the orange dirt crap, I was hungry from barfing and looked at my chicken patty, it was dirty and had orange stuff on it, so I washed if off as best as I could with my canteen water and figured that I should not waste it if it could be salvaged. I had a really strange sensation in my stomach, I couldn't tell if it hurt or I was hungry. So I ate it, well some of it managed to stay down, but I threw up again, but not as bad as the first time.

I also realized that were my fingers were cracked from the dry heat, they started to bleed and it stung bad. I cleaned them up with water and took some super glue out of my combat lifesaver kit and glued the cracks shut. My eye still burned and was red, but I just continued on with the mission.

Stay tuned for part 2


WYVAA65MM5FE

Note to the V.A. and to the U.S. Congress

On my website, qarmat-ali-vets.com, I left this post for members of congress and the folks from the V.A. to read if they visit my site.

Honorable Mr. Shinseki, if you read this, I am the soldier from Oregon who worked for Xerox Corporation, I am the one who gave you a MFO coin from our deployment in December 2002 at dinner in Sinai Egypt. During that dinner you told us we would find ourselves in places that we would not want to be...and that you hoped it would be for the better of the country. Well, you were right, we did end up in bad places, and we did what was asked of us like any other generation of soldiers in war. We held up our end of the bargain...why does it seem that our country will not hold up it's end of the bargain? It seems we fought one war, only to come home to fight yet another one with our own government to get basic help. To me you seem like a man among men, and I know you cannot do it all yourself, but please do as much as you can.


To The U.S.Congress

A bird that flies primarily using only it's left wing or right wing, flies only in circles. It is only when both wings are used in unison does the bird fly straight and reach it's intended destination. So too is the fate of a country.
(Author Larry D. Roberta)

Please do what is right by these and all veterans who need help.


Respectfully Submitted,

Lawrence D. Roberta

I even included the photo just in case Mr. Shinseki did read it, my photo might jog his memory...probably not, all G.I.'s look the same, but...one never knows.

I did not leave the note to them because I think I am better than them, or to scold them. I wanted them to know how I feel and I am sure many more veterans feel the same way. Well, now on my stats page, where I can see the traffic that comes to my site, the U.S. Senate and the V.A. have been really checking out my site. Even been visited by the U.S. court system... Hmmmm Interesting. I guess what I am trying to ask myself is, will they listen...or just write me off as insignificant. Or, will someone want to use me and veterans like me to further their own ambitions.

Well, I do not dance with the devil and not expect some 3 degree burns, but if it helps other veterans, I guess a few burn scars are nothing. If you are a veteran...and I do not care from which war...ask yourself if you have done all that you can to help your brother and sister veterans. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars now have been the 2nd longest wars this country has fought...and is poised to quickly become the longest. The V.A. needs to revamp itself and better meet the needs of these new veterans and will need your input.