I’m Not a Veteran (But I Tried)

Yeah reverend I always felt for the guys who couldn’t get in for some medical bullshit. Asinine. Give me a motivated dude who’s not 100% in something over some lazy dipshit with 20/20 vision. Thank you regardless.

I think I was about 8-yrs-old when Vietnam War ended. If it had lasted another decade, I don't know what I would do about being drafted into a war that was so unpopular (and for good reason). I also don't think I was put on this earth to fight on the ground. But I might of done a good job helping to design new weapons.

Seems like the poor are forced to do the actual fighting. Nobody in Trump's family is a veteran.

Random you fucking partisan hack please give us a family breakdown of all the veterans in the Obama's and Clinton's you can skip the Bush's we know about them.

^^^ actually I don't know the answer. Am I correct? Seems like the poor do the actual fighting.

Not debating that that's pretty much how it's always been, but if your gonna call out Trump call out the others.

You know something IME, I'm much closer to the center than you give me credit for. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and get it out of your system.

"Not debating that that's pretty much how it's always been, but if your gonna call out Trump call out the others."


yeah, that's fair.

Yeah use the get it out of your system your ego is so fragile you cant take a valid call out.

I don't anyone under any conditions @IME. If it makes you feel better, get it out of your system.

I don't ignore anyone*

@IME: "Yeah use the get it out of your system your ego is so fragile you cant take a valid call out."
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Do you have any reading comprehension @IME? I stated in plain English above that your criticism was "fair."

Dipshit. Those posted at the same time.

Timestamp isn't the same, so not obvious. You wan't to pick a fight for no reason? Go fuck yourself.

Don’t confuse wealth with cowardice or poverty with bravery.

Yes, it’s true that the rich can more easily buy a doctor’s opinion asserting that they suffer from bone spurs. But some rich people go to battle and some poor people are draft dodgers.

Some wealthy Americans who served in battle include:

Robert Mueller

George H. W. Bush

Ronald Reagan

Gerald Ford

Richard Nixon

John F Kennedy

Theodore Roosevelt

Ross Perot

Jack Taylor (Enterprise auto rentals - names after the aircraft carrier on which he served)

Richard Kinder (Kinder Morgan Pipeline Company)

Charles Dolan (Cablevision)

Sumner Redstone (CBS & Viacom)

Frederick Smith (FEDEX)

Yes they are dumbass. 33 then 32 and 32

33 Minutes Ago
You know something IME, I'm much closer to the center than you give me credit for. But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and get it out of your system.
RandomMember
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32 Minutes Ago
"Not debating that that's pretty much how it's always been, but if your gonna call out Trump call out the others."


yeah, that's fair.
ime
When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk. 🏴‍☠️
32 Minutes Ago
Yeah use the get it out of your system your ego is so fragile you cant take a valid call out.

^^^ That's an interesting list. Can we add Pete Buttigieg?

I bet, statistically, that the poor serve on the ground in disproportionate numbers.

McCain came from a fairly wealthy family Roosevelt was quite wealthy, Al Gore also a wealthy families John Paul Dejoria, George Washington came from a wealthy family the practice of the wealthy escaping service started about the last few years of the Vietnam conflict prior to that the armed forces actually served as a unifying force for our society even now the fact that there is a military class is a large contributor to the political division in this country.

Some people grossly exaggerate and overuse the idea of class warfare. It’s become unfashionable to believe in the American dream.

I think that’s a shame. The fact that most poor people do not become rich people does not diminish the reality of the American dream.

I will go to my grave believing in the American dream. I lived it and the dream lit my path every step of the way. I (and most of my well to do friends) were not born rich but achieved our financial success through hard work and wise use of our money. We didn’t spend our money on tattoos, oversized tires for our pickup trucks, beer, drugs or loose women.

Well, OK. maybe some of us spent some money on loose women.

Nobody is perfect.

^^^ but you still fail to acknowledge that the poor and minorities do the bulk of the actual fighting on the ground. Not the stereotype white GI-Joe.

I’ve lived the American Dream I promote it at all times.

The American dream is NOT a birthright. It is an opportunity to be seized through a lifetime of hard work.

Those who have achieved it through decades of unflagging perseverance are usually the keenest to defend the American dream with their lives.

I know plenty of people who risked their lives to reach this country. Most of them arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs and a mountain of determination. Some spent their lives driving taxis, working the cashier at a convenience store or mowing lawns. A few ended up owning a fleet of taxis or a dozen convenience stores.

Their kids win all the spelling bees at school, take the top awards at the science fair and often give the valedictorian’s speech at their graduations.

I refuse to believe these people are smarter than native born Americans. But I do believe these people want success a lot more than many of us.

The man who for years has mowed my lawn in the sweltering Houston heat now owns a yard full of mowers and landscaping equipment. He employs a large team of laborers. I suspect he is undocumented. His kids go to school with my kids and are always stiff competitors for top scholastic honors.

If they slack off or complain that “math is too hard” he laughs and tells me he kicks their butts because he doesn’t want them to be poor, semiliterate and ignorant like their hard working and very stinky daddy.

I am proud to call such people Americans. These are precisely the kind of people who made America great and will keep it great despite the prejudices of those who are too lazy to roll up their sleeves and do what it takes.

@VH, maybe, - maybe - I agree, but there you go again, gettin political when it's not needed.

@RevHB, nice breakfast tip, good for you, but mostly good for them.

Me, I lucked out. They were having the Vietnam lottery when I came of age; my birthday was drawn # 296. This was the year the draft went highest, up around 200 if I remember correctly.

"I suspect he is undocumented. His kids go to school with my kids..."

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Supreme Court rules on DACA tomorrow. Maybe the kids will be deported after all that hard work.

I won the draft lottery
I was 140 and they got to me in March. I got out of the draft by joining the Navy.

RandomMember,

“Supreme Court rules on DACA tomorrow. Maybe the kids will be deported after all that hard work.”

His kids don’t qualify for DACA. They were all born in the USA. I’m unsure of his wife’s status. She might be American. If any of them are deported or if they leave voluntarily, it will be America’s loss and Honduras’s gain.

LOL, I think it's funny that @Reverend has outlined that the American dream is there for hard-working undocumented immigrants the day before the Supreme Court might order them out of the country. This is a perfect example of why getting rid of DACA would be so cruel and useless.

Okay. got it

I grew up in Canada despite remaining an American citizen (My father, a WW2 Navy vet, was transferred by the farm equipment company he worked for to the head office in Ontario when I was three). When I turned 18 I registered for the draft and was placed in Draft Board 100, which was the board for American citizens living abroad. I subsequently received a notice that as long as I continued to live outside the US, I would not be drafted.

So, when it came time to go to college, what did I do? I went to an engineering college in New York! I never even knew my draft lottery number until my senior year. Had I gotten a greeting, I would have been signed into the Navy the same day (Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering was the school's specialty). During the winter of my senior year I was talking to the retired Admiral who was the school's president and I mentioned that I didn't know my draft number. He said, "You don't? Let's fix that!" He pulled out a binder for my class, looked me up and told me that my number was 350.

Although I never served directly, I spent the bulk of my career working on Navy and Coast Guard ships and systems.

Being a little bit older than other contributors here, I know 3 of my high school classmates who’s names are inscribed in the long black wall. Albert sold me his paper route when he was 15 and I was 13. He died in battle.
I went for my physical exam and flunked.(4F) became my draft card designation. It wasn’t bone spurs but it might as well have been.
I’ll never forget a friend who was home on leave helping me and a couple of friends polishing off a couple of cases of beer. It was well into the evening when he started crying, telling us how a Viet Kong fighter dropped out of a tree pointing a rifle at him. My friend had his on full automatic and literally cut the person in half with his gunfire. He then saw that it was a 13 year old girl; the same age as his little sister. He cried every night.
Another friend was a helicopter pilot who was evacuating ground troops who were surrounded & under heavy fire. Mark made 5 trips in and out but on trip #6 an RPG took the tail off. His copter pinwheeled into the ground. Mark lived but he had 38 broken bones. The pain was excruciating and he was totally surrounded. He was trying to reach his sidearm to end the pain when another copter saw his movement and dropped down to save him.
War is Hell. My hat is off to all who have served. My prayers are with those who survived.

Very nice of you Reverend.