Eight Feet Deep

A study by U.S. Army psychiatrists has found that 20 percent of active duty soldiers in Iraq and 42 percent of National Guard and reserves who served there are suffering from mental health problems. The report confirms earlier studies that soldiers in droves were coming home from Iraq with PTSD and other mental problems.

This is troubling especially in light of a investigation CBS News that a suicide “epidemic” was taking place among veterans, especially those returning from Iraq.

Not surprising, the Department of Veterans Affairs told CBS that “ongoing” work is being done on a study of veterans who kill themselves. The VA didn’t have that kind of data, according to a top VA official. CBS reporters had to get their numbers from the 50 individual states.

Maybe the VA will one day conclude their so-called ongoing study then perhaps they might make a dent in preventing vet suicides. But if you are waiting for the VA to save the life of a loved one, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Today I listened for a short while on my truck radio to shows of both Rush Limberger and Glen Beck. As always, I couldn’t listen for very long because my boiling blood might set off a spontaneous combustion inside me and that wouldn’t be very pleasant. Nor would it be very spontaneous, come to think about it.

What common theme that was heard coming from the hot air of this pair was not the expected Hillary-bashing although I am sure Hillary’s name was used in some point in the show. The Right-Wing Talk Radio Federation would promptly oust these two if they didn’t invoke the name of a Clinton at least one time in their shows. No, the commonality I heard today came in the form of “taxes,” you heard me right “taxes.”

Lowering taxes, or perhaps even eliminating taxes, is a long-time obsession with Republicans. If you listen to any State of the Union address by a Republican president the loudest cheers and applause comes from Republican congressional members when the nation’s CEO says those magical words “lower taxes.”

Now I have to admit, I don’t like taxes either. However, I don’t spend my time getting all worked up about higher taxes. Even someone like me who makes a relatively shallow income still has to pay them. But the government of the people and supposedly for the people says we have to pay up or go straight to jail, do not pass Go … It’s Uncle Sammy’s version of Monopoly. So we pay taxes.

Things may be changing though. An article called “Republicans Who Love Taxes,” by economist Stephen Moore of the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute — not to be confused with Kato played by Bruce Lee in the “Green Hornet” — points to a trend of Republican governors raising taxes in what Moore portrays as almost a contagious fashion. Moore writes in the piece, probably written in 2003,:

“An analysis by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) notes that with nearly $100 billion in state deficit spending gaps to close this year (New York and California make up about half that shortfall), governors may end up raising taxes by half that amount, making 2003 the biggest tax-hike year ever for the states. And yes, many of the calls for the biggest tax increases are coming from Republicans. In Idaho, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is seeking a 1.5 cent per dollar hike in the sales tax. In Arkansas, Mike Huckabee is lobbying for a sales tax hike and assorted other fee increases, as are Kenny Guinn of Nevada and Bob Taft of Ohio. One of the most cockeyed tax schemes has been advanced by John Rowland of Connecticut, who has called for a Clintonesque “millionaire income tax surcharge.”

Now whether these people who must be heathens to many in the GOP — perhaps that’s one reason Huckabee hasn’t exactly been on fire in the 2008 Republican presidential nomination race — actually got the taxes they pushed I don’t know. And I don’t care.

And that’s the point.

Addendum-de-dum-dum: I had forgot my U.S. history from college almost 25 years ago. And it must have been a subconscious nudge that made me check out from the library earlier this week “William Howard Taft: The President Who Became Chief Justice,” and was written in 1970 by Bill Severn. I totally forgot that the big guy, Taft, pushed for the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment states:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Is that irony or am I just whistling “Dixie?”

On a recent night I developed this thought: I wondered what had become of the physician who helped bring me into this world in 1955. I don’t recall if I ever queried my parents on whatever happened to, well we will call her, Dr. Doctor. My parents have been dead for almost 25 years, so I couldn’t call to ask them. I don’t know if any of my four brothers knew what happened to Dr. Doctor. So having the Internets at the tip of my fingers, I decided to do a search.

I found on a genealogical site an article about Dr. Doctor. It seems that just a mere 13 days after I was born, she moved from our area to what I believe was her hometown in Northeast Texas. With her leaving so soon on the heels of my birth I found myself wondering if she knew something I didn’t know?

Then I decided to take a real long shot and do a search on the physician database of the Texas Medical Board to see if Dr. Doctor was still practicing or was even alive.

If she is alive today Dr. Doctor would be 75 years old. I did find that she had been practicing up to 1995 but did not renew her license. I then found that a year or so before she had ceased practicing she had been given a reprimand by the medical board due to “allegations of practicing ‘corporated’ practice of medicine.” I didn’t really understand that term so I e-mailed someone at the medical board to see if they could tell me what it meant. I haven’t heard from anyone there to this very day.

Finally, I did some searching and found that the “corporated” practice of medicine is known by most everyone else “corporate” practice. I then found that the corporate practice of medicine is prohibited in Texas, at least it was apparently prohibited more than 10 years ago when my birth doctor got her hand slapped. I found this citation on the subject:

See: Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 4495b, §§3.07(f), 3.08(12), and 3.08(15) (Vernon Supp. 1996), providing that it is unlawful for a physician to allow another to use his license or to aid or abet the practice of medicine by any unlicensed person.

Well, I don’t have enough of my precious spare time to look into these citations to find out if corporate practice is still outlawed and I doubt if I would understand them if I found them I guess I’ll just ask my doctor next week when I go in for my monthly meds at the VA. I don’t know if he will be able to answer my questions because he was educated in India, but it’s worth a shot.

	Num	Perc.	Country Name
	48	64.00%	United States
	6	8.00%	United Kingdom
	4	5.33%	France
	3	4.00%	Norway
	3	4.00%	Unknown	–
	2	2.67%	South Africa
	1	1.33%	Saudi Arabia
	1	1.33%	Bahamas
	1	1.33%	Turkey
	1	1.33%	Mauritius
	1	1.33%	Sweden
	1	1.33%	Switzerland
	1	1.33%	Canada
	1	1.33%	Netherlands
	1	1.33%	Belgium

As I have mentioned before, most of the visitors to this place either wander in or want to read it for whatever reason. So the information gathered from StatCounter about from where my visitors originate is not a cause for ego inflation as much it is for my own pure amazement. And, the geek that I have always been, I always thought flags of different nations were cool. This is from where my last 100 visitors came while they were sitting in their dark, dank rooms half-to-pukin
g-on-their-shoes drunk and wondering why the site they Googled for some kind of porn turned out to be my blog. It beats the hell out of me, but I sure like the variety of flags.

Bloggers note: This is a letter I intend to send to the below members of Congress. A few details have been omitted for publication due to my concerns over a confidentiality agreement I signed with a former employer. The omissions do not in any way change the message of my letter.

November 10, 2007

Honorable Mary Landrieu
724 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510

Honorable David Vitter
516 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20510

Honorable Dr. Charles W. Boustany, Jr.
1117 Longworth House Office Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Senators Landrieu and Vitter, and Rep. Boustany:

I am not a resident of Louisiana but I did grow up in Texas, about 10 miles as the crow flies from your border. I am writing on behalf of a late and great citizen of your state and who worked, in Rep. Dr. Boustany’s district in Lafayette. I am writing this on the eve of November 11, the actual Veterans Day, as opposed to the federal holiday on Monday. The person whom I am writing about is the late Hugh Thompson Jr., who was the hero of My Lai, the despicable massacre of Vietnamese villagers in 1968.

No doubt you are all aware of this humble, kind and heroic American. If you are not, then I don’t believe you need to be in Congress even though your constituents have the say about that. So, I am writing from the assumption that you are familiar with Chief Warrant Officer Thompson, who intervened during that terrible day in the history of the U.S.Armed Forces and the Vietnam war.

A helicopter pilot, CWO Thompson landed and faced down Lt. William Calley, the platoon leader who was convicted of leading a mass murder of Vietnamese civilians in the village known as My Lai (Calley’s sentence was later overturned). Afterwards, Hugh managed to evacuate Vietnamese who had been wounded during this sickening killing frenzy. If you are familiar with Hugh’s story, then you no doubt know about the saga that ensued years later when those who thought CWO Thompson should have been properly cited for his brave and most ethical act. He was justly awarded the Soldier’s Medal exactly 30 years after My Lai after these efforts by supporters.

After being harassed by the military for his whistle-blowing, not to mention members of Congress, Thompson worked for Louisiana’s veterans agency. He also wrote a book about his ordeal and spoke across the nation about this sad piece of American history. It was just prior to and during his visit to the place where I was a reporter who covered veterans issues that I interviewed Hugh and subsequently heard him speak about what happened that day in My Lai and afterwards with Congress and the military. Hugh didn’t seem to be bitter over what happened. Instead, he spoke of his experiences more as a cautionary tale when I interviewed him in February 2005 as a reporter. I later covered his talk at a local community college where two soldiers from the nearby Army post came to hear the “Hero of My Lai.”

A soldier who just returned from Iraq told me afterwards that Hugh’s lessons should be shared with both military and civilian.

Although Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross — a decoration he said the Army gave him to shut him up — it took 30 years for supporters to get the U.S. Government to award him with the Soldier’s Medal.

Writing on the eve of Veterans Day 2007, I think the late Chief Warrant Officer Thompson deserves a higher award, perhaps even the Medal of Honor. I feel that his moral and ethical courage meets at least one prerequisite for the nation’s highest medal. Those requirements seek those who:

” …distinguishes himself or herself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in action against an enemy of the United States … “

While not directly participating in combat, Thompson nonetheless flew into a situation that was believed to be part of an enemy operation. He did so at risk from the enemy who could have lurked anywhere around. He also found himself at odds with an armed and kill-happy group of his fellow soldiers.

The term “hero” is so easily conferred these days that if you even enlist in the military you are a hero. I enlisted at a time which was, technically, before our country’s final plunge into a hostile Vietnam in April of 1975, when the evacuation of Saigon took place. If the criteria for a hero is someone who merely serves in the military during wartime, then I guess that make me a hero by definition. But I certainly am no hero. And I even worked my way through college on the GI Bill as a professional firefighter after my enlistment expired in the Navy. Once I served that stint and graduated from college I still was no hero.

Although you all are congressional members who do not represent me, I ask that you do what is right for a real hero who lived in your congressional district and state which you all represent. Hugh Thompson Jr. should be awarded a higher medal for his courage above and beyond the call of duty in trying to end an illegal slaughter of old men, women and children in the My Lai village many long years ago.

Few people read my blog, on which I will post this letter.. But one never knows who might decide to drop in some day. Perhaps it will be someone from Louisiana.

Thank you for your service in government.

Sincerely,
Dick of eight feet deep