• teft@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    I feel you with my August 27, 2001 enlistment date. Thought I was getting easy college money instead I got a lifetime of mental problems from a war we shouldn’t have been in.

      • cobysev@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As someone who served for 20 years, I’ll tell you that almost no one in my last unit was voting red. Republican politicians use “support our troops” to win votes, but they don’t give a shit about us. Behind the scenes, they’ve been pushing policies to take away our programs and benefits. Democrats are the sole reason we still have any benefits left.

        I mentioned in another thread, when the govt shutdown happens, service members don’t get paid until the shutdown ends. But they’re still required to go to work and act like nothing’s happening. And who keeps forcing govt shutdowns as leverage to get their way? Republicans.

        As a currently 100% disabled veteran who relies on my VA benefits to survive, I’ll never vote red again.

        EDIT: My uncle retired from the US Air Force in the early '90s and they gave him free medical and dental for life as one of his retiree benefits. He applied for VA disability and barely qualified for 10%, which he doesn’t even use.

        I retired last summer (July 2022) and I needed to qualify for 100% disability to get the same deal (which is very hard to acquire). Otherwise, they’d only cover whatever long-term ailments I could prove happened during my service and I’d need to pay medical insurance to cover any other medical issues. This was one of the main benefits that encouraged me to join, and Republicans have screwed most people out of it over the past few decades.

      • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Whoa, whoa, whoa. Those Jerb Creaturs need those tax cuts to make jerbs. And we’re not talking about the real victims here: the shareholders. We got a Feedouchery Reesposibiluhtee to maximize them profits.

    • psmgx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I feels you. Didn’t get in until 2003, but that was in time to take part in Op Phantom Fury, and then do a 2nd tour when Anbar was getting ugly.

      Awful lot of misery for a bunch of bullshit. Alls I have to show for it is knee and back problems, and occasional panic attacks if/when stuff looks like tracers; a nephew damn near gave me a heart attack playing with some broken fairy lights one time. Still not comfortable with fireworks or FPS shooters.