The Day After D-Day: Remembering the Forgotten

This is something I didn't know, part of this post from Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice:

There used to be a prevailing myth that no black men participated in D-Day — by far one of the most important days of World War II.

But a closer look reveals that some African-American soldiers played a key role on Omaha Beach, and their stories still remain largely untold.

"There were no (Congressional) Medals (of Honor) given to any black soldiers for what they did at D-Day," said 90-year-old Joann Snowden Woodson. "People really need to know the truth.”

Woodson has been on a consistent mission to share the truth of D-Day with the world, as well as the service of her late husband, Waverly Bernard Woodson — one of the few black soldiers known to have served on Omaha Beach that fateful day.

Originally from West Philadelphia, Waverly Woodson was a member of the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, an all-black Army unit that specialized in placing barrage balloons in battle areas during World War II. Their goal was to distract and destroy enemy aircraft and provide cover for Allied soldiers on the ground.

Waverly Woodson and his Battalion left England on June 5, 1944. They arrived on the beach in Normandy via transport boat the next day.

"He said he could see the soldiers being picked off just like flies," Joann Woodson reiterated. "Some of them were dead; some of them he had to administer the last rites. And some of them — I think he said he had to do amputations and everything."

Read the whole thing. And read Silverman's complete post as well. It's sobering when we think we've made progress in exercising our humanity.

(My dad served in the Pacific. He never talked about the war.)

Image du Jour: Honoring the Troops

Thanks to commenter Max_1 at Joe.My.God.

And this.

Today's Must-Read: The VA on the Ropes

For some reason I'm particularly sensitive to the plight of the Veterans Administration. Maybe it's because of the number of homeless veterans I see on the streets of Chicago. Best estimate is that there are just shy of 40,000 homeless veterans (as of January, 2016, there were 39,471 homeless veterans in the U.S., down significantly from 2010; last year, that number went up slightly.)

The fact that there are any homeless veterans in this country -- or homeless people at all -- really, really pisses me off.

At any rate, here's an interesting article at RawStory about what the VA is having to deal with. The author, however, makes what I think is one mistaken assumption:

The VA has long been in crisis. Nevertheless, it has pioneered evidence-based medicine and, overall, gets better outcomes at lower costs than many private health care providers.

As someone who has studied government budgets and the organization of government agencies, I believe Admiral Jackson, like his predecessor, will have to address three major problems if the VA is to be effective in meeting the needs of the millions of veterans who depend on it for their care.

This assumes that anyone in this regime (I can't really call it an "administration"), or any Republican in Congress, wants the VA to be effective. The goal here is privatization, because that always works so well -- for the owners of the companies that are getting the contracts. Actually providing the services mandated is not a consideration.

(I may have mentioned that I firmly believe there are some things that should not be subject to the profit motive -- schools, roads and bridges, prisons: add the medical care for veterans to that list.

At any rate, read it. There's some good information there.

Today's Must-Read: For the Cost of a Parade

From RawStory, a nice little list of things Trump and/or the Republicans could do that would actually benefit the troops much more than tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue to feed Trump's ego. They're mostly no-brainers; here are the first two:

1. Homes for homeless veterans.

For the cost of Trump’s military parade, the United States taxpayers could buy a nice tiny home at $10,000 each, for 14,500 of the 150,000 homeless veterans. However, there are even more affordable tiny homes available at $3,000 to 4,000, which means we could easily give homes to 39,189 homeless vets.

2. Feed homeless veterans.

For the cost of Trump’s military parade, he could feed every single homeless veteran in the United States three meals a day for a year. If he wanted to.

I can think of a couple of additions -- like, automatic citizenship for immigrants who serve in the U.S. military -- and don't deport them when their service is done.

But I forgot -- when Republicans scream about "supporting the troops," they mean Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon: the ones raking in billions from defense contracts, not the grunts who actually do the heavy lifting.