Fathers Day

How’s this for real? Fathers Day about 10am I went up to Mega-Mart for shotgun shells. When I passed the card section there was a waiting line to get to the Father’s Day cards. No joke, this is truth. I thought gee how sincere, I almost got teary eyed.

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China

A while back Leo came to me and his neck was all red. He pointed out to me that his VVA hat was made in China, and our Chapter jackets are made in Vietnam. So he said to me.” Look dumbass, I would pay extra for a hat and jacket made in the USA. So would most if not all of the members, so get on the ball and find what we want, or there could be trouble!” So I set out on a hunt for an American made hat and guess what? I don’t think that it exists. I’ve found all kind o0f hat companies located in the US but there production is all in China or some other monsoon ridden country. I haven’t even started looking for jackets yet. When it comes to the jackets I say go find your own, get the one you like and get it fixed, nobody said that they all had to be the same.

Another example Congress just passed a law stating that by 2014 all light bulbs must be CFC bulbs, you know those curly fluorescent

things. Well guess what? There is not a single company in the US that makes this bulb. Guess where all of these bulbs are made, that’s right China. Even the Army and there spiffy berets are made in China.

So you want to start a grass roots movement here it is let’s start a made in America movement, thank God we still have farmers.  

Parts of this report were fictionalized for entertainment purposes, but it is based on a true incident.

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Incidentally Speaking

Editorially Speaking

I for the most part don’t sleep at night, so for the most part I have stopped trying. Actually I rather enjoy the night, late night. Some people say it is because I was in Vietnam and I probably have some kind of PMSD or some other mal-function. I think it is just because I was a bartender for so long and in the back of my mind I know that all the cool stuff happens after midnight.

Sunday night it was hot and raining so I went out on the front porch to contemplate life after Vietnam. The rain was coming down heavy, my porch is surrounded by bamboo and it was like a lot of hot wet nights in Vietnam. Except I was smoking a cigar and drinking a margarita and my bulldog Lulu was laying beside me. But, other than that it was just like Vietnam, well almost except for the girls who live across the street were on their porch doing shots of vodka and making grey goose sounds after each shot. And the kids who live on the corner were shooting off bottle rockets and the constant convoy of pizza delivery cars, but other than this it was just like Vietnam.

So anyhow, I was thinking about Vietnam so long ago. I was to speak the next day at Kaplan College in Hagerstown and I wanted to get my thoughts straight. I went to Vietnam in 1968 now if I have done the math right that was 40 years ago; which means I was 20 when I went across the pond. So I got my thoughts together and went in to face the American History of the 20^th Century Class.

What made this class different is that this was a class of non-traditional students. That’s college speak for adults, grown-ups. I spoke for about an hour or so. I told them some war stories, told them some jokes and spoke of my experiences. What caught me off guard was that most of them weren’t that interested about the Vietnam War. What they wanted to know about was the way we were treated when we came home.

I have spoken to several classrooms and students of all ages but this is the first time that a class wanted to know about us and how we are doing now. I explained to them why there is a VVA and what brought it about. I reminded them of the returning Desert Storm veterans and how they were received as heroes and the parade in Washington. I told them that was because of us the Vietnam Vets that we would never allow returning veterans to be treated as we were. Groups of ordinary people now go to airports to welcome home returning units even when they don’t have anybody in those units; and that’s because of us, the Vietnam vets.

However, I also told them that as much as the attitude of the citizenry has changed, the attitude of many of our elected officials has remained the same. The VA continues to be underfunded. I pointed out the recent debacle at Walter Reed and the shambles that some of the barracks are in for the returning troops. Traumatic brain injuries and PTSD will be the legacy of this generation of veterans. The Montgomery GI Bill is a joke and Congress can’t seem to pass a new GI Bill. Even John McCain voted against a new bill saying that he felt that it would cause too many qualified people to leave the services. Maybe he is right, but they didn’t worry about it after WWII and it didn’t affect manpower in Korea just a few years later.

When I was done speaking the class instructor shook my hand and thanked me. She told me “I have never spoken to a veteran before.”

Steve Parsons

June 2008

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Newton Minnow

May 9, 1961

Most of you will not recognize this name, since most of us were very young at the time. Newton Minnow was the Chair of the Federal Communication Committee (FCC). In his address to the National Broadcasters he spoke to them of their responsibility to the American public in concern to television and the shows that they present and the quality of such. He said that “Television is a vast wasteland.”

If he could see what’s on nowadays it would put tears in his eyes. Look at some of the crap that the networks are pitching to us.

Shows like the “Girls Next Door” a silicone based reality show about a bunch of “Ho’s” that apparently have no purpose in life. Then there’s “The Bachelor” where one guy gets 20 young women to act like sluts for him. Then there’s “The Bachelorette” where one woman gets to slut around for 20 guys. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse we now have a show called “Hurl” which is about making people vomit. My opinion, there’s more than one show on television that can achieve that goal, but maybe I’m being critical but, I don’t think I want my MTV.

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National Leadership Conference

By the time most of you receive this edition of "The Point" the officers of the Chapter will be in Greenville, S.C. attending the NLC. Consequently there will be no BOD meeting July 16.