I am a Vietnam vet who works at a Veterans Hospital. What is really starting to piss me off is the number of vets who are coming in with a righteous sense of entitlement. I think they are confusing benefits with entitlement, and there is a difference.
If you are on active duty and someone is injured worse than you in combat or an accident, you would expect them to be treated before you. What is the difference after active duty?
I was in the emergency room of the VA hospital that I go to last week. Every 15 minutes a man across from me was demanding something. MOVE ME! TURN ME OVER! I HURT! CAN I GET SOME HELP? I'M IN PAIN! I was in pain listening to him bitch!
I take Morphine 3 times a day for pain and Oxycodone for spikes in the pain. I am in constant pain! I also realize I am not the only Vet in the emergency room. I am not the only patient my nurse or doctor is working with.
All the stretchers are filled and the waiting area is crowdwd with Vets waiting to be seen. What makes ME special? Why should all the clinical staff make my needs more important than any other Vet?
Have I forgotten so quickly what it was like to go through all the bullshit of war so fast? To forget that we are all former warriors in the same boat? When I see a WWII vet, I feel, take him before me, that guy paid for MY freedom.
Let me stop before I really turn this into a manifesto. In my neighborhood people say MAN UP. I say VET UP!
Just want to say thanks for your service. My family was there, too:
http://tinyurl.com/64au22b
I wish you peace this Fourth of July.
Posted by: Heartland Frugalista | 06/29/2011 at 06:47 PM