Pat Dollard

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Previous “Deep Thoughts”

3:00 A.M.

12:56 P.M.

Good News: Out with several Marine friends I hadn’t seen in awhile last night, and got my first 8 hours sleep in about three months.

Bad News: Just woke up.

1:23 P.M.

You know what’s ed up? What’s ed up is how many people think that an Iraq vet is almost assuredly crazy, damaged goods. Too many vets have to deal with this attitude in situations of both little and great consequence, emotionally, legally, socially, and in terms of employment.

The video below…Bring the Boys Back Home…this time we are, and are doing it in victory, instead of having followed the Dems and gotten it wrong, and had to go back later and do it again.

But when they are back, treating them appropriately is more than a mouthed thank-you and a lifted beer, should you find yourself actually involved with a vet in any significant way. Family, friend, employer, spouse, co-worker, teacher, whatever. And it’s not about kissing their ass either. It’s just about the minutes of listening. A vet may not be “damaged goods”, but they often have struggles readapting to a peaceful but more complicated world. And probably more often with regard to the vets who have seen and endured the worst of it, they are not readapting but actually adapting to it for the first time, because the adult civilian world is a world they have yet to understand, let alone conquer, because the grunts are so very young. Many have children they’ve never seen, or only seen for a few months over the course of a couple years. It’s a good thing to hear what is on a vets mind, if one’s in your life. They are unique. And neither you or them are perfect, I don’t think. Which is one reason they say patience is a virtue, I suppose.

And what a lot of you don’t understand is that the life in the worst of it out there, for the grunts patrolling hell from small forward bases and op’s, was the life of being a hunted prey, 24/7. Yes, 24/7. Just ask them.

They may not want to tell you many things, and that should be respected, but you can also remind them that you are tough too, and can take a lot of what they may have to say.