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MILLION VETERANS PROGRAM, MVP

The VA sent out a mailer for joining the Million Veterans Program. The MVP is asking veterans to join 940,000 others to help improve health care for veterans. As a veteran of the Gerald Ford Army, the VA sent the request to my address. That alone shows efficient dexterity in such a huge agency. To […]

VIETNAM VETERANS ON BOOMERPDX

My Vietnam Veterans show up on BoomerPdx not as veterans but as guys I’ve met along the way. Extraordinary guys I’ve been lucky to meet. What’s my plan to meet anyone? Get out of the house and walk around and you can’t go wrong.

OLD AGE SCREAMS, “GIVE ME MY REVERENCE”

Old age in many cultures bring celebrations and reverence. Why? If you rack up enough years and you’re the last one standing, you are an automatic authority on the era you lived through. Pretty easy stuff so far. Too easy? Unless you get old in America. Then it’s a different story. There’s a deflection point […]

One Job For Veterans Administration To Do. One Job

    No matter your view on the military agenda, I know you all agree that aging veterans deserve some VA love for their service.   If you’ve got a DD214 you’re in the program.   Better yet, if you have orders proving you were where you say you were during Vietnam, you’re in the […]

WHERE PORTLAND MEMORIAL DAY REACHES

The guys in the top left set up in front of the wall from their years in the Vietnam War. Marching in the bottom right, guys wear the gear from those same years. “Aren’t they too young to wear the uniform?” one lady asked. “They always are.”

FACEBOOK FRIENDS: A WHO’S WHO

All Facebook friends are not created equal. Vanity Fair loves Facebook. Who doesn’t? Can a billion people a day be wrong? Or maybe they’re cuddling up to Mark Zuckerberg, The Man, The Face, of Facebook. Understandable if they are. He is one of the big biggies of the online world. His is the biggest face […]

SUICIDE WALL BY ALEX PAUL

You know a Vietnam Veteran who knows someone on the wall. They all know someone. It’s a teammate or high school friend who never made the Christmas letter list. The men who adjusted to a post-Vietnam War life have friends who remind them of a missing someone. If you talk to them long enough you’ll discover […]

GET STARTED, KEEP IT GOING

Two of the hardest  words to learn in the English language: Get Started. Most get started after they’re told what to do. “Stand up. Put one foot in front of the other. Repeat. Get started now.” It’s that easy and that hard to get started. With the reported obesity epidemic sweeping the nation’s youth why […]