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Joe H. Pickering Jr. of Bangor is a veteran who served during the Berlin Crisis from 1961-1962. He was the director of Community Health and Counseling Services for 30 years.
Veterans Day has passed. On this special day, millions of veterans are greeted all over America with the words “Thank you for your service.” It’s nice, but I get a bit uncomfortable. So many veterans have given much more. My dearest pal and fellow veteran won the bronze star serving in several conflicts all over this world. During the Berlin Crisis, he served in West Berlin with allied troops facing East German troops. They had minutes to notify the U.S. Army before the anticipated attack came. Thankfully there was no attempt to take West Berlin
So, my fellow Americans please don’t just say a quick “thank you.” Honor veterans and all America in far more profound ways. Do your civic duty by monitoring and challenging peacefully the wrongheaded-actions of any Congress and any president.
One of the greatest heroes of World War II, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower told us how. He said prophetically in his last presidential address: Beware of the military industrial complex. His earlier version was even more powerful. It included Congress in the “military-industrial-congressional complex. I wish he had made that particular prophetic address.
I believe too many of the past and present congresses have been “owned” by this complex. For example, the U.S. Defense Department has almost a trillion-dollar annual budget yet it has failed to pass an audit for seven straight years!
Congress is failing their duty to America. It should stop claims of keeping America “safe” while pouring billions into the pockets of the war machine and their supporters. How much money pours into congressional campaigns to keep the war machine safe? Sure, we need a very strong defense, but we don’t need seven years of our largest department unable to pass an audit. Please adopt President Eisenhower’s wisdom.
Constant military overspending for the war machine does not serve or protect we the people. Bombing or supplying bombs to many countries around the world is not in the interests of anyone particularly We the People. It can isolate and create hatred for America.
When our armed forces come home some with post traumatic stress syndrome, little or no treatment is provided. Maine is devastated with a Lewiston massacre. Or worse still, multiple unnecessary deaths via murder or suicides, occurring frequently all over Maine.
And does the media connect the dots between the damage and the need for treatment? I don’t believe so. Instead, Maine and America get more tragedy over treatment. Maine urgently needs more progressive treatment programs.
Congress overall needs to put Americans truly first, not grant themselves much better health care and other fringe benefits. And it can be done less expensively and more effectively. And if they fail to pass a budget then let’s demand that they “pay the price” like other employees, no pay until the budgets pass. America’s budget crisis cannot be solved by giving billionaires permanent tax increases! Endorsing and supporting the “Greed Creed” truly threatens our very existence as a nation.
The soul of America is being lost when our veterans services, health care, Medicare, Medicaid and housing needs and services are drastically cut or underfunded or not funded at all. I believe the worst inhumane example is the federal Institutions for Mental Diseases Exclusion Law. It’s been impacting tens of millions of Americans for 60 years!
It “saves” the federal budget by providing no federal funds to inpatient psychiatric facilities like our state hospitals and others having more than 16 psychiatric beds. All Americans, including Maine taxpayers, foot these multiple-billon-dollar costs, and far too many Mainers pay with their lives.
Mainers should demand that our Maine congressional delegation follow what Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” They should demand that all members of our delegation become a co-sponsor of a federal bill to end this immoral IMD Exclusion Law.
Our bodies are not separate parts. The human body is one system from head to toe integrated, interactive, and interspersed. An anonymous Bangor citizen once said, “I long for the day when the word ‘mental’ is no longer used to describe conditions of the brain.”
