Memorial Day - How does the Military treat those who served?

The following story is not a very pleasant Memorial Day Contribution, I admit.
Our local station carried this account about a seriously wounded Iraqi Vet who is being treated like NO citizen of this country should be. There is also a video that shows a deduction of $120 a month on a $800 check for charges of equipment'...canteens, etc..while he was recovering from his wounds???? He is quite disabled and unable to walk.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Gary Pfleider II served his country for six years before he became a member of the new generation of disabled veterans.

Pfleider, a former Oregon National Guard soldier, was shot by a sniper while on patrol in Iraq in September 2007. He has only vague memories of the event, but now must live with a permanent reminder -- a brace he'll have to wear on his leg for the rest of his life.

"I remember grabbing a hold of my leg, and realizing I had blood on my hands," he said. "And from that point on until I got loaded onto the Stryker was just a big blur."

Three days after he was shot, Pfleider received a Purple Heart.

Almost two years later, he received a bill from the military for missing equipment.

The sum of the bill, which includes interest, is $3,175. It itemizes a list of gear the military issued to Pfleider that did not come back with his unit in 2008. The lists includes clothing items, canteens and grenades.

Pfleider, who now walks with a cane, believes the items were lost after he was flown out of the country for medical treatment. He doesn't believe he should be held responsible for the items, but the military disagrees.

The federal government has been deducting money from his disability check each month to cover the billed costs. And Pfleider said the feds withheld his tax return for the same reason. [snip]

I found the questionable policy of the military particularly interesting in light of the fact that Senator John McCain (Arizona)is the (R) ranking member of United States Senate Armed Services Committee. Being a bonifide 'war hero', you'd think he'd find the time to know about such policies being approved of by his committee.

Flashback: See the real McCain military voting record here:

McCAIN HAS NOT DELIVERED ON HIS PROMISES TO VETERANS

McCAIN REPEATEDLY VOTED AGAINST VETERANS’ HEALTH BENEFITS

REPEATEDLY VOTED AGAINST FUNDING FOR THE VETERANS AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT

But then John, the 'maverick', can't be bothered with such mundane tripe about our soldiers because he spends more time campaigning than he does attending to the business of his country and state. It wasn't for nothing that he earned the most votes missed of ANY senator, yes, including Barak Obama. That sad record is here.

But, it's an election year for McCain, and miracles, ABSOLUTE miracles can happen when he's pushed to the conservative edge. Perhaps he will have a campaign trail conversion and start actually caring about those who serve. He's busy bragging these days about getting an amendment passed through his committee to put 6,000 troops on the border.

Now this is particularly curious since the Obama administration is putting the guard on the border to HELP Mexico keep our guns out and NOT to enforce ANY immigration law.

Flashback: Bill O’reilly has given us the proof that MCCain did NOT want the guard on the border. Just a few years ago:

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZ.: I do not favor using troops because they are not trained for it. They don’t have the kind of qualifications necessary. I have strongly favored us using all the technical equipment that our military has including satellites, including aircraft and other technical means.

Dealing with the injustice the military is handing out to our wounded, disabled troops might take time away from John's gambling habit and celebrating with less than honorable people. Can't have that!

John McCain has a long time, well known GAMBLING problem! His support and
$ come from questionable people with questionable ties.

Mafia ties:

[snip] In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of 7 felonies relating to fraud and extortion.

McCain's mafia ties go back further than that ... all the way back to Cindy McCain's mafia connected dad, who launched McCain's career and put him on the nipple of Charles Keating and friends. Cindy's dad took the fall for the mafia over illegal liqour distribution charges and was rewarded with a beer distributorship when he got out of the clink. Cindy's dad also helped the mob do some dirty business in the New Mexico horse racing market back in the day.

McCain Received $100000 From Firm Of Abramoff Notoriety

Feb 12, 2008 ... John McCain has touted his work tackling the excesses of the lobbying industry ... exploring layers of corruption that had allowed Indian tribes to part with tens .... What concerns me more than Abramoff's donations or ...

For McCain and Team, a Host of Ties to Gambling - NYTimes.com

Sep 28, 2008 ... HONING AN IMAGE Senator John McCain, as chairman of the Indian Affairs ...
[snip]Stumping in New Orleans in June, McCain continued to distance himself from the Bush administration, claiming he 'supported every investigation' into the government's role regarding the hurricane.

Why did McCain celebrate his birthday on a Mobster's Yacht?

[snip]The photograph substantiates reports that in late August, 2006, McCain celebrated his 70th birthday aboard a yacht, the Celine Ashley, rented by A-list con man Raffaello Follieri and his then-movie star girlfriend Anne Hathaway.

Follieri, who posed as Vatican chief financial officer in order to win friends and investments, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a Manhattan district court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering.

The War Next Door is here....800 miles from the Mexican Border

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Headline: Record marijuana grow pulled up by the roots in Siskiyou County

full version video: http://www.ktvl.com/video/?videoId=34835560001&play=now

What is truly interesting about this story is that the local CBS TV affiliate, KTVL Channel 10 finally ‘gets it’. They actually did some reporting on these pot farms being run on public lands by organized Mexican Drug Cartels after years of many of us pleading with them to inform the public of this danger. What is frightening, is how real that danger has become.

This marijuana grow stretched 2 miles. For years, our local sheriffs have fought these incursions, only to watch them grow more widespread. Siskiyou county is a conservative, quiet sparsely populated huge land mass. Along peaceful country roads that have been settled by old families, independent, self reliant types, late in the night citizens now hear voices in Spanish conversing as they walk up and down ‘patrolling’.

We knew the cartels were armed, that they contained the worst elements of Mexican organized crime; the Zeta’s, various cartels, MS-13, awol military. What we didn’t know, is now that their enterprise of growing on millions of acres of USA land became so successful , is that now the cartels are at war with each other over ‘territory’ and contraband crops. One group may go in and cultivate the crop, only to have it taken with force by a better armed gang.

We have been warned for years in the counties of No.California and So. Oregon to stay clear of the ‘woods’, to never approach anything that looked like a pot farm.
Now we are being warned of the war between the cartels taking place on our peaceful country lanes. It is easier for the cartels to recruit laborers, with less risk to grow on these ‘protected sanctuaries’ than it is in Mexico. Where shall we go to escape?

Last week these cartels burned 860,000 acres in California. Will we become ‘collateral’ damage to their fires or their bullets? Unlike Mexico, in what has become an every day occurrence , we’ve had no beheadings...yet.

Our Department of Homeland security is spending billions in Mexico to help them fight these cartels there, to keep any of our guns from entering Mexico. But they say they don’t have the money to stop these invading armies from crossing the border and infiltrating our property. This congress refuses to fund a fence, but they’ll fund our people to go to Mexico and tell you this entire problem is the fault of the USA because some of our guns go to Mexico. When their criminal cast-offs are stopped from coming in, our guns will stop going out since the same people are working both sides of the border.

Another headline that just bolsters this situation today:

Mexican drug cartels now recruiting hit men from U.S. military
Examiner/Mike Cutler ^ | Aug. 20, 2009 | Norfolk Crime Examiner Dave Gibson

Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18 who was arrested Monday, is accused of working as a paid hit man, and assassinating a member of the Juarez Cartel who had become an informant for U.S. authorities.

Along with Apodaca, El Paso police have charged Ruben Rodriguez Dorado, 30, and Christopher Andrew Duran, 17 with capital murder.

The informant, Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana, was shot several times at his home on May 15.

Both Dorado and Duran told detectives that Apodaca was the one paid to carry out the execution. Witness accounts along with the police investigation have confirmed this.

Pfc. Apodaca enlisted in the Army in September 2008. He is stationed with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Bliss.

While this is the first known instance of a U.S. soldier working as an assassin for the drug cartels, this may simply be a consequence of the evolving threat posed to this country by the cartels, as well as a result of the criminal gang activity which now exists in the U.S. military.

In April 2009, the FBI released a statement on the growing problem of gangs in the military, and the threat they now pose to U.S. police officers. What follows is an excerpt from that statement:

“Gang members with military training pose a unique threat to law enforcement personnel because of the distinctive military skills that they possess and their willingness to teach these skills to fellow gang members. While the number of gang members trained by the military is unknown, the threat that they pose to law enforcement is potentially significant, particularly if gang members trained in weapons, tactics, and planning pass this instruction on to other gang members.”

The National Gang Assessment Center has identified the following Latino street and prison gangs as having gang members who were trained in the U.S. military:

-18th Street Gang

-Florencia 13

-Latin Kings

-Mexican Mafia (La Eme)

-MS 13

-Norteños

-Sureños

The military does not currently keep data on gang activity within their ranks. However, FBI gang investigator Jennifer Simon said in a recent article: "Gang membership in the U.S. Armed Forces is disproportional to the U.S. population.”

The prevailing estimate among most experts is that out of every 100 people who enter the military, at least two are gang members.

One of the reasons for the increasing number of gang members joining the military, is the fact that the lowering of recruiting standards, mainly by the Army. Of course, this is due to the two wars dragging on in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the Michael D. Palm Center at the University of California, between 2003 and 2006, recruiters allowed 4,230 convicted criminals into the Army.

A note from Mike Cutler, former INS agent, who sent out this article:

"Today, with some 230 American cities being identified as being infested by the extremely violent Mexican drug cartels with additional cities also being infested by other similarly violent gangs, the potential for extreme violence being perpetrated against our citizens and our law enforcement officials is obviously a serious threat and must be dealt with swiftly and decisively by our federal government.

It is now estimated that there are, already, more gang members in our country than sworn police officers.

The discussions about the creation of a massive amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens as we are hearing at the present is nothing short of alarming! I you add the number of alien gang members with the number of United States citizens who have been and continue to be recruited into gangs now, the numbers are truly staggering!

It is a virtual certainty that such an amnesty would provide gang members with even more opportunities to enlist in our military to receive the training that would enable them to do to the United States what Los Zetas is now doing to Mexico.

You might say that the "handwriting is on the wall" and in this case the handwriting is the gang graffiti that is used to mark off territory by gangs seeking to control their turf..

Furthermore, it is unconscionable that this issue, of gang violence, is never addressed by so-called "pro-immigrant" organizations. These folks know damned well that these threats are often used by the various ethnic gangs and that this is not limited to just Latino gangs but is used by every gang from every foreign country and ethnicity.

The outrage is that often lawful immigrants who arrive in our country expecting to live a life free of the violence and threats of violence that terrified them in their home countries quickly find that the same thugs who made their lives miserable back home have managed to come to the United States and continue to prey upon them and their families both in the United States and in their home countries as well.

This is certainly not the "American Dream" but does represent one hell of a nightmare!
It is now estimated that there are, already, more gang members in our country than sworn police officers.

The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!

The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians.

I implore you to get involved!”

___update:

California fires caused by Mexican cartel: officials

This image provided by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department shows an encampment believed to be the origin of the La Brea Fire in Santa Barbara County. Photo: AP

August 19, 2009 - 1:53PM

Sydney Morning Herald

The fires that hit a protected forest area in mountains close to the north-western California city of Santa Barbara could have been started by Mexican drug traffickers, officials say.

"The reality is that we could have an army out there and not be able to cover all of that ground," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told reporters, saying he based his claim on the size of a marijuana farm and equipment found where the fire began.

His statement confirmed claims made over the weekend by officials at Los Padres National Forest.

Some 30,000 marijuana plants, some as high as six feet (1.83 metres), were found in a remote forest area officials say was likely being used as an illegal pot garden by a Mexico-based drug operation.

A special team of US Forest Service, a counternarcotics police unit and investigators from the Santa Barbara County Fire Department uncovered stacks of propane tanks, irrigation tubing, empty fertilizer canisters, a cooking stove and a semi-automatic rifle, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The major Los Padres fire has been burning since August 8, destroying over 88,650 acres (35,875 hectares) but is now 75 per cent under control, Calfire said.

Local counternarcotics units had travelled through the same area several months ago and were surprised by the new find.

So far this year, US Forest Service and Santa Barbara County counternarcotics agents have uprooted a record 225,058 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $US675 million ($816 million) dollars.

In July, agents pulled 113,000 plants at a camp not far from the site where the fire broke out.

Santa Barbara is about 350 kilometres from the US border with Mexico between San Diego and Tijuana, one of the most patrolled points along the nearly 3000-kilometre long divide between the two North American countries.

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