» Veterans

To the guy (or gal) from Stuttgart, Germany using an army.mil address, thank you for visiting - and thank you for your service!

Stay safe, and keep the faith.

Since I’ve added the pictures from Rolling Thunder 2005 and 2006, I thought I might as well include the video we took in 2007. It’s short (the memory card was small), about 4 minutes covering the head of the rally as it reached the National Archives building on the Mall.

The video was made with a digital camera, not a “video camera” by any means - but the sound gives you a pretty good idea of where Rolling Thunder gets its name - It goes on for 4 hours!

Hopefully, this year we’ll get many more pictures. It’s just hard to remember to take any in the middle of everything.

While I was moving files over to new servers, I discovered a folder of *old* images from my old author site. I’ve put them up on my Picasa site, but here are some of them in all their glory.

These images were taken at Rolling Thunder in 2006.

While I was moving files over to new servers, I discovered a folder of *old* images from my old author site. I’ve put them up on my Picasa site, but here are some of them in all their glory.

These images were taken at Rolling Thunder in 2005.

Losing both of your legs and one arm while serving in a war zone: £214,000
Spraining your thumb typing as a civilian Ministry of Defence (MoD) employee: £484,000

Value of veterans in the eyes of some: Worthless.

That’s the only conclusion I can draw in light of the recent atrocious decision by the MoD to grant such a small amount of compensation - less than the maximum possible amount of £285,000 to boot - to Royal Marine Mark Ormrod, for injuries he suffered in Afghanistan in 2007.

People “back home” are seriously fucked up when it comes to veterans.

Recently, a group of disabled veterans from the only real rehabilitation center in the UK were at a local public swimming pool. One lane was roped off for them to use.

A few of the locals objected to their presence. They were told they didn’t belong there, they were scaring the children. Some people went so far as to object to the veterans getting to “use” the pool “for free” whilst they (the objectors) had to pay a couple of pounds to use it.