Tag Archives: Republicans

Reality TV is a Mental Illness

Reality TV is a Mental Illness

I read a blog post from The UX of Social Media Blog, and the author wrote, “The suffering of others is also the staple of millions of viewers who tune in from squalid rooms and palaces alike to watch someone besides themselves become the latest humiliated outcast.”


The Reality of Reality TV

After reading the rest of the post, I thought of a letter I received in Vietnam that said, Dear Skip. Then I thought of the millions who have nothing more constructive to do but tune in and watch others suffer and be humiliated. This same ship of fools may also have enjoyed my suffering then, but I’m also sure they would not want to have what I brought home from Vietnam—the beast that lives inside my head.

I have no desire to watch reality TV, and I’m sure America would be a better place if the misguided people that watch this junk had a dose of Vietnam as I did. Maybe then, Americans would be less combative and judgmental on so many levels like this dog fight between the Democrats and Republicans.

Learn more about the reality of Politics as Usual

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

Politics as Usual

Amazing.  Politics as usual.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/ap_on_go_co/us_airliner_attack_demint_1

Here we are fighting a war with an enemy that wants to destroy America and everyone in it, and the Republicans are putting obstacles in the way of America’s safety net that is supposed to protect America against terrorists while blaming the democrats for what happened on that Northwest flight.

Let’s not forget that Americans are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and many come home missing parts or with PTSD.

In Vietnam, I remember congress passing rules of engagement. We weren’t supposed to shoot until we saw who was shooting at us so we wouldn’t hit noncombatants leading to bad press in the media.

Try that in the jungle when you cannot see anyone and someone is shooting at you.

Near the end of my tour, we had a young lieutenant just out of West Point who drummed it into us that we weren’t supposed to shoot unless we saw who was shooting at us.  Then he was pinned down on a patrol and he was shouting at us to lay down covering fire.

Yea, right!

No one fired. Then a voice, “We can’t see who is shooting at you.”

What are we supposed to say to the enemy who wants to kill us? “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! You aren’t playing by the rules.  This isn’t’ fair. You are a cheater. I’m going to tell your mommy what you are doing.”

What does congress and the media think war is, a game of Risk (that board game kids sometimes play)?  Hey guys, we aren’t made of plastic here. We bleed and even if we walk away, we leave damaged.

What do you think? Maybe we should shoot the politicians and the reporters instead.

Learn more from John Kerry, Purple Hearts, PTSD and Weapons of Mass Destruction

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

A Morning Burst of Anger

I woke up this morning and wanted to hit something. In the 1960s and 70s, I would have smashed a hole in the nearest drywall.

This is what set me off: “In the past six weeks, you’ve had the Fort Hood attack, the D.C. Five and now the attempted attack on the plane in Detroit … and they all underscored the clear philosophical difference between the administration and us,” said Rep. Pete Hiekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20091228/pl_politico/31016

The Republican spin machine is trying to score points blaming Obama for what almost happened last week on Northwest Flight 253.

Why did I get angry? Because I immediately flashed back to an incident in Vietnam.

We’d been out for hours on a night patrol slipping silently through the rice paddies that surrounded our hill, and we were returning as dawn arrived—tired but alert as we straggled along the dirt road that climbed into the hills where our Battalion CP was located.

A washed out blue sky was spreading from the east and it was still dark in the west. Then the ground trembled as if an earthquake were taking place.  The sound of the explosion blew over us. We stopped and turned to see flames and a thick spire of black smoke rising into the sky from where the airstrip was located. One of the jobs the 1st Marine Division at Chu Lai had in 1966 was to protect that airstrip and the jet fighters that used it.

One Vietcong had slipped past an entire Marine division and made it to the airstrip where he managed to blow up a large portion of the stored jet fuel. That Vietcong didn’t just slip past one defensive line, but several.

I “hate” dirty politics—the same kind that started wars like Vietnam and Iraq so young men as I was then, in our patriotic zeal, would fly off to war believing we were serving a just cause when in the truth, we had been lied to.

It is almost impossible to stop an individual from doing something like what happened on that airplane a few days ago just as an entire Marine division couldn’t stop that Vietcong from infiltrating our lines.

There were 300 people on Northwest Flight 253. For sure, someone will suffer some PTSD symptoms and have trouble sleeping as they relieve the moment they thought they might die. Some may never fly again.

If you agree with Rep. Pete Hiekstra, then George W. Bush is responsible for what happened on September 11, 2001.

Instead of pointing fingers of blame looking for a “scapegoat”, Republicans and Democrats should be looking for ways to do a better job than the Homeland Security our current president inherited.

Discover more about PTSD?

_______________________

Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”