Well, I think all the Veterans SHOULD pay it back! With interest! Thats MY money! Look at all the benefits they already got! Meeting new people, 3 hots and a cot, the best medical care available, education, getting in shape, traveling all over the World sometimes...learning cool skills like semaphore and orienteering, and pinging out an SOS on the telegraph, career advancement potential, snappy outfit, marching and chanting, smoking if you got 'em!
Heck, my Father In Law got all sorts of free Air travel when he was in the Military, As a Waist gunner on a B-17, He got to camp out in England and see all sorts of Germany for free! Had a window seat even! Got to rattle off free 50cal rounds at 30,000 feet at Messerschmidts! Then he came back and got to hang around the VFW. Drinking and playing cards for the rest of his life! Thats pretty good for an Ohio Farmboy!
Us poor US Factory workers get Nothing! We dont get a 'sign on bonus'...Hell you are lucky if the Company hands out a freezer burnt turkey for Thanksgiving or a Ham for Christmas! Most of us Die at work or on the way to and from..Eddie Punchclock gets NO respect! No parades or medals or nothing! Plus, we get our pay 'clawed back' all the time! Its called a '401k'.
Not everybody can be Alvin York, 'gobblegobble gobble my @ss!...Somebodies gotta make stuff!.....After 20yrs in a factory I tried to enlist just so I could have an easy life...They wouldnt take me though, said I was classified as being 'dict in the noggin' or something...Well yeah! I shoulda taken the easy life and enlisted right out of High school!
Somedays I'd sure like to rattle off some free 50cal rounds at some Messerschmidts just once, and by that I mean the Bosses Mercedes Benz with him in it!
I think thats what I told the recruiter when he asked why I wanted to join...shoulda said, "to serve my Country" right?...
Maybe I should of tried to get into the Navy...Like the famous war hero John Kerry? He turned out Ok, I think he won the Preakness one year even? ...The Navy will take about anybody right? They took JFK and he had a bad back and managed to get his skiff runt the hell over out in the middle of an Ocean and STILL was proclaimed a hero! The only boat he managed to sink was His! He saw a lot of action though, afterwards that is, with the Ladies..
If you cant make the Navy, maybe the Coast Guard then? I like boats...I'm pretty sure I can sink my own if I tried hard enough, and swim to shore, with a bad back, towing a beer cooler with my teeth!...In that situation, what are the options anyway? Aint no ticker tape parade for Eddie Punchclock or Johnnie Lunchbox...just years of indentured servitude, plus, a guy has to go home everynight to the Family...
Mud