Category: Veterans

WASHINGTON — The number of people living in poverty has climbed to 14.3 percent of Americans, with the ranks of working-age poor reaching the highest level since at least 1965.

The attorney for Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks leaker, says he doesn’t have any information indicating that Manning leaked tens of thousands of pages of documents on the Afghanistan war to the WikiLeaks website.

“I have not talked to my client about that. I have not seen anything, nor have I heard anything that would definitively tie him to that,” said attorney David Coombs in an exclusive interview with CNN.

Manning has not been charged with leaking those Afghanistan field reports, but U.S. military officials have told CNN that he is the prime suspect in that leak.

About the Downtown San Diego Registry Week

The Downtown Partnership’s Board of Directors and its Social Issues Committee have teamed up with the nationally renowned organization Common Ground and its 100,000 Homes Campaign to administer a survey and create a by-name registry of everyone experiencing homelessness on the streets downtown. Local partners in this effort include the United Way, the San Diego Housing Commission, the Centre City Development Corporation and several other organizations. The registry data is analyzed and broken down into sub-populations (veterans, medically fragile, seniors, youth) and then prioritized, matching those in the greatest need to housing.

By Ray McGovern

President Barack Obama’s aides say his speech this evening marking the end of “combat operations” in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003. We’ll see.

On the chance Obama might be open to pivoting away from the reduction of U.S. troops in Iraq and addressing honestly the worsening quagmire in Afghanistan. I have offered him the following text:

My Fellow Americans,

by Dylan Mann / Voice of San Diego / Originally posted August 25, 2010

You see them in the medians at intersections and at the bottom of freeway off-ramps. Suntanned and weary in camouflage pants, they hold magic-markered signs announcing: “HOMELESS VET — ANYTHING HELPS — GOD BLESS.” And you feel empathy for them, don’t you? No matter what you think of our nation’s military campaigns, it’s undeniable that here before you is a person that once served our country, but now he sleeps outside and isn’t sure when he’ll eat next.

Community meeting Aug. 10, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM Point Loma campus of the San Diego Community College – West…

by Anonymous

When I was seventeen in1967, a friend and I got in trouble at school, cutting class to go surfing if I remember right. This was not the first time we had been caught breaking school rules so it was no surprise when we were both called in to the principal’s office.

We were introduced to a couple of army recruiters and given choices. My friend Stein – his mother dead and his father the town drunk – could enlist or go to juvenile hall. I was offered expulsion or military service. I chose expulsion.

Stein, still not eighteen, showed up in Vietnam just in time for the Tet offensive. He was in country for less than two weeks before he was killed.

I would never betray my friend Stein by thanking him for dying in a war that no one has has ever explained to my satisfaction that had anything to do with mine or any other Americans’ freedom, or pursuit of happiness.

by Katie Drummond / wired / May 11,2010

More than 30 years after it was written, the Pentagon has released a memorandum detailing its involvement in the CIA’s infamous Cold War mind-control experiments.

But a warning to conspiracy theorists on the lookout for new fodder: This isn’t quite Men Who Stare at Goats II.

The 17-page document (.pdf), “Experimentation Programs conducted by the Department of Defense That Had CIA Sponsorship or Participation and That Involved the Administration to Human Subjects of Drugs Intended for Mind-Control or Behavior-Modification Purposes,” was prepared in 1977 by the General Counsel of the Department of Defense and released on May 6 after a Freedom of Information Act request.

When I first heard the expression, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I remember going: “What the hell? Is Clinton not feeling well?”

Now, of course, Bill must have wished for a little Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell back when he idealized out loud: “Is oral sex really sex?” – to which I felt like writing him a letter saying: “Check this out, Willie. If some liquid flies from your body like a rocket heading to lunar terrain and some of it becomes a news story around the world regarding a dress that it has stained and you are feeling no pain, wearing an expression on your face that’s both serene and insane – you have had sex, my man.”

Having experienced more than my share of discrimination, thanks to old Jim Crow, it’s the “less than” aspects of the deal that gnaws at your soul. It’s the everybody else can do it but you can’t and that quickly grows old and remains old.

by hippiereborn

This is not an article laced with numbers, statistics, and quotes from various sources. In writing this, I am reaching back into my own experiences over the last year and a half as a social worker who happens to live in OB and putting the truth out on the table.

For those who have complained about the influx of “drug crazed” (mostly young) transients infiltrating our neighborhood, you are finding it difficult to hold someone accountable for the disturbances and quality of life issues this population has brought to OB. You want them gone, out of here, ejected. You don’t care really where they go, so long as they are not bothering you anymore.

Guess what? You are to blame.

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new “war president”? If you go to West Point tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do — destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what they’ve always heard is true — that all politicians are alike. I simply can’t believe you’re about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it isn’t so.

by Sunshine / November 9, 2009

I feel privileged to have just witnessed this man, Sinh Tho Nguyen, conclude his walk across America right here in OB on November 8th. He left the east coast’s Atlantic Shore on June 10th and literally walked across this fine country of ours.

As we freely approached him on the shores of the Pacific, he was shaking from the cold. Some kind OBcean took off their jacket and gifted it to him. His demeanor is kind. He appeared awed and exuded gratitude for all of America.