Monday, November 12, 2007

Countdown On Veterans Day: Bush Goes AWOL, Vets Silenced, Marlboro Marine Jobless

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars: On today’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann aired a somber and enraging segment on the sad state of affairs for our veterans on this Veteran’s Day. (Click the pic to the right for the vid.) Talking with Paul Rieckhoff from IAVA, Olbermann blasted George Bush for ducking out of the ceremonies at Arlington Cemetary, talked about the growing number of homeless Iraq & Afghanistan vets and the utterly disgraceful silencing of anti-Iraq veterans in Massachusetts and Southern California who were not allowed to participate in Veterans Day parades — some were even arrested. On the one day of the year their voices should have been heard and they should have been honored, they were instead betrayed by their fellow citizens. I don’t have the words to describe that kind of cruelty.

Keith also touches on the gut wrenching story of Lance Corporal James Blake Miller — better known as the Marlboro Marine — who is now jobless, divorced and near suicidal since being discharged from the military after being diagnosed with PTSD. With little aid from his government, Miller received help from an unlikely source — Luis Sinco, the LA Times photographer who snapped the famous picture of him during the battle of Fallujah in 2004. You can read Sinco’s story in the LAT here.

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