This 4th of July morning, a wonderful woman passed away. She was the wife of a veteran. They are not blood relatives of mine, but I have known them since I was 6 or 7, and I have almost always called them Grandma and Grandpa. She was a victim of the terrible state of our health care system and the money-grubbing ways of the pharmaceutical companies. A few years back, she had a stroke caused by being on Viox. She and her husband (himself a victim of the system) have been pretty much tapped out with medical expenses.
He is a veteran, who served in Korea. He's an incredibly intellegent man. He worked as a repairman and engineer on nuclear submarines. But, as many veterans, the government has not taken the best care of him, even though he is luckier than most. He lives in a small house in a rural town, and even though he is well past retirement age, he works full-time repairing lawn mowers to make ends meet.
So, what's the point of all this? Follow me below the fold...
I found out about Grandma early this evening. I live about 250 miles away now and am having some money and car problems, so I'm not able to be there. I cried and reminisced for a while. Once I was all cried out, I decided I needed to do something, or I was just going to go nuts. I needed to get my mind off things for a while, come back to it when my mind was clearer. So, I headed out with my husband to watch the fireworks show.
Now, I've always thought it was a bit ironic that we celebrate the fourth of July by watching things blow up. But, nonetheless, the fireworks are pretty, and this show was definitely a lot better than the one back home. I oohed and ahhed with everyone else, but I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Of course, Grandma and Grandpa were on my mind, and with Grandpa being a veteran, my thoughts turned to the war. How much money do you suppose is spent on fireworks every year across the country on this day? I couldn't find a country-wide estimate, but this National Geographic article states that the average cost is around $30,000 for a 30 minute display. Now, if every town that had a fireworks display instead took that money and donated it to veteran's organizations or to someone doing care packages to the troops, how many veterans could we help?
I feel a bit guilty watching fireworks displays, anyways. I feel sometimes that it is giving tacit approval to the US and its policies, as watching the fireworks displays is seen as patriotic. But, I feel even moreso now that the war is going on; in these days of worsening debt, where the soldiers have to buy their own armor. How many pieces of armor could we have bought the troops from our town with the $30,000 that was spent on blowing things up? How many meals could that have bought for homeless veterans? How many prescriptions could have been filled for veterans without health care? Wouldn't that be REAL patriotism?