I am a disabled veteran, I look at today as being the day that we as a nation pay respect to the men and women that have served this nation in military uniforms since 1776. That is millions of my fellow Americans, my ancestors, my Dad Private Melvin L. Bailey 1st, US Calvary D troop 7th Calvary 1914-1916, my stepfather Dale (NMN) Jennings Tech Sergeant US Army Air Corp 1941 - 1962 retired US Air Force.
My own service was not near as glorious as theirs, I enlisted at the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of the all volunteer military. I enlisted and was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis Washington, on October 30, 1973 my basic training was done at Fort Ord, Ca in November and December 1973 and I spent January and February at Fort Polk La doing my advanced infantry training, when I graduated along with the other members of the training battalion approximately 1000 of us, we were trained infantrymen.
I enjoyed Fort Lewis, near Seattle I spent a lot of free time fishing in the Puget Sound, and going to Westport crabbing for Dungeness Crab, and hiking Mount Ranier. I also made a mistake and volunteered for a medical volunteer program along with 200 other men from Fort Lewis, they selected ten of us, we felt like we had won something, we were promised 4 day work weeks, no extra duties like KP, or Guard Duty the normal things Army privates did back then, before the military out sourced things like KP to civilian workers. The "old Army" those were the days.
The ten of us went to Edgewood Arsenal thinking we had managed to get out of spending the summer doing field excercises that the infantry units would spend getting rained on for June July and August. We were promised medals that would give up permanent promotion points for boards, it was implied that we would be given either the Soldiers Medal or an Army Commendation Medals depending on the type and extent of the experiments we participated in. We were told that we would get an extra 2 dollars a day, (in 1974 when a private was making 200 a month and extra 60 was a lot of money) we were also allowed to drive our own cars to Maryland which included 9 days travel each way and per diem. To make a long story short when we returned to Fort Lewis the ten of us, each got about 4,000 dollars to cover the 18 days of travel and per diem and the TDY pay. This was a huge boost in our pay.
It would be decades later before we ever learned the truth about what we had really involved ourselves in. Human experimentation at Edgewood, Maryland
In January 2009 some of the veterans filed this lawsuit in federal court,Vietnam Veterans of America, et al. v. Central Intelligence Agency, et al. Case No. CV-09-0037-CW, U.S.D.C. (N.D. Cal. 2009)
What This Case Is About
Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief only – no monetary damages – and Plaintiffs seek redress for 25 years of diabolical experiments followed by over 30 years of neglect, including:
the use of troops to test nerve gas, psychochemicals, and thousands of other toxic chemical or biological substances and perhaps most gruesomely, the insertion of septal implants in the brains of subjects in a ghastly series of mind control experiments that went awry;
the failures to secure informed consent and other widespread failures to follow the precepts of U.S. and international law regarding the use of human subjects, including the 1953 Wilson Directive and the Nuremberg Code;
an almost fanatical refusal to satisfy their legal and moral obligations to locate the victims of their gruesome experiments or to provide health care or compensation to them;
the deliberate destruction of evidence and files documenting their illegal actions, actions which were punctuated by fraud, deception, and a callous disregard for the value of human life.
The Complaint asks the Court to determine that Defendants’ actions were illegal and that Defendants have a duty to notify all victims and to provide them with health care going forward.
The main experimentation program was known as MKULTRA there were many other code names they used for it, along the way as the substances changed, Blueberry, Naomi, Artichoke etc, the same common denominator was the programs were ran by a Doctor named Sidney Gottlieb and he worked for the CIA and he answered only to the Director of the CIA. He was there from the time the CIA was created by President Truman and he retired after giving testimony to the Church Commission, after he had destroyed all of the evidence of the mind control programs and experiments. The documents that linked the US government to the Porton Down experiments by the British, and the experiments done by the canadian government at Gagetown and in private mental health facilities.
The Army never bothered to tell the volunteers for Edgewood about the 9 German that were brought to Edgewood Arsenal to work after WW2 and their reasons for being hired was their previous work onn human experimentation in the camps of Europe from 1935-1945, the ones we call the death camps Dachau, Auschwitz, and others, some of the men actually worked for Dr Mengele and others.
I and other Edgewood veterans contend that if we had ever been tld of this we would have never volunteered for this program, we gave consent, but since we were not told all of the facts we could not give "informed consent" which made the experiments illegal. When they don't tell you everything then it is a lie by omission. I was only 18, but I can't imagine volunteering to be a guinea pig for the people that worked with Dr Mengele in the 1940s.
Other than this three month period my Army time was a growing experience for me, I was stationed around the world over the years, Alaksa on a TDY training excercise in Jan - March 1975 and then Korea from August 1975 to September 1976, then taught basic training at Fort Gordon, Ga, then to Schweinfurt Germany and the 3rd ID, then back to Fort Lewis and the 9th ID, then to Fort Irwin and the National Training Center. I then left active duty in Sep 82.
I missed the military and joined the National Guard while working for the Post Office in Augusta Ga, in Nov 1990 I asked to be transferred to the 48th Infantry Brigade as they were being activated for Desert Storm, I knew how to run an Infantry Platoon or a Squad, and if we were going to war, I would rather do it in a job I knew, rather than with a bunch of Engineers that frankly many did not know what they were supposed to be doing.
I have no regrets about my military service other than that they lied to me and the other 7120 men and women used at Edgewood Arsenal from 1955 thru 1975. I grew up in the Army, went from being a know everything teen ager to actually becoming a man with a family.
I think the military was a great place for me to mature as it had been for many other generations of Baileys and many other families. I can trace my families Army service back to 1776 and the beginning of the nation, I imagine that other grand children will probably enlist and continue the tradition. These 2 wars are the only wars that I know that does not have a direct relative having served in them, wait I have to take that back my brothers daughter joined the Coast Guard and has served on active duty since 9/11. I won't disparage the Coast Guard but keeping the boaters from fighting in Balboa Harbor just doesn't seem the same as an infantryman in Iraq. But they are veterans and I know the rescue crews work damn hard, both air crews and boat crews.
I just hope my grand kids jointhe Army lol
To all my fellow Kossacks Happy Veterans Day from Kos himself to even the newest member of Daily Kos that has joined and has served. Some really great Americans have been veterans and progressive, we are in good company so to all of you SALUTE.................
UPDATE here is a copy of the email that President Obama sent to the veterans that he has the e mail addresses of, I imagine they are all the same except for our names
Michael --
Today, on Veterans Day, my message to you is simple: Thank you. Thank you for your selfless service, for your valor, and for your strength of purpose that make all of us proud to be Americans.
Today, Americans will pause amidst a great conversation about the future of our nation to take a moment and recognize your service to our democracy -- a service that guarantees us all the liberty to engage freely in that conversation, no matter what our views may be.
We know that we owe you a debt that cannot be repaid. But we can and will fulfill our nation's promise to stand by you and your loved ones. That is why we've worked hard for better care for our veterans, and why we provided the largest increase in Veterans Administration funding in history.
Today, we honor those Americans past and present who've served on battlefields from Lexington to Antietam, Normandy to Manila, Inchon to Khe Sanh, Ramadi to Kandahar. You have defended our freedom on land, and at sea, and in the air.
You reflect the diversity that makes this America. You share a patriotism beyond question. And you share the same unflinching courage, selfless compassion, and uncommon camaraderie that -- when faced with the tragedy of a despicable and heartbreaking attack last Thursday -- the soldiers and civilians of Ft. Hood humbly revealed to the world.
You and your loved ones are the patriotic men and women we honor today, Veterans Day. And you are the men and women we shall honor every day, in times of war and times of peace, so long as our nation endures.
Thank you.
President Barack Obama
I never got nothing like that from George, just saying I wonder how Liz Cheney spins this? rofl