Vietnam « The Irate Nation

Military Slang Downrange

Like their fellow soldiers in Germany, Vietnam or Korea, those deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq have created a language all their own, filled with black humor, cultural references and even the occasional crudity.

Most of us have heard of RADAR -- originally a military acronym standing in for the cumbersome term "Radio Detection and Ranging."

We may even have encountered, or experienced, the occasional SNAFU, for "Situation Normal: All (Fouled) Up."

But what on Earth is a "death blossom?" Or a "fobbit," for that matter?

Slang terms referring to features of a base are also common, for example, a sign someone put next to an oil-filled puddle on a base in Afghanistan reading, "Rainbow Lake."

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Veteran killed trying to make VFW deposit

BY MICHAEL DRAKULICH Southtown Star

The 65-year-old Vietnam War veteran who suffered broken ribs and hurt his knee during a strong-arm robbery in south suburban Midlothian earlier this week died from his injuries.

William Burtner's death was ruled a homicide Thursday after an autopsy by the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Burtner was attacked Monday in front of A.J. Smith Federal Bank -- where he had planned to make a deposit for Midlothian VFW Post 2580, where he was commander, police said.

The Mount Greenwood man was treated and released at an area hospital. But when his wife, Mary, tried to wake him from a nap Wednesday, he was unresponsive.

Burtner was very proud to have served in the Army and was fiercely loyal and dedicated to the VFW post, his family said.

Jerry Brown -- the 27-year-old man who police say drove the getaway car -- has been charged with robbery.

Sun-Times Media

Health Care “Reform” and “Willful self-deception”

Robert Samuelson in The Washington Post (h/t Karl Rove) hits health care "reform" as advocated by the Democratic Party hard:

There is an air of absurdity to what is mistakenly called "health-care reform." Everyone knows that the United States faces massive governmental budget deficits as far as calculators can project, driven heavily by an aging population and uncontrolled health costs. As we recover slowly from a devastating recession, it's widely agreed that, though deficits should not be cut abruptly (lest the economy resume its slump), a prudent society would embark on long-term policies to control health costs, reduce government spending and curb massive future deficits. The administration estimates these at $9 trillion from 2010 to 2019. The president and all his top economic advisers proclaim the same cautionary message.

So what do they do? Just the opposite. Their far-reaching overhaul of the health-care system -- which Congress is halfway toward enacting -- would almost certainly make matters worse. It would create new, open-ended medical entitlements that threaten higher deficits and would do little to suppress surging health costs. The disconnect between what President Obama says and what he's doing is so glaring that most people could not abide it. The president, his advisers and allies have no trouble. But reconciling blatantly contradictory objectives requires them to engage in willful self-deception, public dishonesty, or both.

There's more at the link - it deserves to be read. It looks like many Democrats are actually believing the self-serving arguments they advance as the truth; it's not hard to see how this happens, it happens to all of us everyday in other ways. One starts by distorting one issue ever so slightly, making other distortions in other issues to compensate, and starts believing the whole system one has set up as exactly. After all, when one believes one is entirely just - shouldn't the richest country in the history of the world procure health care for as many as possible - mere mortal matters like budgets and numbers that add-up tend to be thought irrelevant.

Off-topic, from my blog: Thoughts on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial