Monthly Archives: October 2013

In Honor of Military Veterans

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The scars of war are hard to hide and hard to heal. For many U.S. combat veterans, the emotional toll combined with debilitating physical injuries can make it tougher to survive on home soil than on the battlefield.

Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of vets are suffering from a healthcare benefits backlog. Compounding the problem, more than 62,000 veterans are homeless on any given night; many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. Another 140,000 are in prison.

Policy makers and the VA need to honor and care for those who sacrificed their lives and livelihoods for our country—and not abandon them when they need us most.

Law students are stepping in to help with a free legal clinic at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco.  Read more here.

Forgotten Heroes

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Emmanuel Fisher (Sept. 25, 1921—July 22, 2001) was a British composer and conductor who was probably best known as the leader of the London Jewish Male Choir. But as a young army private during World War II, Fisher served in the British medical units that helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

He did not know about Hitler’s “Final Solution” until he arrived at Belsen in the spring of 1945. “It was so horrendous that I thought in years to come I’d think that I’d exaggerated it, unless I kept a diary,” he told The Independent in June 1998.

“The whole thing was just like a bad dream,” he wrote in his diary. “I almost pinched myself to make sure that I was awake. … It was too unbelievable to believe. I was stunned.”

Aged 24, he was nurse, mother, and father to 150 to 200 patients. Within eight days, 6,000 patients were brought to the unit for treatment in army barracks outside the camp.

Tens of thousands died from disease, neglect and starvation. Among the victims: diarist Anne Frank.

Fisher’s diary is now archived in the Imperial War Museum. Watch his dramatic story in a videotaped interview conducted by the USC SHOAH Foundation:

Government Shutdown

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Political columnist Charles P. Pierce aptly blames the government shutdown on a single House of Congress, which he describes as “a more lethal combination of political ambition, political stupidity, and political vainglory” than any other in the history of the U.S.

The Esquire pundit slams the House for shutting down the federal government “because it disapproves of a law passed by a previous Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, a law that does nothing more than extend the possibility of health insurance to the millions of Americans who do not presently have it.”

He calls Congress an “ungovernable collection of snake-handlers.” I think he nailed it.