Tag Archives: Military veterans

The Road to Diamond, Day 176: Equanimity

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

May 23, 2025- Today was a day of celebration for us Baha’is, as on this day, 182 years ago, al-Bab revealed Himself as the Forerunner of a Messenger Who would unite the human race. This all may sound abstract, but one need only read the Baha’i teachings for self, and determine whether they are truth or not. https://www.bahai.org/

What has always appealed to me about this Faith is that everyone on Earth matters, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, gender or social group. Everyone is seen as essentially a spiritual being and as long as that spiritual essence is recognized, a person will grow in the sight of the Divine.

I have been led to be discerning, regarding both social and spiritual matters. In both cases, I see myself not as in any way superior or inferior to others, but regard the needs of each of us as equally valid with those of others. That leads me to take a long view of certain developments. A recent example is the funding of veterans’ health care. There are many military veterans who are disabled and deserve full medical care from our government. Others, like myself, are in relatively robust health and don’t require as much.

The present government is re-assessing each veteran’s case, and from what I can see, in a surprisingly efficient and judicious manner. There is a reasonable question as to over-reduction of staff, given that there are so many veterans in legitimate need. That imbalance, between recognized need and the desire to save money, will bottom out soon. Many healthy veterans, myself included, would take supplementary insurance, if it means that our medically needy comrades in arms can get more help. The assessors, though, have a duty as well-to not permanently cut off those who have suffered injury or disease as a result of their military service.

Equanimity, a foul word to some, is nonetheless an essential word-whether one believes in “everyone for self” or in common care for one another.

The Road to Diamond, Day 9: Veterans

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, service, Social, Spiritual, Striving

December 7, 2024- Eighty-three years ago today, Japanese planes attacked the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawai’i. This resulted in the deaths of 2305 Americans and 129 Japanese. There are a few centenarians still alive today, who survived that attack.

Ironic, then, that an immigrant and the son of immigrants, neither of whom have ever served in the military, are leading the call for cutting funding for veterans’ health care. They are citing a report, written by a Harvard graduate student, who also has not served in the military-for a publication in the United Kingdom(home to free medical care for all), that says Veterans’ Disability funds are reducing veterans’ employment.

This is hooey. I know of several disabled veterans, who are either working, happily, at full time jobs, or are actively seeking employment. Several employers, coached by the Veterans Administration and US Vets, are taking on disabled veterans as workers. The Small Business Administration has programs that assist with veterans who are establishing their own businesses.

One of the biggest false starts in academia comes from the words, “The statistics say…” or “Research tells us….” . Numbers and data can be manipulated towards any agenda. Blind pursuit of cutting expenditures, without considering the true human cost of those cuts, is a dead end. Coupled with the belief that only an economic elite can actually solve the problems facing humanity, that Capital should trump Labour, the road to economic decimation is assured.

Both Capital and Labour are needed, in order to make an economic system function fully. This is one reason why Baha’u’llah calls for a system of profit sharing, for employee-owned enterprises, as a way of building an economy that has no disparity between the very rich and very poor. As hard as it will be, to get the Uberwealthy to see this, short of a damaging economic downturn, a push towards such economic justice would resolve a host of financial woes-including the perception that veterans should not be cared for, following their military service.

Those who have served their nation should not be beholden to those who have done nothing in the way of service. Resolving the nagging problem of national debt is a matter that must not be given to false solutions, or scapegoating of Protected Classes. We all have a role to play in debt reduction-including the wealthiest among us.

Centenary, and Remembrance

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Historical, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 27,2024- The grief-stricken woman told me, and bar staff, what had happened to a beloved family member, and relayed the seemingly nonchalant reaction of someone who had once told her that he was dependable. I shared with her about my own experiences, and the current state of my life. She was heartened by both what I had experienced taking care of my late wife, Penny, and by the present state of a new love in my life. As she broke down, and needed reassurance, I hugged her, and she wished me well with the rest of my life. When she left, we briefly discussed our own reactions to her story; D’s daughter agreeing with me that an undependable friend is no friend at all. I paid for my meal, and coffee, then headed back to Home Base 1.

I thought of Penny, and how no matter the level of difficulty with her condition, I would never have left her alone, or dismissed her pain. I stayed with her, until the end of her life, and would do so again and again. I think of the new love that has appeared in my life, and know that if she needed me to be by her side, post haste, I would be there, across the ocean, as quickly as humanly possible-and stay with her, for the duration.

Today, one of the most influential men I’ve ever had the honour of knowing would have turned 100 years of age. That he was the father of my first true love as an adult, and the treasured grandfather of our son was a bonus. Norman David Fellman was, more than these, much more. He was the living symbol of the Holocaust survivors-a Jewish soldier in the U.S. Army, in the final year of World War II. He was captured by the German Army, in the southern flank of the Battle of the Bulge, kept prisoner in Berga, in a special POW unit of Jewish-, Mexican- and Romani-Americans. He survived, and when found by the U.S. Army, 97 pounds clung to his 6’1″ frame. He thrived, attended college, decided to open his own shoe business, married his life-long sweetheart, sired Penny and adopted twin girls-raising all three to be strong women. He and my mother-in-law, Ruth, were married for 65 years, until his death in 2014. (Ruth survived him by four years.) They owned and ran a farm, which tided them over, when he sold his shoe business. They raised and rode Arabian horses, teaching all three girls-and me, how to ride, and care for, those wondrous beasts. Norm was a fixture in Veterans organizations, and even made a video of his experiences, which at one point aired on national television. It must have come very hard, but he made it his mission, to ensure that the experiences of those who kept freedom alive were not forgotten.

Likewise, International Holocaust Remembrance Day was established, in 1996, on this, the day of Norm’s birth. It was a fact that gave him great satisfaction, though like the gentleman he was, IHRD became more important to the day, than his own birthday. That this remembrance has continued, despite the noise and hasty judgement heaped upon all Jews, for the actions of a relative few among them, would be a point of pride, for Norm, Ruth and Penny, were they here among us still. He would fulminate, as only he could, against all those he saw as perpetrators of injustice.

I was all too glad to have been able to help a stranger in distress, to help finish a good friend’s move, earlier in the day and to give due homage to a great man. Let us never forget the Shoah!