#Women Veterans Vietnam

[wayfarerfla-blog]

Women Veterans

What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world? Quality Healthcare benefits for Women Veterans and non service-connected non combat women.

[todaysdocument]

The Vietnam Womens Memorial on the Mall

Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of DefenseSeries: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

Photograph of the Womens Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, taken at night.  The sculpture shows four figures.  A standing woman in military fatigues looks up at the sky while one had reaches behind her to touch another woman who is nursing a wounded soldier.  The fourth figure is just visible kneeling behind the other two women.  Behind the sculpture, the Washington Monument is visible.

[the-bunny-burrow-archives]

So, like I asked a librarian for a recommendation, and she was anxious that I wouldn't like it since I mainly like nonfiction. But like that was a misconception cause I do like fiction books, but I usually read them in a digital format. Regardless, after a bit of i promise you, I don't judge harshly, and very rarely do I find books I genuinely hate she finally gave me the one of the best books I've read in a while. Probably cause it's a big, thick book, and me like those a bumch!!!

Anyway the book is called "The Women" By Kristin Hannah and it's great. Here is the cover

And here is the divider

So first of all this book made me cry so many fucking times it is insane. Like omg fuck whoa damn, not that it making me cry is bad. Cause like a book that makes you cry is often times very good, especially if you cried a minimum of like 20 times. If you pick this book up, please know it talks about PTSD and you aren't in the right headspace to read about that. Then I recommend you wait but in the end that's a suggestion.

Anyway, so the book talks about a Vietnam nurse who goes through like a lot, like i want to give her a hug and tell her it's going to be ok. I really don't want to risk spoiling anything too much cause it's great and goodness omg. I will say I love how Kristin portrayed everything to be as accurate as possible historically. Do note it is historical fiction, not nonfiction, so somethings arent 100% accurate. But I feel she did get the experience of being a female veteran at the time of the Vietnam War. If you do not know (especially if you have a public school history education in the US), women in Vietnam were overlooked and often times not seen as veterans cause they were women. There was also the factor of other veterans not recognizing them since they hadn't seen combat. But in my opinion, if you go through boot camp, get a uniform, get deployed, and help whatever side of the conflict you are veteran regardless if you fought (in reference to combat) or not.

Goodness, I don't know what else to say cause. Yes, it was a very, very amazing book, and I loved it. But if I talk about it too much, I feel like I could ruin the experience.

Small warning there seems to be mixed reviews over this book. So if you go out and look at reviews, you may see something like someone saying the title is they, and they don't understand why a book about women in Vietnam is named The Women. Also, someone else was complaining about there being romance in it, to which it's like the book followed the main character (Frankie) throughout many years of her life. If she didn't fall in love at some point, it would be surprising, unless the mc is aeroace, then it would be understandable.

[thecharters]

Washington National Mall

These photos of the Washington National Mall were taken on June 16, 2014, on a very hot day.  Photos include the Jefferson Memorial, White House, Vietnam Women’s Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Korean War Veterans Memorial, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, World War II Memorial, and the United States Holocaust Memorial. My grandfather died during the Japanese invasion of Wake Island…

[izooks]

From: JoJoFromJerz

Dear Ma & Pa MAGA,

You say that Donald Trump “loves our troops.”

So, I want to know why that is.

Is it because he received 5 deferments from the draft for military service during the Vietnam War?

Is it because he demeaned a POW, attacked a Gold Star family and told a military widow that her deceased husband “knew what he had signed up for.”

Was it the time he downplayed the traumatic head injuries suffered by our troops after a missile attack as “not real” because they weren’t ‘missing hands and limbs.’

Is it due to all the years he tried to slash benefits for our veterans, the time he said he didn’t want to be seen with war-wounded amputees, and to keep them forever out of his sight, or the time he called our fallen heroes of war “suckers” and “losers”?

Is it the all the times he called our military leaders “dumb” and “overrated” while calling terrorists like the Taliban & Hezbollah “very smart”?

Was it the time he demanded the flags after McCain’s death be returned to full mast, or the time he demanded that a ship bearing his name be blocked from view?

Was it when he stole, hid and lied about our national security secrets, potentially imperiling countless men & women in uniform all over the world?

Or was it when he suggested that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deserved to be executed?

Maybe it was when he asked Gen. John Kelly (who lost his son in combat) at Arlington National Cemetery, why anyone would sign up for service because as far as he saw it, there was “nothing in it for them.”

Perhaps it was hearing him say that as President he would allow our adversary to attack the same allies this county’s Greatest Generation fought beside and died defending?

Or was it when he insulted Nikki Haley’s husband for currently serving our country overseas?

Which of those things was it that made you believe he loved our troops?

Because I’d really love to know.

[eretzyisrael]

by POTKIN AZARMEHR

‘Pro-Palestine’ protests have become a near-weekly occurrence across Britain. Since Hamas’s 7 October massacre, regular marches have been drawing in a growing number of young people, marked by passionate advocacy and fervent slogans. Yet despite their zeal, many of these protesters lack a fundamental understanding of the conflict they are so vociferously decrying.

In the past six months, I have attended many of these marches. Having engaged with numerous protesters, I have noticed a startling disconnect between their strong opinions on the Gaza conflict and their shaky grasp of basic facts about it. Among the most perplexing are the LGBT and feminist groups (the ‘Queers for Palestine’ types) who flirt with justifying Hamas’s atrocities. This is a bewildering alliance, given that Hamas’s Islamist ideology is clearly antithetical to the rights and values these groups claim to champion. Its reactionary agenda is profoundly hostile to women’s rights and LGBT individuals.

Protesters seem eager to make excuses for Hamas, but are conspicuously uninformed about exactly what or who this terrorist group represents. On 18 May, during a protest at Piccadilly Circus in London, I spoke to demonstrators who firmly believed that Hamas represents all Palestinians. When I questioned a well-educated participant about the last Palestinian election, she was unaware that none had occurred since 2006, when Hamas gained power in Gaza.

It wasn’t just young people who were uninformed. An older woman with an American accent, seemingly a veteran protester, admitted she knew that Hamas was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, but had no deeper knowledge of its ideology or history. Others, such as members of revolutionary socialist groups, displayed similar gaps in understanding, unaware of critical events like the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

That revolution gave birth to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocratic regime that brutally oppresses its own citizens. It also sponsors Islamist groups like Hamas. I left Iran for the UK not long after that regime began and have spent years resisting its religious extremism and ruthless political intolerance. Protesters were not only unaware of these facts about the Iranian regime, but also ill-informed about the struggle against it, such as the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests against the government that began in 2022.

One particularly telling conversation involved a man advocating for a ‘Global Intifada’ to replace capitalism with socialism. When asked about successful socialist models, he was unfamiliar with the Israeli kibbutzim, one of history’s few successful egalitarian experiments. His ignorance of these communal settlements in Israel, built by socialist Jewish immigrants, was all too typical.

Perhaps the most telling moment was captured by commentator Konstantin Kisin earlier this year, when he encountered a young man holding a ‘Socialist Intifada’ placard. The protester admitted he had no idea what this meant and that he had taken the sign simply because it was handed to him.

Reflecting on past movements, such as the American anti-Vietnam War protests of the 1960s and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement of the 1980s, one can’t help but note a stark contrast. Protesters then were generally well-informed about their causes. Today’s pro-Palestine protests, however, seem to be driven more by unthinking fervour than by an understanding of the issues at hand.

Throughout all these protests, I am yet to encounter a single participant who condemns Hamas or carries a placard denouncing its terrorism. This not only undermines the protesters’ cause, but also risks aligning them with groups whose values fundamentally oppose the very rights and freedoms they claim to support. It appears that today’s young protesters are high on ideology, but woefully thin on facts.

Potkin Azarmehr is an Iranian activist and journalist who left Iran for the UK after the revolution of 1979.

[3liza]

I don't really understand why my dad, a Silent Generation Vietnam veteran who can most accurately be compared to Hank Hill in appearance and mannerisms, is so cunty. but he also was the one to tell me about wearing your panties on top of your tights to keep your tights from falling down around your knees (less useful if you need to avoid pantyline, but still works well [or better] with a thong). my mom didn't teach me that. where did he learn this stuff. is he the only straight man on earth who actually pays attention to what women are doing?? we just don't know

[thebreakfastgenie]

This is what Vietnam War discourse would actually look like if there was tumblr in the 60s/70s:

That scene in Mad Men where Glenn tells Sally if he doesn't go to Vietnam some poor Black kid will get drafted instead

Draft dodging privilege

Failing the draft board physical on purpose is ableist

Trying to get a psychological deferment is ablesit/sanist

Pretending to be gay to dodge the draft is homophobic

If you're pretending to be gay to dodge the draft you can reclaim slurs

Trigger tags for topics related to Vietnam because it might trigger veterans, people getting screamed at for not using them, discourse about whether they're racist

Can Asian Americans reclaim "Charlie?" (Yes. No. Only if you're Vietnamese. Only if you're literally a member of the Vietcong.)

Lists of celebrities that are canceled for supporting Vietnam ranging from people who actually support the war to people who shared a post about supporting families of POWs

Someone posts about being happy their POW cousin got released, gets anon hate for supporting the war

Excuses not to boycott Dow Chemical, "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism"

Women and people of color get anon hate for talking about misogyny and racism in the anti-war movement

Women shouldn't go to college/law school/med school/grad school because men need those slots so they can get a deferment

The draft proves misandry is real

Anti-electoral leftists opposing the 26th amendment because both sides are the same

"Voting for LBJ is the lesser of two evils!!!!"

"At least Barry Goldwater wanted to end the forever war in Vietnam!"

The students murdered at Kent State get "canceled" for failing some moral purity test

Post about how Jackson State got less attention than Kent State because the students were Black which is actually but in the most bad faith, accusatory tone possible

Feminism and Civil Rights are distractions

Black bloggers get hate for publicly mourning MLK because "thousands are killed in Vietnam every day!!!!"

White American mixes up Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos because they don't know they're three separate countries

Working class people support the war so opposing it is classist actually

"The movement isn't about your fave I hate stan culture!!!!!"

[that-house]

can you tell us more about dronestrike & the campaign theyre from?

just read thhe post about it & immediately became obsessed

(context: Dronestrike is my warrior cats OC, an american imperialist robot cat the size of a horse and equipped with enough firepower to wipe out the clans if it seems like they're at risk of falling to communism. in the oneshot he accidentally fired a nuke at the city of LA and blamed "every other country" in a phone call with Bidenstar to avoid getting in trouble)

it wasn't a campaign, just an 11-person oneshot in the single most chaotic discord voice call I have ever been in. so i haven't played him since then, nor will i ever play him again

i can provide you a variety of facts about him i came up with after the fact though because he's a funny enough character that i can't stop thinking about him:

his brain is composed of three parts with an equal amount of control over his actions: the soul of a vietnam veteran, an AI replica of a cat, and every single super bowl halftime commercial

he comes armed with combat knives for claws, a machine gun in his mouth, a high caliber sniper rifle built into his spine, a pistol that he somehow uses with cat paws, and a douglas air-2 genie air-to-air unguided nuclear missile

transition could not save him because all trans people are godless communists who bully him on twitter

Dronestrike acknowledges every independence movement if only so that America has more countries to eventually colonize

he has read Marx so he can misuse quotes and flex on any marxists who haven't read theory

his greatest wish is for america to have won 'nam

doesn’t really have any physical possessions because he’s a cat who doesn’t have pockets or a permanent residence. he does however have $8.6 million in Shell oil stock

Dronestrike if he played League of Legends: only plays champs who have america-themed skins, but doesn’t actually own the skins because that would be giving money to a chinese company. plays all of them jungle to poor results. iron 4 two thousand games this season

has no mouth but wishes he did so he could taste the burgers that honest Americans have died to defend

Dronestrike's dream world is world war 3, with the stipulation that there is an american flag superimposed over EVERYONE'S vision instead of just his

if he had 24 hours to live he would start a “second american revolution” by attacking England

he isn't a good kisser: no lips, he's a cat, and also george washington famously said that romantic connections weaken your spiritual link with The State

response to being trapped in a maze of mirrors: breaks through the mirrors without noticing, but also can’t recognize his reflection. Thinks he has to fight these teleporting commie clones of himself to save the United States of America

he's on Santa's naughty list

on Halloween he dresses up as George Washington and “trick or disappears” journalists

Dronestrike hates the reds, the brits, women, and most importantly, himself

prefers fundamentals over schmovement

favorite board game is Monopoly because watching people go bankrupt or be imprisoned is one of his hobbies

his happiest memory is his first glimpse of an amazon packaging facility and the horrible conditions of the workers

favorite season is summer: 4th of July babey!!! the holiday where you're allowed to blow shit upppp!!! he also frequently sets off fireworks in the off season to scare dogs and people with anxiety

doesn’t date but he sends tech billionaires unethically farmed flowers sometimes

doesn’t play video games but he has a simulated CoD lobby’s chat going at all times in his head. they call him slurs whenever he misses a shot

relates strongly to Patrick Bateman

he was in ShadowClan. they picked which clan he would be deployed into by having him take the official "which clan are you" quiz

sometimes he doubts that he has the heart of a true warrior

[bettsfic]

one of the things that really stuck with me about The Bikeriders is that it's all about performative toxic masculinity, but there's no womanizer character. not a single guy who picks up women for the fun of it. there's also no casual, unquestioned infidelity, which is a staple of dudebro narratives. like obviously the badass leader guy is going to have a woman on the side, and both his wife and myriad girlfriends will just be set pieces for him with no characterization whatsoever.

on my first watch i just assumed Johnny has a wife at home and a girlfriend in the club, but then i realized the woman hanging all over him during the picnics is his wife (Betty), as evidenced by this pic from VANDALS, the photobook of the shooting of the film.

sorry for the poor quality. this is a picture of a picture.

the implication here is that Betty is supportive of the club (if not Johnny himself, as we see near the end), at least more so than Kathy, who only dresses in bikerider attire for [spoilers redacted].

it's possible in the present timeline of the film that both of their daughters have grown up and moved out. we see Johnny watching The Wild One on television, a film released in 1953, and two girls run behind him, maybe around 10 years old. the timeline of the story begins in 1963, and the last we see of Johnny's home life is 1971. by all means, their daughters might be in their 20s. in some ways, The Bikeriders is a story of middle-aged boredom.

in multiple instances, we see physical affection between married couples. Benny and Kathy, Johnny and Betty, and Brucie and Gail are all depicted at least once snuggled up beside each other. in many films, if a man is both married and faithful, we see him be at the very least physically neglectful, never touching his wife in a loving way. conversely, we never see men receiving real affection, either, unless it's been earned through the intense action of the film. and even then, it's often something he takes, not something he's given.

i was also surprised by Benny and Kathy's relationship, which i assumed would go south asap, given the intensity of it. and although there's plenty of tension between them, none of it is of the "i fell out of love with you, i regret marrying you" variety of angst. they fall in love and stay in love. and they have problems, but losing interest in each other is not one of them.

i find it very funny that Benny remains covered in dirt even when it makes no sense to be.

to me these are all markers of a story that's about toxic masculinity rather than operating from within toxic masculinity. when we're in a toxically masculine story, we're meant to buy into the fantasy of that masculinity. the protagonist is an ideal, a man who fucks around with any woman he looks at and wins fights and becomes a hero. in The Bikeriders, though, we see from the outside that Johnny is trying to craft that impossible fantasy for himself. he's performing the man he wishes he could be and it's making him miserable. and he tries to put that burden on Benny, who refuses it. Benny is his fantasy. conversely, Johnny is Benny's. they have the other on a pedestal of a male ideal that's impossible to achieve.

in this era of American history, we see increasingly intense narratives of heroism. by the 70s, the sons of WWII veterans had grown up. many men of that time looked up to their fathers as war heroes, fighting on the right side of one of the worst wars in the history of humanity, and winning. but those men were then given the Vietnam War, which arguably had no right side, no front, and no land lost or gained. most importantly, it had no clear beginning or ending*. no closure, no resolution. even outside of war, in industry the task of making something became narrower as merchant trades veered toward assembly line production rather than craftsmanship. Benny refuses to step up in part because he belongs to a generation of men who see no real fruits of their labor. conversely, Johnny is witnessing the slow degradation of honor that comes as a result of losing the concepts of resolution and completion.

*the Fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War, but by then Nixon had pulled out all US troops.

i keep reading these shallow reviews of The Bikeriders, and they're positive but they don't seem to really get it. like The Holdovers, i think so much of the nuance and meaning comes from the historical context of the action of the film, which can't really be elaborated on (you can only do so much in two hours), and so it's depicted in these broad strokes of cultural knowledge, much of which is either that the Vietnam War is simply a thing that happened, or information that is flat-out wrong. i mean, there were like 18 possible sides to this war and you can't read a single fact about it without having to analyze or consider the side it's writing from. even wikipedia is full of subtle rhetoric that indicates sympathy toward one side over the other.

people ask me a lot, "why are you researching the Vietnam War?" and the answer is that it's everywhere. its failure is woven into the fabric of American identity. it changed the very definition of masculinity, and being as we are in a patriarchal hegemony, that new definition has in turn affected everybody else. whenever i talk to any American around my age about the Vietnam War, they've got a story about it. either their father/grandfather was there or he wasn't. if he was there, that's a story. if he wasn't, that's a story too.

many of us in our 30s and 40s and 50s are gaining the expertise and audience to begin telling these stories, in an attempt to answer the question of what even happened back then, and why were our parents so cruel, and why is everyone so miserable now? and we find ourselves on impossible pedestals handed down to us from a generation defined by failure and loss.

[phoenixwrites]

I grew up conservative and Republican. I'm talking, serious conservative values, as in, my father considered Fox News "too liberal" a news source. My dad could forgive me leaving Christianity, but me registering Democrat? That was a bridge too far.

I saw a post essentially claiming that Trump is the only conservative choice for the election, the only one who truly cares for the American people. And it riled up my Old Guard Republican feelings (however latent) because no. However Republican and conservative you are (a minority on this website, I know), Trump is not and never has been Republican and conservative. You are deluding yourself.

Why do I say that?

Let's go down the list. (Please be aware, I am not defending conservatism--that ain't my political ideology anymore for the whole "they're trying to take away my loved ones' rights" issue. But for the sake of rhetorical strategy, bear with me.)

The claim that Trump isn't a part of the liberal elite is absurd. Trump has never felt dirt underneath his fingernails. Trump has never struggled to pay bills. Trump has paid for multiple abortions of his many affairs and mistresses. He is a draft dodger who mocked war heroes. He is a failed Hollywood celebrity that is grasping at fame. There is a reason Never Trump was popular among conservatives during the 2016 Republican primary.

My Vietnam veteran father warned me in 2008 that Putin wanted to reclaim the Soviet Union, that he was a dangerous dictator that put out hits on foreign journalists. Now he's posting videos of Putin doing judo on Facebook. It is insane that to me that the Republican party is so obviously doing a 180 after warning us for thirty years about Russia.

Trump only started caring about the pro-life movement when he realized he could manipulate them. His voting record is pro-choice. He has paid for abortions, had multiple affairs, and yes, is a serial rapist. None of this is pro-life.

Trump has insulted veterans, dishonored Arlington, and didn't have the balls to fight in Vietnam himself, ran away from the draft like a scared little boy. Now, sixty years later, he has the gall to attack Vietnam veterans and make claims on who is and isn't a war hero? He expects me to believe he gives two shits about veterans? Nah.

Trump does not care about Christianity or protecting Christian freedom. This is a big one. You are falling for a con. Trump is not and never has been a Christian; he just saw a malleable voting block. He has never asked for forgiveness from Christ the Savior and considers doing so weak. He has no relationship with Jesus. He does not pray. He had to have multiple "lessons" on Christianity with top Evangelical pastors to make him more palatable to Evangelicals.

Evangelical conservative Russell Moore penned multiple op-eds where he expressed bewilderment and betrayal that his community was blindly supporting a serial rapist that was antithetical to traditional Christian values. He isn't the only one. A large chunk of Evangelicals are sick and tired of defending a lying, cheating, coward and deluding themselves that he loved Jesus.

A significant portion of Trump's former cabinet has refused to endorse him. I cannot stress to you how wild that is to me. One thing about Republicans? They always vote for their candidate. No matter how much they dislike the candidate--that was the whole thing in 2016. A huge chunk of conservatives disliked Trump and thought him vile, but voted for him anyway because that's what you do when you're a Republican. The fact that so many are breaking away and calling him a danger to the republic? That's a big screaming deal.

Women are not safe around Trump. That used to be important to conservatives, protecting women from rapists--that was my dad's main reason for teaching me to shoot competitively.

If you support Trump, whatever. That's your insane delusional business.

But don't pretend that man is any kind of conservative or gives two shits about what true conservatives care about.

And if I may quote my Evangelical mama, "That man is going to Hell and I look forward to it."

[sixth-light]

ok ok slightly feral post as promised.

first, some context setting: I think it's really interesting to analyse texts in terms of both what the author was trying to do (and whether they succeeded) and what they ended up doing (intentionally or not) and I think their cultural/historical context is vital if you want to do this. I'm not interested in whether Robert Jordan or the Wheel of Time are, like, morally correct in their politics or whatever. I'm interested in what the art is trying to do.

and the thing about Jordan, see, is that he projected this image during his lifetime of a Genial Older Man (see: beard and pipe) but he...wasn't actually that old! He was 42 when EoTW was published. He died at 58. He was a Baby Boomer publishing books at a time when Baby Boomers were the hip young generation taking over from stodgy WWII veterans (Gen Z: It Will Happen To You Too).

What this means is that he was a child and adolescent during the Civil Rights movement, in a then-majority Black city in the Jim Crow South*. He would have gone to segregated schools. The tertiary institutions he attended had only started to desegregate a year or two before he attended each of them. I think his war trauma in Vietnam gets a lot of attention because he did talk about it and also because that's a narrative we understand for white men, but I think we...skim over the impact on white men of growing up at this time because? Civil Rights only happened to Black Americans I guess? but it's his context too. Similarly, he was an adolescent and young man at the time the (white) feminist movement was really kicking off in the US. he was in his mid-20s when banks were first legally *required* to allow women to open accounts and have credit cards in their own names. he went on to marry a woman a decade older than him, who had left her husband to raise her son as a single mother while continuing a professional career in the early 70s; these were issues that must have been incredibly relevant for her.

and what we see in his writing is attempts to grapple with gender and race that are self-evidently of mixed success, but I think have to be contextualised in light of this period of immense change he grew up in. Think about the predominance of women as merchants and bankers in WoT, in the context of how recent their rights to even control their own money were in the US. The...everything...he was trying to do with the Seanchan, making them extra-canonically Southern American-coded. The Whitecloaks as the KKK (among other things, of course).

As an example, I think there's also something probably unintentional but fascinating in the way he presents the pre-Breaking Aiel: bluntly, they are a distinct ethnic group in hereditary servitude (always thinking about how that ancestor of Rand's in the Rhuidean sequence had to get permission from Mierin Sedai to switch to someone else's service so he could marry his girlfriend, this is...uh...super cognate to issues enslaved Black people faced). They're associated with agriculture through the Song sequence. And they're pretty much the ideal of what slave-owning Southern American culture WANTED enslaved Black people to be: completely happy to serve. Then, as the post-breaking Aiel, they become feared as a source of violence, which resonates with the way that enslaved people were feared by their slavers.

I don't think for a second that the intention here was to depict the AoL as a Secret Slavery Dystopia, I think we're meant to take the Rhuidean flashback sections pretty much as they read on the page. But I also think putting Jordan in his historical and cultural context does pose the comparison. Similarly, I find it really interesting that he positions Seanchan as riven by constant revolts and uprisings (because it's a fascist slaver regime) but he never ever goes so far as to link enslaved people in Seanchan (damane and da'covale) to those revolts and uprisings, even though that is fundamentally the deep fear *for real and obvious reasons* of all slavery-based societies.

Or then there's the changes to the Two Rivers in the books - like, both then and now I think it's actually pretty radical to present an influx of Muslim-coded refugees of colour as a thing that enriches the Two Rivers both socially and economically. Various characters are wistful that it's changed, but they don't think it's bad. The text here is really clear that welcoming the Domani and Almoth Plain refugees is both morally right and beneficial. And this is in a book being written and published shortly after the first Gulf War.

There's so many more things like this where I just have no real idea what he was trying to do on purpose and what was accidental and what was fun for him in fiction but did not necessarily link at all to his real-world political beliefs. but gosh it's interesting to turn over and poke at.

[chaifootsteps]

Given that the person with the Alastor van is apparently old enough to be the wife of a Vietnam veteran, it honestly gives me Snapewives (religion formed by middle-aged women on LiveJournal around being married to Severus Snape) vibes.

All that van needs is Alastor crudely worked into a patriotic boomer bumper sticker to complete the effect.

Also, I must be running on too little sleep because the term "Snapewives" makes me think of Sister Wives but with a bunch of identical Snapes in drag.

[jaispeaksandlistens]

they depend on our protection yet they take away the rights of the people fighting the wars? taking away certain rights of disabled people? but the veterans are disable due to saving your ass. taking away women's rights? women soldiers getting raped happens more than talked about. taking poc rights? 20.3 percent of soldiers are poc. immigrants make 5 percent of the military, 4.5 percent of veterans are immigrants. 17.5 percent of soldiers are women.

Air Force: 23.4% of commissioned officers are women Navy: 20.9% of commissioned officers are women Army: 18.8% of commissioned officers are women Marine Corps: 9.8% of commissioned officers are women

As of February 2024, more than 40,000 foreign nationals were serving in the active and reserve components of the U.S. military, which is about 5% of the total on active duty. 

As of 2022, 4.5% of the country's 16.2 million veterans were born outside the United States.

Immigrants have fought in every major conflict in American history, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, both World Wars, and conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Military service has also provided a path to American citizenship for more than 760,000 immigrant service members over the last century. yet its STILL not enough.

[warriorcatsofficialfacts]

i got a fast food job recently so

warrior cats as Customers I've Interacted With (and also coworkers）

firestar is the elderly women who don't seem to realize that it is no longer commonplace to tip fast food workers and who get really surprised by how little is in the "tip jar" (it's a kids sized cup)

alderheart is the teenage girl who came in with all her friends and one of them forgot to order a drink but when i said "well i can give you a cup for Water for Free" insisted on paying for the drink cup even after i explicitly told her "yknow there's no way for us to Verify you're not using the cup for water"

thornclaw is the elderly vietnam veteran who my manager had to physically seperate me from because she could apparently smell that i was about to yell at an old man (he ordered a "chicken sandwich" and then got mad i gave him the "wrong one" even though i repeatedly said which chicken sandwich i was putting the order down for)

squirrelflight is my manager who once came out of the drive through loudly proclaiming "NO MORE CUSTOMERS. KILL ALL THE CUSTOMERS" while there were still actively customers in the lobby

nightheart is those people who blatantly come to eat at zaxbys during lunch despite working at chik fil a exclusively because working at chik fil a has made them fucking hate chik fil a

yellowfang and bluestar are these two elderly biker women who come in every three days or so and for the longest time i was trying to figure out if they were like sisters or lesbians but then recently they kissed so i guess they are in fact lesbians

[whatevergreen]

The Black Panther, July 17th 1976

60,000 Protest Bicentennial in Philly

Despite torrential rain, protestors gathered in Fairmont Park on July 4th 1976 to call for Puerto Rican independence, and to protest a wide range of issues:

"Puerto Rican socialists, Vietnam veterans, women’s rights advocates, Black liberation groups like the Black Panthers, and unemployed workers joined into one march that proceeded west along Lehigh Avenue and into Fairmount Park at Oxford Street, ending with a sprawling concert and cookout on the fairgrounds built for the 1876 Centennial."

Members of the Dakota Nation participate in the July 4th Coalition protest parade, July 4th, 1976 - Joseph P. McLaughlin

Participants in the July 4th Coalition protest parade, July 4th, 1976 - Cathy Cockrell