As many of you know it's Veterans Day weekend
And the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Veterans Day
IS THOSE HOT, HOT DEALS! (marching band starts playing)
Oh, look what's in the news!!! Veterans Day deals and freebies.
In conjunction with USA Today these businesses are saying thanks to vets
in the best way possible with these freebies and deals!
IHOP Restaurant - free patriotic pancakes!
*fapping*
Free small order of wings and a side of fries!
Small order, ok? Don't be greedy.
And free beer at participating locations!
Some of them were like, "listen...
appreciate your service
I just can't do the beer.
I can't do the free beer."
But if you visit IHOP, you get free patriotic pancakes!
They're extra patriotic, because it's made with the tears of veterans who died waiting
for their services to come through!
You can always count on America and American consumerism to turn any serious
occasion into the best sale of the year!
But it's stuff like this kinda just shows you how unserious people are about Veterans Day
and if only the US goverment took care of their veterans
as well as fuckin' IHOP
we might be better off as a... society.
Now, I've always personally considered it one of the greatest blessings of my life.
That I
Belong to a generation that was never drafted.
I was never.. thrust into a war.
And I feel like it's to look at Veteran's Day as some super nationalistic holiday.
It's very easy to make the mistake between the war,
and those who were thrust into it as tools of our goverment and our... society.
You can disagree with the war, you can--
You can NEVER wanna go to war as a society.
But at the same time you must respect and value the people who are thrust into an absolute living hell
and the experiences they have.
I recently saw this clip of Joe Biden and his story about an interaction with a soldier,
that I thought was really interesting, I'd like you guys to see it.
I found myself in Iraq being asked by General Orleano, a four star
To pin a silver medal
On a young captain
Who had pulled someone out of a burning Humvee, risking his life.
And when I went to pin it on him in front of the entire brigade, he stood and he looked at me and said, “Sir, I don’t want the medal. I don’t want the medal.”
You know why?
He said, “He died! He died Mr. Vice President. I don’t want the medal.”
How many nights does that kid go to sleep seeing that image in his head?! Dealing with it!
52,419 wounded!
But as a veteran can tell you, over 200,000 coming home with unseen wounds!
I think when people think of veterans and casualties, they often think of -
of the death count and the wound count.
But as Joe Biden really illuminated is that-
most of the injuries, people coming back with are unseen wounds
I mean it's just a fact that veterans are 55% more likely to commit suicide than normal civilians.
And there's 22 veteran suicides in this country every day.
That's one person killing himself every hour.
Funny thing about like PTSD is that only like the last 50 years
did people even think that it was a thing.
If you came back and you showed emotion or you showed that you were hurt or scarring, people saw you as weak.
And in the military,
you know it's this whole bravado, this whole soldier attitude.
Showing weaknesses is something that a soldier is not supposed to do.
And so coming back home with these injuries that are really real!
People out here are killing themselves! More people die of suicide every year in the military than they do out in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
There's more casualties of war from people taking their own lives.
This morning I was listening to Weekend Edition,
a really short excerpt of a Vietnam veteran explaining a situation when he just saw his best friend drop dead next to him
And it gave me a really interesting insight so simply put, into how PTSD affects people and so easy to come back home and never be able to re-adjust.
Listen to this clip.
"During Vietnam, we had walked into an ambush.
And one of my friends had been killed and I stopped to look at his body
And my sergeant came up to me and said that we had to keep moving forward.
That's why we have medics, the medic would get him.
I had to go against everything I've learned growing up as regards to having feelings for people.
In order to survive I had to learn to detach and unfortunately not everyone has learned to reconnect."
I think that's the perfect explanation, it's so simply and beautifully put.
When you go to war, you have to rewire your brain, yourself to live in such an impossible nightmare, such impossible hellish environment.
To leave your best friend dead without even a moment to mourn him or check on him or see if he's okay.
You rewire your brain and a lot of people when they come back, it's not that easy to just wire it back on and live a normal life.
And in a way even though you can disagree with the war, hate the war.
You have to respect the people who went out there,
who died,
who are injured,
and who brought back this trauma.
The unseen wounds as Joe Biden said.
"We have a lot of obligations, but we have one sacred obligation
to care for those we send to war.
And to care for them and their families when they come home.
We have obligations to the elderly and the poor and...that’s the only sacred, SACRED obligation we have."
And that's why, when I see stuff like this that always pops up
You hear these horror stories.
It's just so fucked up.
"300,000 veterans may have died awaiting Veterans Affairs health care"
Because we can't even afford to give our veterans the treatment that they deserve.
The respect they deserve.
But hey guys we got fuckin' pancakes at IHOP!
You know what I mean?
It's like as Joe Biden said, it's the one sacred duty, the one sacred obligation.
And I agree with him!
Because if you, as a country, make the decision to send anybody off to go die and fight for you,
then you better fuckin' take care of them too when they get home.
And I am not a nationalistic person!
I am not -- I'm so anti war.
But if we as a country decide to send someone off,
You better take care of their ass when they get home.
And that isn't just included to free pancakes at IHOP once a year.
But that is very generous.
It's been a long time since we've had a major war.
And I hope that it never happens again.
But it's important for on days like this to reflect on the real human cost.
The real societal cost.
You know
It's not glorious,
It's not beautiful.
And uh
I mean the pancakes are dope.
But I just think that if you ask a veteran between the free pancakes and having Post Traumatic Stress,
They'd probably --
well I can't speak for everyone but,
probably I imagine they'd pick not having the PTSD.
The pancakes is a nice consolation though.
Anyway guys!
Not the funniest fuckin' episode ever
But this is something that I care about
and I hope that you know,
you guys catch some bomb ass sales today on Veterans Day
Go pick up a new mattress
50% off
What's with mattress sales on Veterans Day?
They try to sling this shit all day!
"It's the Veterans Day mattress sale!!!"
"It's Grand's Veterans Day mattress sale!"
"Veterans Day mattress sale."
"The biggest Veterans Day mattress sale!"
"The Veterans Day mattress sale!"
Rest your depressed fuckin' war torn ass on this mattress!
50% off!
Comes with buffalo wings.
Don't forget to go out there and buy some shit too while you're at it cause you gotta keep the economy movin' guys so...
Thanks for watching!
We appreciate ya
and we'll be seeing ya next time!
"Tired of waiting for the right time to get a new mattress?
Now is your chance!
It's Grand's Veterans Day mattress sale!
This is your chance to get huge discounts on Sealy and Serta mattresses!
Get the Sealy mattress in any size!
Twin, Full, Queen, even king!
For only 99 dollars for each piece!"
lets get roight into the news