Road closed...

So I never sustained much injury from being deployed aside from my muscles being separated from my ribcage after being kicked full force. There are plenty of service members who had to put up with some real shit. Bullet wounds, IED shrapnel, etc etc... We've all put our time in, and the modern soldier did it voluntarily. Quite a few of the heroes from prior wars had no choice but to go fight. This blog isn't to convince anyone about the balls it takes to be a member of the military. If you don't already appreciate the people who will give their lives for you and future generations, then fuck you.

This is about something that only a veteran in the flesh can relate to. I was fortunate to come back in one piece, twice, and I've never had much difficulty adjusting back to society except for this one little thing that pisses me off.

It really doesn't even matter what military you fight in, or what country you are from, the concept of pride is pretty important in my opinion.

On my way to California, I stopped along a mountain route to kill some time and quite honestly to do what the hell I want to do for a change. I figured I'd head into the hills, find a roadside picnic area and maybe even wrap the hammock around a few trees and enjoy the lack of cell phone service.

Until I got to the 'road closed' sign into the national forest.

Now I'm a pretty understanding guy when it comes to why things are the way they are but this is absolute bullshit. What I'm about to say is something that applies to other veterans who are in much worse conditions than me... Why the fuck should any citizen of their country fight for everything they hold dear to their hearts only to come home to being blocked out of one of the things that make their country what it is.

So why is this so important? More important than the fact that VA benefits are at risk of not being paid? Natural resources and places that have nothing to do with anything this government has done for us is closed off. Sure I could have gone around but the little sign talking about prosecution blah blah blah reminds me that I should be a bit smart about it.

Sure, we can come back when the budget is fixed and all but why the hell does that make any sense. Memorials honoring people who gave their life fighting for this place are closed because the government would rather spend money to keep people out just to prove a point that they are the ones in control, and they are the reason we have what we do.

I will abide by the rules as long as it's the reasonable thing to do but I will further vow to never ever ever in my life show respect to a politician who hasn't at least done their time in the service and voted in favor of every last bit of our supposedly inalienable rights that we should have.

Excess taxation is bad enough, nanny-state politics is quite annoying and unjust, over-regulation is counterproductive to what this country needs to become but not being allowed to see a natural resource because a bunch of god damned monkeys want to thump their chests and declare their alliance to a particular sect of society known as a political party is enough to push someone over the limit.

Even if this blog made it further than my circle of readers (and shit talkers), it's not formatted for the masses to be ok with. This is really old news coming from a veteran. Every last one of us knows what it's like to come back from a foreign land to be treated like dirt by too many people. To consider myself a protector of these asinine road block signs makes me sad for the state of affairs we are in.

And to top this all off, some punk ass kid is standing in front of my car at the rest stop, smoking a cigarette holding a sign asking for money.

Thank a veteran by not being a lazy ass piece of shit and maybe try to contribute something to society. If I didn't have a raging headache right now I'd try to write a little more reasonably... I'm done for now...