The GI Bill

Is defective.

The IAVA is trying to get some parts of it fixed. I am hoping, personally, that the stupidity of pro-rating it stops.

Because that's one of the petty ways someone figured out to short change the vets. Why do I say that? Because the GI Bill is time limited. If I am enrolled in classes in June, and have that month certified with the GI bill, I have used a month of my eligibility.

So far, so good, but... if June is a short month... I don't get the full value of that month. If finals end on the 14th, I'll get a bit less than half of the 1,100 I am entitled to for a month of classes.

But, I don't get to keep half a month's eligibility at the other end. Nope, that months is gone.

Last year, I did nine months of classes. I used 7 months of eligibility (there were some paperwork issues, which cost me a couple of months. I got 4 1/2 months worth of payments. It's not as if I wasn't in school. It's not as if, somehow, I was going to have an extra $500 show up in the months which had gaps in classes. The quarter ends when it ends, and the scheduling of the next one isn't set by the soldier. So why are we screwed?

Full-time class load (thirteen quarter credits, ea. quarter) and a job. So where was I supposed to find the extra money; if I'd been in need of it to make the rent? Honestly, if I'd been as dependent on the GI bill as I thought I was going to be... it would have been touch and go in March and April. My disability has picked up that slack.

So, it really needs some tweaks. I've already complained to my reps about it, but any other voice in the choir would be all to the good.

In the meanwhile, the the IAVA has a petition: supporting changes to the GI Bill

They want 10,000 signatures. I was 673.

REI full of win, Garmin rates a fail

I had that wonderful experience returning the GPS, then I tried to load the software I'd previously purchased.

No dice. Seems they follow the "lease not purchase" model of sales. To be fair, I think this only applies to the street maps, but still. Because I didn't actually register the previous unit Which came a surprise to me, I thought I had, when I sent its data [S/N, unit ID] to Garmin, and then unlocked the software. When I had some problem which required proving I had the license, it said, "this has been unlocked" and the "retrieve unlock codes" button worked fine.

With a new unit, not so much. They wanted me to fax, or scan, the receipt for the new one. Only I'd not kept it. REI doesn't care, and I'd registered it with Garmin, so...

We did some back and forth in e-mail (they were prompt) and I said that, as things were going, I'd probably return the software. They said that would be best. I pointed out that didn't mean swap it for a new copy, but a straight return for someone else's maps.

Then I looked into DeLorme, and discovered they have what look to be better maps (1:24,000 US, 1:50,000 Canadian, plus streets) for half the price. When I'd given them a good three hours to say, "wait, we'd like to keep you as a customer," and they made no reply, I took the disks back to REI, and REI swapped them for the Topo 9.0 (I'd link to REI, but it's not available online).

It's actually less than half the price, because I'd have to buy three, or four, sets of maps to get that same scale of maps from Garmin; for just the US. I also got a $40 credit for online maps (aerial imaagry, NOAA charts, etc.) and 30 bucks a year gets me unlimited access to downloading from those databases). So I seem to be ahead of the game, monetarily.

So, Garmin got my business, on the grounds of having a really good GPS. I was willing to spend a fair bit of money to have maps I knew would be no hassle to install. But they blew it, with a business model that made me feel like they saw me as a cash cow (or perhaps a thief).

We shall see what I think of the DeLorme, but the features, as described, look to be a lot more bang for my buck.

Obama WTF?!?!!!!

A kid in the UK sent an e-mail to the White House, calling Obama a prick.

Now, the merit of that e-mail can't really be known, because the only things we seem to know are:

1: it was a teenager.
2: he says he was drunk, and high.
3: the e-mail has not been shared with the public.
4: it was after he saw a documentary about 9/11.

Why do I mention it?

Because he has been given a lifetime prohibition from entering the US.

What the fuck? I'd have expected something like this from Bush, sort of. Who makes that call? How? Perhaps there was more in the missive, some actual threa; instead of a bit of verbal abuse, but I'm, sorry, that goes with the job. I can hope this was a bit of knee-jerk from a low level flunky, but even if Obama intervenes to overturn the ban, it looks petty.

And it offends me.

(not all is as it appeared: I got snookered

Ignoble, perhaps, but dancing on her grave would be hard

So I've ordered some music, for when Thatcher dies

Chumbawumba have recorded an album. If you want it, you have to order it in advance. The only copies sold will be to those who prepay (5£).

I like Chumbawumba, I'd hate to miss out on what might be some really good music.

Musings

This one has been stewing for a while. A friend sent it to me, asking what I thought about this BBC piece:

"In his heart every man thinks meanly of himself that he was not a soldier"

Samuel Johnson was, in his acerbic, and somewhat patronising way, right.

There is some merit in it, but Sherman was partly right too, "War is hell, it's glory is all moonshine."

Somewhere between that, and "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers," lies the truth, but where that truth truly lies, God only knows.

"It was a million dollar experience, you wouldn't pay a nickel to do over again."

Which is what a US airman, who was flying in bombers (I think he was a pilot, but I might be wrong), in WW2.

Personal data point. I knew I was going. I knew it back in 2002, sometime in June, July at the latest. In August I was teaching people interogation; and it was a fib. Not the teaching but the explanation. The funding was from a pot to support OEF, in Afghanistan. We knew, straight up, that it was a lie. Everyone in that room was being trained in the expectation their units were going to Iraq.

Most of them did.

When we got the orders, and Maia was dropping me off at the Armory to go to some bullshit "training" (in a straight-up violation of the regulations for deployment), I told her I didn't want to go, I'd be happy as a clam to stay home, but there was no way I could live with myself if my unit went, and I didn't.

I was only fibbing to her a little bit. It's not that I wanted to go, because I didn't, not exactly. I thought Iraq was a stupid idea from the get go. It's not that I wanted to be shot at, or to shoot at people. No, it's something ineffable. A sense of test. I did 16 years in the Army; Eight before, "That Tuesday", eight after.

I was on a short list to Bosnia... five times. I think so, maybe six. I trained about 300 people how to be interrogators. Some of them went to Bosnia, or Kosovo,and used the skills. That's what I wanted to know.

Can I do it. And "it" was a big thing. Not just sitting across the table from some guy, and squeezing him like a lemon, until all the useful stuff is out of him, and someone else can pull the pulp and the pits out of it to get the good stuff to pass along so we could make lemonade.

No, the questions of deprivation, make-do, coping with shit, all those are in it too.

Don't get me wrong, I was more than willing; even eager, to have a Miltonian career, but that goes by the boards when there is a war on.

Once the balloon goes up, all bets are off. Nixon once said, "until you have been a part of something greater than yourself, you have not really lived." War is that, and more to the point, one knows it. I'd spent eight years prepping for it, prepping others for it.

To go, would be unbearable. To stay might be worse. To stay, and have someone die... when I was safe at home, unthinkable.

So yeah, I understand, completely, how those guys feel. If I go someplace where there are soldiers, be they US, British, Ukrainian, Greek, Russian, German, Korean, you name it... The Question comes up, "Been to Iraq?".

I get to say yes. That's all I need to say. At that point I am in a different category. I've "seen the elephant", and if they've seen it too, we can talk. I've heard stories about Afghanistan, in Russian; from a Ukrainian. I've just sat and had a quiet drink with Russians, guys who were old in uniform when Reagan was in office (five years makes a difference, ten can be a lifetime), nothing to say, but memories to not share together.

There are moments in one's life, times which mark before, and after. Time in combat zone is that, and all of us know it, and like flame to a moth, we circle it.