Latest news with #VietnamVets
CBS News
26-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Wisconsin veterans ride in helicopter to commemorate Memorial Day
A group of Wisconsin veterans commemorated Memorial Day by doing something they hadn't done in more than 50 years: ride in a helicopter. "This is relaxing," Ken Seeger, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, told WCCO News. "You have to wonder how in the devil we ever got back here." Seeger was one of 11 Vietnam vets who took turns taking flight. They first carried a flag around town and then they laid two wreaths at a pond in Pioneer Park. "I'm just glad to have the grandkids and great grandkids and that's things you never ever thought about 50 some years ago," Seeger added. "It was a whole different world. Hundreds gathered at the park to watch the flights as well as attend a Memorial Day ceremony. Dave Williams drove more than an hour away in Ladysmith to honor his great-great-uncle Carl Pederson, one of more than 20 soldiers and airmen from Prairie Farm who were killed in action. Pederson died in France in 1918. "My great grandpa was his brother, and he died when he was 23. That's young," Williams lamented to WCCO News. "He was one of the relatives I never got to know."
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Vets groups torch Dems for holding up key VA picks, including memorials chief, on Memorial Day
FIRST ON FOX: A slew of veterans' groups, along with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, are criticizing Senate Democrats for delaying key agency nominations over what some have called unserious or "DOGE-type" concerns. One top nominee currently facing the collective procedural roadblock ahead of Memorial Day is wounded warrior Sam Brown, a former Nevada senatorial candidate and Army captain who was burned over more than one-third of his body when the Humvee he was riding in in Helmand, Afghanistan, hit a roadside IED that incinerated its fuel tank. He was nominated by President Donald Trump as undersecretary for memorial affairs, which maintains cemeteries and facilitates veterans' burial ceremonies – about 100,000 per year. A letter from about two dozen veterans' groups addressed to Senate VA Committee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., ranking member Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and caucus leaders was obtained Friday by Fox News Digital. The groups note that they respect the Senate's advise-and-consent role, but object to the current situation. They note that the VA has the fewest presidentially nominated positions and that other agency nominees receive overnight and weekend considerations at times. "We will be happy to bring the senators coffee and donuts during such late night and weekend sessions, of course in compliance with the Senate's gift and ethics rules," the groups wrote. Read On The Fox News App Brown and all other nominees since April have been held up by Blumenthal and Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. – but the lawmakers say their move is not personal and instead aimed to halt mass firings and other Trump-era actions. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, indicated that he would join the two Democrats, after a confirmation hearing for Brown, Marine Lt. Col. James Baehr for general counsel and Army veteran Richard Topping for VA CFO, was mooted in April by the procedural hold. "We've had 2,400 firings so far," King said, according to Stars & Stripes. Vietnam Veterans of America, in a separate letter obtained by Fox News Digital, demanded Brown, Baehr and Topping be confirmed summarily. "All three of these veterans received favorable reports following the April 9th nominations process from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee," wrote VVA President Jack McManus. New Gop Senator Tears Into Dems 'Seeking To Delay' Pete Hegseth Dod Confirmation McManus said that many Vietnam Vets are concerned about the hold-up and agree that Brown and the others are eminently qualified, blaming "two members of the US Senate Veterans Affairs Committee" for "affecting services to our veterans." Another letter from the Independence Fund, which provides resources, including trackchairs, to severely wounded veterans, said a fully staffed VA central office is crucial to its mission. Last week, when Moran again attempted to confirm Brown by unanimous consent – a voice vote that must have no audible objections – Blumenthal rose to block him. "The chairman and I share a bipartisan commitment to putting our veterans first. . . . I think we also share a respect for Sam Brown [and] his service to our nation as a decorated veteran," said Blumenthal. Blumenthal, whose own service was criticized by Trump with the nickname "Da Nang Dick" after a Vietnamese province, said that Brown's nomination lacked unanimous support in committee, citing a 10-9 vote. Trump Va Pick Doug Collins Advances To Full Senate Vote "This issue is bigger than Sam Brown. It is about information that has been denied to our committee and to us as senators. The secretary of the VA is actively working to undermine our bipartisan oversight efforts. Blumenthal told Fox News Digital he had a message for Collins: "Before you hire new top VA bureaucrats, you should be rehiring the dedicated veterans you fired." "Secretary Doug Collins is denying us essential information that is necessary for our oversight, and we want accountability. All Americans, especially veterans, deserve votes by the full Senate on top nominees—not rubber stamp unanimous consents," he said, adding Collins can ask the Senate to hold floor-debate on the nominees through regular order. In comments to Fox News Digital, Collins rejected Blumenthal's claims and lambasted the delays. "Imagine how much better off America's veterans would be if Senators Blumenthal and Gallego cared as much about fixing the department's broken bureaucracy as they do about preventing wounded combat veterans from coming to work at VA," he said. "Despite their obstruction, we will reform the department to make it work better for veterans, families, caregivers and survivors." Gallego said he also does not object to Brown personally, and that he is instead seeking agency accountability – saying in a recent statement he wants to reverse "hack-job firings." In a statement to Fox News Digital, Gallego said Collins is "more concerned with three political appointees than the thousands of veterans who are going to lose their jobs and care." "I served this country and received care at the VA. I know how important it is for veterans. Abandoning them, like Secretary Collins wants to do, is reckless and un-American. Show Congress the plan on how care won't be impacted. Anything short of that is political posturing," he said. In Gallego's Arizona, the Phoenix VA hospital is letting go 800 employees, and a 2024 inspector general report found that the site already faced staffing shortages. Recent surveys of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans show an elevated concern that VA cuts could impact benefits and health care. Fox News reached out to King for comment for purposes of this article source: Vets groups torch Dems for holding up key VA picks, including memorials chief, on Memorial Day
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Bruce Springsteen Will Never Surrender to Donald Trump
Since the 1980s Bruce Springsteen has been writing songs that emphasized, even romanticized, a polyglot vision of America and what it means to be an American. That vision is, broadly speaking, an updated version of New Deal America: one that recognizes not only the dignity and pride of honest labor but also the importance of respecting our differences, whether they are based on culture, gender, ethnicity or race. It's a vision of unity summed up in the phrase that in past concert tours Mr. Springsteen has used to close out the show: 'Nobody wins unless everybody wins.' And when Mr. Springsteen says 'everybody,' he means everybody — including undocumented migrants and border patrol agents, unwed mothers, distant and irresponsible fathers, Black victims of police brutality and the cops who (regret) shooting them, emotionally scarred Vietnam vets and Southeast Asian war refugees trying to make America their new home. The 1980s also saw the rise of an alternative vision of America: one that sought to tear down what was left of the New Deal. Its exemplar was Donald Trump, then a tacky developer and a tabloid fixture. It was based on the idea that could be summarized as: I win only if everybody else loses. Today Mr. Trump is president, and full of petty rage at Mr. Springsteen for daring to criticize him at the opening show on his current European tour. Nothing irks Mr. Trump quite as much as the disrespect of a fellow celebrity. But it's more than that. Mr. Springsteen, 75, and Mr. Trump, 78, are in many respects two opposing faces of modern America as it was built and performed by their generation. They offer their fan bases a promise of entirely different futures. Just as Mr. Trump's 2024 campaign sought to make (his) America great again, Mr. Springsteen's current Land of Hope and Dreams Tour is a nod to his idea of another, more generous vision. The lyrics to the song of the same name offer up an idealistic vision of inclusion with a train packed with 'saints and sinners,' 'losers and winners,' 'whores and gamblers' and 'lost souls.' It promises, 'Dreams will not be thwarted' and 'faith will be rewarded' with 'bells of freedom ringing.' It may also be a reference to Joe Biden's presidential inauguration celebration, where he sang the same tune. Introducing 'Land of Hope and Dreams' as the first song on the tour's opening night in Manchester, England, Mr. Springsteen told the crowd that the United States was 'currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration' that has 'no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.' Mr. Trump heard this as a challenge. The president threatened an 'investigation' into Mr. Springsteen's support for Kamala Harris and blustered on Truth Social that this 'Highly Overrated … not a talented guy' was 'Just a pushy, obnoxious JERK.' Later he put out a fake video in which he hits Mr. Springsteen with a golf ball. Perhaps Mr. Trump worried that a simple, uncompromised patriotic message on offer from a man who is arguably the nation's most beloved male rock star would break through to his fans. The appeal of both men is clear. Mr. Trump and Mr. Springsteen were born three years apart and felt, in their way, like they were outsiders. Both are now very wealthy while credibly professing to speak to and for the denizens of America's working class who live paycheck to paycheck. They reach people who could never in a lifetime earn enough to purchase a membership to Mar-a-Lago (much less buy enough $TRUMP memecoins to have dinner with the president) and may not have been able to see 'Springsteen on Broadway' or in concert (where Ticketmaster's 'dynamic pricing' process sent some of the best tickets of a recent tour into the mid-four-figure range) and still pay that month's rent. Most important, however, each man embodies a competing vision of the much-maligned American dream. Raised working class, Mr. Springsteen started out as a punkish prowler of the mean streets of the late-night, low-rent Jersey Shore but has since evolved into an icon who has come to symbolize an imagined alternative America, one that simultaneously evokes Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass,' Franklin Roosevelt's 'Four Freedoms' speech and Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' prophecy. It's an imagined country that much of the world would like to believe really exists beneath the belligerent bravado of Mr. Trump and his MAGA fans. Mr. Trump's successful businessman act has almost always been based on smoke, mirrors, his daddy's millions and, these days, an elaborate, family-enriching crypto scheme. Ditto his career as a television star, which was based on artifice on the one hand, behind the scenes, and performative sadism in front of the camera. Mr. Trump's political ideology is similarly a sham: exploiting racism, resentment and a need for dominance. Mr. Springsteen is his foil, the counter to his idea that to lift up, one must leave out. Mr. Springsteen, to his credit, regularly shows up at food banks, veterans centers, political rallies and even hospitals. In Manchester, Mr. Springsteen waxed on about 'the America I love, the America I've written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years.' It's a country, he insisted, that 'regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people' but is today threatened, as 'a majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.' Years ago, Mr. Springsteen explained his own political coming of age. 'My idea in the early and mid-1980s was to put forth an alternate vision of the America that was being put forth by the Reagan-era Republicans. They basically tried to co-opt every image that was American, including me. I wanted to stake my own claim to those images, and put forth my own ideas about them.' These days, of course, Mr. Trump's MAGA movement has been built upon the idea of doing that once more, but without even the Reagan-era optimism. The Tulane University American studies scholar Joel Dinerstein observed a turn in Mr. Springsteen's concert rhetoric in this period, 'away from his youthful reproduction of the individualistic American dream of material wealth' and toward one that envisions 'a collective American dream of self-actualization within a supportive community.' This alternative American dream is 'of a rejuvenated democracy reclaimed by fighting for social justice,' he said. Mr. Trump's deepfake golf ball assault did not deter Mr. Springsteen. On subsequent nights, Mr. Springsteen changed his set list: The show opened with 'No Surrender.' He not only repeated the same speeches but also released a live recording from that night of the tour, where he could be heard saying: 'Tonight we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!'
