In the few months since I made my site here a fund-raiser for Fisher House, I have blamed the economy, the spammers, the general no-goodniks of society for the apparent apathy to charities like Fisher House.  But on more thought, I think that here in my neighborhood, a few other things are operative.  I just need to clear my head on these, and so, all of you unfortunate readers must bear with me.  Well, or, click away of course, to something more entertaining and diverting.  Are you guilty yet?

I  live in a military rich environment—Ft. Lewis, McChord Air Base and north of us a number of Navy bases.  Seattle still falls to its collective retail knees whenever the fleet, or a single aircraft carrier, comes to port.   So, you would think they would all have a vested interest in a charity FOR military members and families, right?

Wrong.  There is this phrase: “The military looks after it’s own.”  Right.

!!Like the barracks of the 82nd Airborne Div at Ft. Bragg?  Looks after it’s own like that, you mean?  Where the state politicians are scrambling to look involved as men back from Afghanistan live in a military slum?

!!Like the old military quarters on base after base where no meaningful repairs are done because “Well, they are gonna be condemned when we get ‘em empty”….like the place my son lived in Ft. Eustis, Va that had a nine foot by twelve foot long piece of molding ceiling fall down?  Like that?

!!Like the VA Hospitals round the country lying about the number of desperate patients attempting suicide?  Like that?  Like the dozens of military medical centers so understaffed that family members stay at bedside to care for their wounded men and women sent home from the wars?  Like that?

!!Like men medical’d out but given no meaningful pension to support them in their new physically disabled life who are living on grits and eggs three times a day and hoping to not be evicted?  Like that?

Back when Reagan and Bush I talked about charity being a hundred points of light, I cringed.  Because I knew what it meant; it meant the government was going to stop keeping it’s promises to people whenever possible.  And the most vulnerable are always the military members and their families.

The military is NOT taking care of the families and service members being shot and blown to bits in the wars.  They are struggling, bravely and alone in most cases.  Places like Fisher Houses try to give them a place to stay instead of high cost motels as they go to their wounded service members.  So, get that “the service takes care of its own ” tripe out of your mind.  The service has barely enough funds to do the bare minimum and sometimes not even that.

Now, I understand hard times.  I can barely imagine how I can afford paying for internet service some months, and I have quit buying some of the foods that used to be common on my table.  I do not go job hunting because I have been out of the market a long time and my job skills would take a bottom of the barrel job–that would ease my financial needs, but possibly STARVE the person who needed the job for desperate survival.  So yes, hard times I get.  But if you and others you know don’t want to give to a charity to help the military being chewed up and spat out; be honest about it.  Be up front on your reasons—it IS your  money and you DO get to choose what to spend it on or not and that is RIGHT.

Admit you would rather go to the movies, buy a new video game, get that $3 latte every day.   Or say you have too many bills, you feel to stretched and uncertain.  Even say you don’t know whether Fisher House is just another bilking job like so many charities.  Just please don’t tell yourself or me that it is unnecessary because “the military takes care of it’s own.”

And you know how some of us will get checks from the government soon—to presumably finance a little private shopping circus?  They SHOULD have put that money into care for these wounded men, women and families.  THEY earned it with blood and bone.  Fisher House IS where my portion of that check (if we get one) is going, although I could use new shoes and some medical appointments my insurance won’t pay for at all.  Because I am THAT angry that the government is trying to buy an election with what military members paid for in pain and suffering and death.

And for those who would say this is no way to raise funds, by scolding like a harpy?  Well, yes, honey gets more flies than than vinegar; but I am a harpy kind of woman.  I don’t want flies, I want raised consciousness and cash given not cause you have been buttered up, but because you give a damn.