sgtski1010
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Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2022 3:43 pm
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Re: Veterans

Post by sgtski1010 » Thu May 19, 2022 5:56 am
I am going to start doing whatever I can to get things going now. Currently when I am helping vets and I have to travel any distance I have to pay for it myself. I am not complaining. I am just wanting to accomplish more than what I alone can afford to pay for. I am going to start liquidating more assets to help get things going. I am going to start with a large record collection and some fund raising. Currently I help others be able to afford Quadramune. I have so many more vets that I would love to be handing them Quadramune and Projuvenol. At the same time I have to start making things go in a direction that can help so many vets. I am also making sure I buy stock in companies of the future. Treatments that are promising so I will also have revenue streams from the stock to help fund the clinic in the future.
I have about 18,000 vinyl records. Some were given to me and most I have bought. I have some amazing music. I am going to use over 10,000 as part of a fundraiser to help me get this project going. I am starting a company to get this retreat to become reality. It will be my goal to establish a non-profit that can then start working on securing the land needed. I have a Think Tank as I have mentioned before. I use it to help Veterans get their benefits from The VA and many other places.
Each Brother or Sister in Arms I help is a ripples through their world. I have been getting other veterans and some civilians to help be coaches in other states. I am helping people in 5 states and that is only going to increase. I want to expand and start paying for the gas for those helping me and veterans so they can start taking vets fishing or maybe to the mud races or even the zoo. Showing vets a little humanity can go a long way. Some of those helping don't real what good it does in their lives.
So, I have records that are signed by the artists. I have 78's, 33's, & 45's. I have an Elvis collection that has many rare records. I have a Beatles white album. I have The Beatles complete set of European releases and they are still unused. I have many records worth 5 grand and more. I have some records that are not collectors records but the work and it is nice to play them when I am in the mood. Some Classical and some Jazz records are Masters. What I am getting at is I am going to be selling these as another way to help raise funds to ensure I can get this retreat going. Many vets have told me that they seek my help and can't wait for the clinic and retreat to happen because it isn't some corporation getting rich and collect large pay checks on the backs of vets.
I am going to try and also establish a go fund me page to help. I know that every vet we help makes a difference. It is going to cost a bit just to increase the amount of people that will work with or for the clinic. As some people that will work there when it is built can start working as part of my out reach program. I know that this is a big part of what I need to do for the rest of my life.
I have seen first hand that many vets that were self medicating and drinking every day to excess have stopped on their own. Many have been turning their lives in a new direction. That has been an additional benefit that has come with working with vets to get their benefits. There a re reasons why what I am doing and what some are trying to help me do is working. If your reading this I would say to you think of your family and what a difference having your benefits will be. If you have a friend or family member of a vet then encourage them to make sure they get their benefits. It may not matter as they are younger but it does matter. Instead of saying Thank You for your service you could say, " We won't forget and make sure you have you VA benefits". It is a start. I have witnessed many vets change their life. They have become productive and have some vitality again. Each day I learn of veterans that take their life and it breaks my heart that that soul left earth too soon.

let me know what i can do to help you Sgt. Ski .

I know that the retreat is something that is greatly needed. I thought originally I'd find away to make it happen myself as to not owe anyone anything so that it might stand for 130 years or more. Having a place were vets can come and help them figure out what is medically wrong with them and then help them understand a path that could help them have a better quality of life. I have always believed a better quality of life is better than quantity. I'd take a good year rather than 18 months of misery, that is unless after that 18 month improvement would help with quality of life.
I am going to start a go fund me page to open the non profit. That should take between 100,000 and 140,000 to hire attorneys and seek a location I could rent while working on a large fundraiser that would help me raise between 8 and 12 million. The retreat has to have the ability to retrain vets and let them become welders that are certified and plumbers and many other fields. That along with addressing their health and helping them get compensation from the VA would truly make a difference.I am also talking with several people to see about a fund raiser that coincides with Light, Lite, lighten. From Colorado to Arlington cemetery. I am trying to see if I can make that work this year and we'd arrive at Arlington on 11-11. Bring attention to the vets that are taking their lives in numbers that exceed the civilian population. The pilgrimage would be something we'd do every year. Any generosity from others that want to help I can pm.

Sgt. Ski,
the PayPal option for charities is : 100% of the money donated gets to the recipients vs. a % is donated to GFM, for a GofundMe page .

GFM though, does allow an option for donors to choose no % to go to GFM .

some people donate, and don't want a middle man in the donation process, when donating charitably .

I do appreciate that as I am new to asking others to help me do what I really wanted to accomplish. I will look into Paypal and see if I can use them and what the requirements are.

I came across this today and thought I would share it with the forum.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To understand a Military Veteran you must know:

We left home as teenagers or in our early twenties for an unknown adventure.

We loved our country enough to defend it and protect it with our own lives.

We said goodbye to friends and family and everything we knew.

We learned the basics and then we scattered in the wind to the far
corners of the Earth.

We found new friends and new family.

We became brothers regardless of color, race or creed.

We had plenty of good times, and plenty of bad.

We didn’t get enough sleep.

We smoked and drank too much.

We picked up both good and bad habits.

We worked hard and played harder.

We didn’t earn a great wage.

We experienced the happiness of mail call and the sadness of missing
important events.

We didn’t know when, or even if, we were ever going to see home again.

We grew up fast, and yet somehow, we never grew up at all.

We fought for our freedom, as well as the freedom of others.

Some of us saw actual combat, and some of us didn’t.

Some of us saw the world, and some of us didn’t.

Some of us dealt with physical warfare, most of us dealt with
psychological warfare.

We have seen and experienced and dealt with things that we can’t fully
describe or explain, as not all of our sacrifices were physical.

We participated in time honored ceremonies and rituals with each other,
strengthening our bonds and camaraderie.

We counted on each other to get our job done and sometimes to survive it
at all.

We have dealt with victory and tragedy.

We have celebrated and mourned.

We lost a few along the way.

When our adventure was over, some of us went back home, some of us
started somewhere new and some of us never came home at all.

We have told amazing and hilarious stories of our exploits and adventures.

We share an unspoken bond with each other, that most people will never
know, and few will understand.

We speak highly of our own branch of service, and poke fun at the others.

We know however, that, if needed, we will be there for our brothers and
stand together as one, in a heartbeat.

Being a Veteran is something that had to be earned, and it can never be
taken away.

It has no monetary value, but at the same time it is a priceless gift.

People see a Veteran and they thank them for their service.

When we see each other, we give that little upwards head nod, or a
slight smile, knowing that we have shared and experienced things that
most people have not.

So, from myself to the rest of the veterans out there, I commend and
thank you for all that you have done and sacrificed for your country.

Try to remember the good times and make peace with the bad times.

Share your stories.

But most importantly, stand tall
for you have earned the right to be called a Veteran.

My Dad had this tucked into his old gear, folded up in an envelope, and I retyped it. He was present on that day when this sermon was given on Iwo Jima at the 5th Marine Division cemetery. Dad landed in the first wave and told me he saw Old Glory go up on surabachi. Sobering.

The Purest Democracy

Sermon on the Dedication of 5th Marine Division Cemetery

On Iwo Jima March 21, 1945

By Chaplain Roland B. Gittelsohn

THIS IS PERHAPS THE GRIMMEST, and surely the holiest, task we have faced since D-Day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the sides with us, as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island. Men who fought with us and feared with us. Somewhere in this plot of ground there may lie the man who could have discovered the cure for cancer. Under one of these Christian crosses, or beneath a Jewish Star of David, there may rest now a man who was destined to be a great prophet to find the way, perhaps, for all to live in plenty, with poverty and hardship for none. Now they lie here silently in this sacred soil, and we gather to consecrate this earth in their memory.

IT IS NOT EASY TO DO SO. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their places. Indeed, some of us are alive and breathing at this very moment only because men to lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of such men as these is not easy, Of the, too, can it be said with utter truth: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. It can never forget what they did here."

No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our division who are not here have already done. All that we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace that they did in war. To swear that, by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours shall never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. If that freedom be once again lost, as it was after the last war, the unforgivable blame will be ours, not theirs. So it be the living who are here to be dedicated and consecrated.

WE DEDICATE OURSELVES, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in war. Here lie men who lived America because their ancestors, generations ago, helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion, because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor . . . together. Here are Protestants, Catholics, and Jews . . . together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudice. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.

Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that, will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the right of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, of white men and Negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them have here paid the price.

TO ONE THING MORE do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America's fighting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of democracy at home. This war, with all its frightful heartache and suffering, is but the beginning of our generation's struggle for democracy. When the last battle has been won, there will be those at home, as there were last time, who will want us to turn our backs in selfish isolation on the rest of organized humanity, and thus to sabotage the very peace for which we fight. We promise you who lie here: we will not do that. We will join hands with Britain, China, Russia in peace, even as we have in war, to build the kind of world for which you died.

WHEN THE LAST SHOT has been fired, there will still be those eyes that are turned backward, not forward, who will be satisfied with those wide extremes of poverty and wealth in which the seeds of another war can breed. We promise you, our departed comrades: this, too, we will not permit. This war has been fought by the common man; its fruits of peace must be enjoyed by the common man. We promise, by all that is sacred and holy, that your sons, the sons of miners and millers, the sons of farmers and workers, will inherit from your death the right to a living that is decent and secure.

WHEN THE FINAL CROSS has been placed in the last cemetery, once again there will be those to whom profit is more important than peace, who will insist with the voice of sweet reasonableness and appeasement that it is better to trade with the enemies of mankind, than, by crushing them, to lose their profit. To you who sleep here silently, we give our promise: we will not listen. We will not forget that some of you were burnt with oil that came from American wells, that many of you were killed by shells fashioned from American steel. We promise that when once again men seek profit at your expense, we shall remember how you looked when we placed you reverently, lovingly, in the ground.

THUS DO WE MEMORIALIZE those who, having ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much blood has gone into this soil for us to let it lie barren. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: this shall not be in vain. Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come, we promise, the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere. AMEN.

the usual veteran retreat