...   
      
    LL>> I have met several homeless vets on the street.  Many of them   
    LL>> have lifelong injuries and/or mental problems.  Getting shot or   
    LL>> shot at is not something that one easily forgets.   
      
    JM> I know. Been there done that. BUT I and millions of others   
    JM> GOT OVER IT and moved on.   
      
    You were wounded? Every combat Vet I know has been changed by   
    it, even 40 years later.   
      
    LL>> Especially   
    LL>> by those who have lost an arm and/or a leg (or worse).   
      
    JM> Your point?   
      
    A close call is not like a serious injury.   
      
    JM>>> You saying I've never had a personal tragedy or experienced grief?   
      
    LL>> Not the kind of grief that some others have suffered.  For example,   
    LL>> one of my friends (now deceased) was shot in the head in Vietnam.   
      
    JM> One of my friends got shot I was there. I wasn't able to do   
    JM> anything to save him. I will never forget him  but I don't   
    JM> dwell on the event either.   
      
    Everybody has friends or relatives who die, many of them die   
    young. It's different when you spend extended periods of time,   
    or have it happen often. Someone said, one death is a tragedy, a   
    thousand deaths is a statistic. When it happens close, one death   
    is a tragedy, multiple deaths change you.   
      
    LL>> He spent the next two and a half years in hospitals, most of that   
    LL>> time in a coma.  He spent the rest of his life in constant pain,   
    LL>> which is to say almost forty years.  The amount of money spent by   
    LL>> our government to have kept him alive all those years should not   
    LL>> be an issue.   
      
    JM> Agreed.   
      
    LL>> Nor should the amount of money spent to keep any   
    LL>> of our other citizens (whether veterans or scientists or teachers   
    LL>> or even homeless bums) alive be an issue.   
      
    JM> I disagree.   
      
    And that is the point.   
      
    LL>> The right to life is a RIGHT, not a privilege.   
      
    JM> Your life might be a right, but your demanding that others   
    JM> take care of those to sorry to do for them self is not.   
      
    When you are qualified to judge who is too sorry to take care of   
    himself you might have a point. Until then it's an issue on   
    which we hold to the other side.   
      
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
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