Honoring veterans is more than giving lip service to their sacrifices one day a year.
This time of year, I find myself thinking about my father and aunt, who were both WWII veterans. My father was a naval gunfire spotter in the Marines and received a Bronze Star for actions in the Pacific. His job was to go ashore with the first wave of landings on islands occupied by the Japanese, make his way inland to where he could call in the coordinates of enemy guns and direct fire from the ships. My aunt also joined the Marines, saying that if the men were going to join up, women should too. She helped men in the Southern U.S. learn to read so they could enlist.
Right now we have a president who would rather give $40 billion to Argentina to prop up a dictator than release already-allocated funds to feed hungry families; who would rather tear down the East Wing of the White House for a vanity project than serve the American people by protecting their health care; who would rather gut the Veterans Administration, lay off thousands of federal workers, and hijack the National Guard to deal with nonexistent riots.
If you are bothered by these things, as I am, then join veterans and their allies who are saying no—no to the occupation of our cities, no to ICE, no to the blatant corruption that puts billionaires ahead of working Americans. Join us and support veterans, workers, and immigrants.
Join us on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11, at the Highway 101 overpass on Los Osos Valley Road. Join us to honor veterans who have served America for nearly 250 years. Join us to protect democracy.
Alison Jones
Los Osos
This article appears in Nov 6-16, 2025.
You assume that veteran’s all agree with your politics. That is unlikely. They have seen how quickly that Liberals will turn on them, and depict them as psychopathic baby killers and the like, when that suits their political agenda of the moment.
Alison:
As a veteran myself, 1/12FA, and the son of now deceased, full blown, dope smoking Boomer hippies, who attended Woodstock, owned multiple VW vans, and raised my sister and I in a converted school bus on ten acres of forest in Oregon in the early 70’s, I can tell you, your idealism and that of left and liberals is going to get us all killed or at a minimum, enslaved by our adversaries. Your kindness to them, is weakness. Your open door policies along with “free trade”:deals, bank deregulation, and trillion dollar bank bailouts has turned what was a thriving middle class into nothing but a memory. If you have managed to survive the last 50 years unscathed, your children and grandchildren won’t. Although I am registered Republican, I am not going to disparage our president nor laud him. He, as well as any president, are mere figureheads operating on behalf of the corporate interests that bought him (or her). JFK considered winding down the Vietnam war and was assassinated shortly their after. Our votes and concerns don’t matter to the robber barons that still rule our country, they are possessed of a sickness that only money can cure. They are as addicted to amassing wealth as a junkie is to shooting dope. They will never surrender their wealth willingly, it will have to be physically taken from them and returned to the American people whom they stole it from and have emisserated.
Don’t wait for the government to tell you we have collapsed, take your future into your own hands and buy the few items you will need to survive this Greater Depression before the dollar completely collapses. Might I suggest starting with some fishing poles, a countertop bread machine, a stand mixer, and yeast. We won’t recover from this. There are no jobs. Mass layoffs abound. The stock market and real estate is one giant fake bubble. Liquidity has dried up. We have no manufacturing base.
As a veteran, good luck with your “demonstration,” I’ll be out fishing and stocking my freezer with the free rock fish on our coast. After that, I’ll make a loaf of bread in my bread machine. Lastly, I’ll pray to God my depression doesn’t overwhelm me.
No one cares about any of us, it’s all lies. We are all alone. Plan accordingly.