I notice your memories don't involve people. And you suggest it's easy to kill them.

The only reason I might be lonely here is would be that all of my friends live about 1,000 miles away now that my sister and I live in our retirement home in a different time zone, but oddly enough I don't feel lonely. And the reason the memories I listed don't involve people is that I don't know you, I don't know what kind of experiences you'd understand and decided to stick to the type of thing that would make sense to anybody reading this. As an example, I have many good memories from the time I spent as a seeing eye person for a diabetic genius who'd gone blind because of diabetic retinopathy and keeping him working at JPL as a computer programmer until he had to retire because of kidney failure. Would you understand why I like remembering getting three cheers every year at a LASFS meeting, first as a Patron Saint and now as a Sacred Object? As you can probably see, my best memories aren't exactly mainstream, but they are my memories and I cherish them. Now, why do you feel that you have to denigrate everything in my life trying to prove that you're better than me? And, as far as it being easy to kill people goes, stop putting words in my mouth.

Judging only by the other responses to your post, your experience with the VA was highly atypical. I'll add my own experiences to that, making yours even more of an outlier.

Some of the clinics at the Los Angeles VA facilities might not have the fastest service, but once you're seeing a doctor (or nurse practitioner) they're highly focused on giving you the best care possible, and that goes double for any facility I've been to in the New Mexico VA system where I get my care now. (I actually live in Colorado, just North of the state line, but the nearest clinic is about 20 miles away in NM, rather than 100 miles in CO.) And, they have a robust Community Care program so that you can get specialist care from a local practitioner at VA expense rather than having to drive several hours to the nearest specialist the VA has to offer. And, you can get your travel expenses reimbursed at a quite reasonable rate.

Now, that's a brief description of my experiences; please tell us yours and explain why you're so opposed to getting care at the VA.

So when you pulled the trigger or pressed the button or whatever it was. How did you know at that moment where the shell would land and who was under it?

Actually, the only time I got to push the button was during target practice in Hawaiian waters, where the target was an uninhabited island. Normally, I had nothing to do with that as my job had to do with a missile system. Still, I did get to fire what might be considered a huge machine gun (a 5"/54 naval rifle) as I got to fire "five rounds, rapid continuous."

You are old. It does not appear you have learned to love life. I hope you find some peace in this world before you leave it.

Yes, I'd call myself old at 76, and do, but I have many wonderful memories to cherish, such as watching both an annular and a total eclipse of the sun, seeing a lava fountain on the Big Island during an eruption from Honolulu, and seeing the Grand Canyon, Half Dome and Fishers Peak. What memories are you storing up for your Golden Years?

When businesses first started to use computers, what they were installing and using were mainframes, because that's what was available. Input was from punched cards or paper tape and output was mostly to magnetic tape or through line printers. (Anybody else here remember the "80 column mindset?") This had no effect on the mail room and only affected the typing pool by turning them into card punch operators. This changed, to some extent, when dumb terminals were developed, so that data entry operators could put data directly into the computer without needing to bother with punching cards. Of course, this also made things easier for programmers as well. Things like email and the changes it made on the mail room (and the number of people needed for that) only came with independent desktop computers and the Internet.

Another war you lost. With you sitting well away from the front line. Really brave of you, such courage bombing civilians, what do you call it collateral damage?

What the bloody hell are you talking about you blithering idiot? Shore bombardment has nothing to do with dropping bombs on civilians, it's ships using their guns against enemy troops and equipment. Before you come back and sneer at me again, take a moment to find out what I'm talking about instead of showing the world how much of an ignoramus you are. Oh, and about being well away from the front lines, we were close enough to be targeted by counter-battery twice, and the second time I got to watch 6" shells landing about 30 yards off the fantail.

Maybe you are traumatised. Or just evil.

And maybe you're an ignorant, narrow-minded schmuck. At the time I wrote about, the U:SN was helping ARVAN repel the Easter Offensive, an invasion of the south where the NVA got its ass kicked because it forgot that its eastern flank was totally controlled by a bunch of ships with big guns. And while you're at it, you might want to ask yourself why we went Over There not once but twice to rescue your sorry asses and what would have happened if we hadn't.

One reason that we're making little if any progress in Afghanistan is that we're not being heavy handed enough there. Remember, the Afganis don't really understand western style justice, but they do understand collective responsibility, meaning that they see nothing wrong with an entire village being punished for the misdeeds of one inhabitant of the village. Maybe they'd respect us more if we made another Grave pf the Hundred Heads. I'm sure all liberals would denounce us for our brutality and for a change, the conservatives would agree with them, but the people of Afghanistan would understand it and maybe even respect us a little more.

I'm surprised they even have fiber in Afghanistan.

Well, if they didn't I'd be wondering why they weren't in the middle of a vast epidemic of constipation.

I like your suggestion. It helps us eliminate the "activists" who are all talk and no action. Maybe we should be asking them how much they've spent on these projects so far this year.

Few people think Groucho Marx is funny these days, but in his day, people ate it up.

I think that part of the problem here is that Groucho depended in part on a kind of word play that was fairly common then but is rarely used today. Most people need a moment to process what he said and they don't have the chance because there's no pause. As a classic example, "If you don't like it, you can leave in a huff. If you can't leave in a huff you can leave in a minute and a huff." If you're not used to that type of thing, you'd need to pause the movie for a moment to work out what he was saying and how he meant it, but people just don't do that, It's a shame, because the audience misses a lot of great lines that way.

Did you ever take your girlfriend to a movie and have it turn out so boring that Susie dozed off and made you miss your curfew?

For completeness, the Dublin III regulation doesn't actually allow returning all asylum seakers, however one reason they can be returned to another country is: "There is evidence that you were in another Dublin country, even if your fingerprints were not taken" and it's pretty hard to convince anyone that you've arrived by small boat to southern England and you weren't previously in France.

It could be argued that you'd crossed the Channel starting in either the Netherlands or Belgium, if it came to that.

I'm a 'Nam vet. I served in the Navy in '72, doing shore bombardment. It didn't bother me a bit. Does that answer your questions?

And the regular retaliation for rocket attacks-- but Gaza could have stopped that by stopping the rockets.

Yes. I've responded a few times to bleeding hearts who were claiming that all of the violence there is Israel's fault by pointing that out. Not once have I received an answer that actually addressed my point.

Most Republicans are pro-choice. Only the highly vocal Religious Right is strongly anti-abortion.