Forgive me, I’m not at all sure whether Veteran’s Day was yesterday or today… My family, like a lot of American families, has a strong history with the military. My mom, dad and brother all served. My grandfather spent WWII in India, my uncle in Vietnam. I even have a great-uncle who flew U2 spy planes for the Air Force. (wink wink Mom!) I even considered it for a while (albeit a very short while), back when I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life, (Do I now?), and I scored high enough on that military aptitude test to keep the recruiters calling.

Today, I received an email from an organization called Survivor Corps asking me to blog about Veteran’s Day and their efforts to raise money and awareness for injured troops. Survivor Corps began as the Landmine Survivors Network and evolved into Survivor Corps as their mission broadened to include services to victims of global conflict and war.

The traumatic effects of war, left unaddressed, will have far-reaching negative consequences for service members, their families, and their communities. Based on our ten years of global experience helping survivors of conflict overcome trauma and give back to their communities, Survivor Corps founded Operation Survivor to provide the same kind of life-changing support to American veterans and service members. ~Dani Sevilla

The email got me thinking about veterans and what it means to “support the troops.”  “Support the troops” has got to be one of the biggest cliches of our time. Sure, slap a yellow sticker on your car and you “support the troops.” Isn’t there a better way to support the troops? By actually supporting the troops? I don’t know very much about Survivor Corps, but they look like a good place to start. Asking your senators and representatives to support veteran-friendly initiatives in Congress is, too. I read in the NYTimes about an initiative to give caregiver benefits to injured soldiers’ family members who quit their jobs to stay at home and take care of them. Having worked as a nurses’ aid and a registered nurse, I know how difficult, physically and mentally, it can be to care for the ill and disabled. It is a full time job for these family members and they deserve support.

How about a book recommend? Fortunate Son by Lewis B. Puller, a Pulitzer Prize winning autobiography of Puller’s experiences in Vietnam and trying to live after horrific wounds and alcoholism. Consistently rated at 5 stars, it is an emotional read, especially when you know the author committed suicide only three years after its publication. Soldiers need our help and understanding.

How about a documentary recommend? Section 60, now airing on HBO, pays tribute to the fallen soldiers of Iraq and Afghanistan through footage of Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery. Created by the same filmmakers who made Baghdad ER (which I mentioned here), Section 60 is a moving and memorable look at the mourning process. Soldiers’ families need our help and understanding, too.

My brother went to war and came home healthy, as healthy as one can come home from war. He was one of the lucky ones. Let’s not forget the rest.

I might grumble and complain about political campaigning, mudslinging and partisanship but when election night rolls around, I can’t help it, I grin like a fool. I don’t care much for outward signs of patriotism, I don’t need to show off to anyone how I feel about my country, but come election day, I wear red, white & blue. I enjoy this day more than the 4th of July.

I love the process. I love that we can just march down to our polling place, tick a box and have our say. (Or in my case, mail off a ballot a month ago…) The Americans have spoken today! Loudly!

And I’m especially proud to say I made it through the entire campaign without seeing ONE presidential campaign commercial!!

I can’t tell you how much I love this story – a Colombian man and his traveling library – The Biblioburro. The power of knowledge and books is an amazing thing. I worry we might be forgetting that in America. I cringe a little at the idea of Joe Six Pack, to be honest. Since when is being educated a bad thing? We should all strive to be educated. What’s great about Joe Six Pack? He sits on his couch guzzling beers, watching TV. What kind of work ethic is that? What kind of family values does he have? Just look at these Colombian kids. They have a real desire for education. Without it, they will have very few choices in their future. They might as well be Chinese, Vietnamese, Nicaraguan, Nigerian, etc. because it is the same story worldwide – education!

Stepping off the soap-box, I also love this story because it combines two of my favorite things – libraries and donkeys.

Who Will Tell the People?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN on NYTimes

Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.

They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.

Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.

We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”

That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.

How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.

And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore … have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”

A man has infiltrated Heathrow’s runway…with a bag. I guess we know what’s coming next, right?

“Attention all travelers. Drop your bags at the doors. Repeat. Drop your bags. For your own security and well-being you are now only allowed to board the aircraft with the clothes on your back and an ID. Move along.”

Man Arrested for Running Onto Heathrow Runway

LONDON (Reuters) – A man was arrested on Thursday after running onto a runway at London’s Heathrow airport carrying a bag, police said.

“I can confirm that at approximately 2:05 p.m. (10:05 a.m. EDT) a man was seen airside at Heathrow airport on the northern runway. He’s been arrested by police and he’s currently in custody,” a police spokesman said. He declined to say whether the incident was considered terrorism-related.

“A bag has been recovered and obviously it will be examined,” he said.

BBC television pictures showed several emergency cars with flashing lights parked on the airport runway.

A spokesman for airport operator BAA, owned by Spanish company Ferrovial, said he was aware of an incident and was checking details.

(Reporting by Peter Graff; editing by David Clarke) via NYTimes

Just how much does America “support the troops”? Just ask the wife of Gerald Cassidy.

Tying a yellow ribbon around a tree or flying a flag is not enough. We should be outraged at the neglect our sick soldiers receive. America needs to make health care a top priority – for all!

I thought this little tool was cool! Funny how the use of the word economy decreases over time!

reading right now (And what I think you should read, too!)

• Has AT&T Lost Its Mind? by Tim Wu – So I hear AT&T wants to filter the Internet. Bad idea, here’s why. Last time I checked, we were living in 2008 not 1984.

• Waving Good-bye to Hegemony by Parag Khanna – just what will the new world order look like? A recipe for what America can do to ensure its place.

• Kenya on the Brink by Arno Kopecky – photos and essay of the post-election violence. And while you’re at it, visit Kopecky’s blog.

• Rehabilitation Under Fire: Health Care in Iraq 2003-2007 published by Medact, a global health charity that undertakes advocacy, research and education on behalf of countries experiencing lack of health care due to war, poverty and environmental problems.

Interesting article on The Economist website about Islam in Indonesia. Good reading for those out there who still believe a certain US presidential candidate is out to bring radical Islamic terrorism to the White House.

I should have posted this on Thanksgiving, but why restrict being thankful to just one day!?

From Foreign Policy magazine, 5 reasons we should all be thankful:

1. Your plane isn’t going to crash! Better safety standards make air flight incredibly safe! (I can vouch for this one!)
2. Fewer kids are dying. Health care basics like vaccines, mosquito nets, breastfeeding, clean water and better access to health professionals are saving children’s lives.
3. Wars are history. Armed conflicts fell by 40 percent between 1993 and 2003.
4. Poverty is down. Fewer people are living on $1 a day – from 1.5 billion people in 1981 to 985 million in 2004.
5. You’re living to retirement. We’re living longer lives all over the globe thanks to modern medicine and improved sanitation.

Sounds great to me! And here I thought the end of the world was nigh. Read more details at FP.