@FreddyLA7 If you have a chance, check out Waterbury. Sleepy little town. During the winter it looks like it’s out of a Christmas hallmark movie. If you like great beer, the Reservoir, Prohibition Pig, and Blackback Pub won’t steer you wrong. I’m loving your travels & am glad you came to 🇺🇸
This is a disgrace.
A Gulf War Marine veteran named Albert O’Toole who served this country, took a blast that left him with TBI, and was later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s was beaten by his aide Matthew Cox inside the New York State Veterans Home in Montrose, New York.
His wife Angela Sangro became concerned after seeing unexplained bruises and heavy sedation. She installed a hidden camera. The footage shows the aide yanking food out of Albert’s hands, grabbing him by the neck, throwing him into a chair, punching him, and striking him in the head with a broom while he cried out in pain. No one came to help.
The state fired the abuser.
But the federal VA? Still has him employed. Still paying him while the case drags on.
You make veterans fight through hell just to get the benefits and compensation they earned with their blood and sacrifice. You move fast to cut or reduce what’s owed to them.
But when one of your own is caught on camera assaulting a defenseless veteran? You keep him on the federal payroll like it’s nothing.
@SecVetAffairs you talk about accountability. Here it is. Fire this man from the VA now. No pay. No protection. No more dragging it out.
@SecWar our warriors come home broken from fighting for this nation. They deserve better than a system that protects abusers while making veterans fight for every dollar they earned.
@SpeakerJohnson this is on you too. Oversight without teeth is just theater. Do your job.
This isn’t how you treat the men and women who served. This is a betrayal.
Veterans FIRST.
Zero tolerance for those who abuse them.
Immediate action. No excuses.
If you’re not outraged by this, you’re not paying attention.
Semper Fi.
@TheTankGuns
@giveashitnature I grew up my entire life believing that part about the parent birds being able to smell your hands and abandon the baby bird. I appreciate your posts!
90% of the soldiers on the first boats to hit the beach didn't live to see the end of the day. Look at those faces. Some of them never made it to 18.
Never forget that they paid the ultimate price for our freedom. We live our lives the way we do because of them.
A "dove release" at a wedding or funeral is a death sentence for the birds.
The white "doves" sold for releases aren't doves. They're domestic white pigeons bred to be small and pretty, with no survival skills outside a coop.
The cheaper DIY versions (Ringneck Doves, King Pigeons) can't even find their way home. Nearly all of them die within days.
Even professional releases with trained homing pigeons lose birds every time. Hawks take them in the air. Cars hit them when they land exhausted. They collide with windows. There are lots of ways it can go sideways for them.
Rehabbers pull them in with broken wings, raging trichomoniasis, and bodies so emaciated they can't stand. One described a release pigeon whose throat infection had hardened so completely it distorted the shape of his skull.
There is no version of this where the birds "fly away and live happily ever after." That's the marketing. The reality is a domestic animal traumatized or killed for a 15-second photo.
This one broke me today.💔
A 38 year old nurse and mountaineer named Saleheh Akbari and her husband Ahmad Khodaei opened their home to wounded protesters who were too scared to go to hospitals on Jan 8 and 9, because the regime was hunting them down.
They treated them.
Hid them. Saved lives.
A few days later, on January 12, security forces raided their house. Ahmad wasn’t home yet, so they waited.
When he walked in, they jumped him and started beating him.
Saleheh threw herself between them to protect her husband.
They shot her in the heart. Point blank. Right in front of Ahmad, and their little 8 year old.
She died in his arms.
The grief destroyed him.
Ahmad couldn’t carry it.
He wrote one last letter to his wife, said goodbye to the world and posted it on his Instagram. He took his own life.
Two hearts that only wanted to help people, gone.
Because they dared to show humanity in a regime that has none.
This is what bravery looks like in Iran.
And the world keeps scrolling.
Share this.
Their story deserves to be heard. 💔
"what a shame to be 42 years of age not completely covered in scars. they're the evidence of a life fully lived." i love shrinking so much, man, what a show 🥹