WTF

I haven't worked in 15 months. Not because I WON'T work, but because I CAN'T work. Within the last ten years, I have been a janitor cleaning toilets, a 'house parent' babysitting teen drug addicts, worked as a lawn service technician (I mowed grass and picked up sticks....EXCITING), and have done various handyman jobs for people who know the integrity of my work.

I spent 12 years proudly in the United States Naval Forces, after having joined when I was a mere child of 17.

I had taken on the responsibility of father/husband at the age of 16, and went active in the Navy on my 17th birthday.

I have worked in either fields, diners, carpentry, bricklaying, electric, plumbing, or been in school since I was eight years old.

There is NO job I couldn't learn, and NO job beneath my dignity. I was cleaning toilets in middle schools at 42. Was made a supervisor and given my own school as head "Custodian" after 4 months. Because I always believed if you took a man's money, you did a man's job. And I was always taught that if you "digged holes fer a livin', you digged the bestest holes out thar."

When my Dad, who taught me the meaning of a good work ethic and accountability learned I was going into the Navy, I figured I'd get a ration of hard line Army crap from this 32 year retired Army Veteran. What he DID say was: "If you gotta be a damned swab, I'd expect you to be better than those other pisspots in the Navy."

I was always proud of my ability. Now I am DIS-abled. Which is hard for me. I am not a watcher. I'm a doer. And it pisses me off no end when I hear stories like this:
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/social-security-disability-depleted/2013/12/17/id/542390#CommentSection

A report by the nonpartisan group Our Generation provided further evidence of abuse within the SSDI program, including:

• An information technology supervisor from Minnesota received $144,293 in disability payments — $6,773 a month — after faking a diagnosis of early-onset dementia.

• A Missouri man contended he was unable to work and from 2004 through February 2008, received nearly $60,000 in illegal Social Security disability payments — while he was earning more than $30,000 a year as a state legislator.

• A Social Security worker and a group of doctors in Puerto Rico created a large and sophisticated system for defrauding the federal government of disability benefits that likely totaled $6 million.

• A Vietnam veteran was sentenced to two years in prison for defrauding taxpayers of $7,575 in disability payments and more than $500,000 in various Veterans Administration benefits after falsely claiming he couldn't walk or stand.

"What the report aims to highlight is how the program, which is well-intentioned, remains susceptible to outright fraud and abuse," says MacMillin Slobodien, executive director of Our Generation, which promotes free-market solutions to public policy issues.

"By highlighting these examples of abuse we hope to raise awareness among the public and legislators of the need to implement cost controls, and tighten eligibility requirements and oversight. It was meant to be a temporary assistance program, and if you provide people with the incentive to get back to work, then you might have fewer people trying to game the system," Slobodien told Newsmax.
There are some truly sorry-assed bastards out there. And America has certainly gone a long way downhill from when I was growing up.
Fuck Obama.