Honor thy soldiers and farmers

A close friend of mine keeps saying that a nation that does not honor its soldiers and farmers will go to the dogs. Our farmers, landless and otherwise, keep producing so much grains that we can afford to let some of it rot! Our soldiers’ guard our borders in what is arguably the worst neighborhood in the world. They keep us secure for the nefarious machinations of the Chinese and their hand puppets, the Pakistanis. Our lives are richer and safer due to the effort of soldiers.

Watching CNN Heroes last night my attention was drawn to one particular person, an American by the name Dan Wallrath who builds free homes for US War veterans. He says “the soldiers sacrifice their lives for citizens and the least we can do is give them a home when they return injured and handicapped”. Though all the 10 CNN Heroes are doing great social service and making significant contribution in their chosen fields, this person’s actions are in direct contrast to the goings on of the the Adarsh Scam, where our country leaders, bureaucrats and Army chiefs are involved in robbing the helpless widows of Kargil War Heroes.

“Shaheedon ki mazaron par lagenge har baras mele..
watan pe mitne walo ka bas yahi aakhri nishan hoga”

It is high time our martyrs get more than an annual mela. They need our undying gratitude. Of course, our hard working farmers also deserve a life punctuated with prosperity rather than a suicide but that will be another discussion for another day.

What the Adarsh scam is about...
The society, originally meant to be a six-storey structure to house Kargil war heroes and war widows, was converted into a 100-metre-tall building. Retired brigadier M W Wanchu, the president of the society, argued that it was not a defense land.
The high-rise was built subject to the condition that it would house war veterans, but now has 103 members, which include relatives of Chavan.
Former Army chiefs Generals Deepak Kapoor and N C Vij and former Navy chief Admiral Madhavendra Singh and Vice-Chief Gen Shantanu Choudhary also got flats in the society. They have offered to surrender their flats on the grounds that they did not know the land was meant for the widows of Kargil war heroes. Former chief secretary D K Sankaran’s son, Sanjoy, is also among the allottees. The list also includes the names of former Union environment minister Suresh Prabhu, Nationalist Congress Party MLC Jitendra Avhad, Congress leader Kanhaiyalal Gidwani and his two sons, a close aide of a senior Maharashtra minister, the children of some bureaucrats, serving bureaucrats, Seema Vyas and Idzes Kundan, and an individual by the name of S B Chavan. Ashok Chavan’s late father and former home and defence minister was also S B Chavan.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/whatadarsh-scam-is-about/414324/

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/adarsh-scam-was-this-general-the-mastermind-63677

Building free homes for wounded vets
Alexander Reyes' boyhood dream of a military career ended when he was hit by an improvised explosive device during a patrol two years ago in Baghdad.
"Laying in that hospital bed ... sometimes I felt I'd rather [have] died," Reyes said. "My life came to a complete halt."
Reyes sustained severe blast injuries that led to his medical discharge; he's on 100 percent medical disability. Like many soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Reyes, now 24, found the transition to civilian life difficult.
But he and a handful of other injured veterans are getting help from what may seem an unlikely source: a custom home builder in Houston, Texas.
Dan Wallrath recently presented Reyes and his wife with an unexpected gift: a home built especially for them, mortgage-free.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/03/11/cnnheroes.wallrath.vets.houses/