What could be better than falling into cow poop and coming out happy and sweet-smelling as a clam at high tide? I decided to affiliate with the local Veterans outfit here in my neighborhood. Imagine a peninsula fashioned identically like Florida where it only take 45 minutes to travel from the Georgia Border to the Keys at the bottom.  Likewise , imagine the width at about 3-4 miles and you have a good idea of the parameters of our rural world. According to the VA’s Disabled Veterans tables by zip code, we have 341 Vets on the VA’s disability roles out of our 16,037 residents. The gravy is my Veterans Organisation is independent and fiercely protective of its own individuality. Yessir. No affiliation whatsoever.

While the Puget Sound is far more congested than, say, the Gulf of Mexico, it is nevertheless much in keeping with the Southeast Corner of  the United States geographically. It has bred a hardy, independent type of settler and homesteader from the late 1880s to the early period of the 1900s. The Google Earth picture shows the remarkable similarity.

My daughter married into the homesteaded community so I find myself related to every Anker, Michaelson, Loy, Niemer and Lutz on the peninsula. What it also means is rugged individualism and a unique, local take on government’s role in our life. Some of the folks hereabouts tend to carry openly. If you understand the 2nd Amendment, you don’t need a Thesaurus to decipher the statement. Even more have one legally concealed. Washington State is one of those amalgams of recently arrived progressives of the Sandy Hook persuasion contrasted by a staid, conservative element whose country ways are deeply ingrained. I live on five acres and can still legally shoot off my back deck. If it’s raining, I have an indoor pistol range.

The good news is it carried over into the Veterans organization. They didn’t cotton to the idea of having any one of the Big Six  (or one of the other 39) step in and assert control of their endeavour. Good deal. The VFW is now making overtures and the membership was very vocal in their feelings about this at my first meeting last Monday. Just my kind of people. After what we’ve discovered about the lot, I think I might have pulled up the tent stakes and marched out if I knew I was going to be affiliated with them.

My history with the VFW goes back to Lancaster California and 1973. Seems the Vietnam Boundary Dispute didn’t qualify as a genuine “war” and that I was not going to be admitted as a dues-paying member. Rather than head over to the American Legion with my tail between my legs, I decided to forego the whole Veterans experience for 40 years.

I’m back. I hope to sell lots of tomato starts to eager people desirous of helping Vets. This is also an opportunity to sell bricks with inscriptions to be laid around the flagpole at the local Veterans Cemetery. KPVeterans use their donations locally as they should. Somehow, the Honchos at KPVets do all this donation work without any fuss and bother.

I look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with them. What might be the icing on the cake would be if they had Imperial Connections to allow me to legally help Veterans on their VA claims without risking the VAOIG Police  or the Office of General Counsel breathing down my collar for “informing” Vets on how to prosecute their claims.

I’ll keep you posted on how this unfolds.