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Veterans Administration Hospital / An Open Letter & Report Ironies



From: HK Edgerton
Date: Wed, May 11, 2011
Subject: Veterans Administration Hospital / An Open Letter & Report Ironies

Dear Rick,

Ironically, as I finished my now daily vigil outside the VA Hospital in Oteen, N.C., a jester in support of Sgt. Thrasher, I would receive a telephone call from Ms. April Thompson of WREG News Channel 3 in Memphis asking when and if I was going to return to Memphis. I wish that I could have told her as soon as the waters recede. However, I would hope that my Southern family not forget Sgt. Thrasher.

I again found it ironic that the President would be sitting in a room just last week filled to capacity with Korean War Veterans passing out Medals of Honor to soldiers that he felt slighted because they only received the Distinguish Cross. And further passing out accolades to those soldiers who served the nation during this conflict. Yet Sgt. Thrasher, a member of this elite force who too gave service to this country during this conflict, lie in his hospital bed near death facing tyranny from a hospital staff because his only crime was to display a very small Confederate Battle flag on his bedside table to commemorate his ancestors during this Sesquicentennial of the War Between the States.

Never mind that this same Veterans Administration is charged with the duty of providing the Confederate Iron Cross, (a grave marker) to be placed on the grave as a marker, and will not allow these markers to be placed on the graves of Confederate soldiers buried on their grounds. Never mind that the Veterans Administration of Tennessee will not recognize Black Confederate soldiers while the Great State of Tennessee does, and will not even issue these headstone markers to be placed on the graves of these Black Confederates. And never mind that the Federal government has issued pensions to Black Confederate soldiers, or recognized those who spent their final days at Beauvoir, Sgt. Thrasher just as well be Black because the treatment he receives from the Veterans Administration in Tennessee is the same.

I spoke the words of MacArthur to Sgt. Thrasher:” I shall return”, and I shall when I raise the funds to do so, and I hope that will be soon. May God bless Sgt. Thrasher and open the hearts and minds of those who continue to persecute the memory of those men and women who made an honorable stand against those who would destroy the Constitutional Republic that our ancestors fought for and who so invaded our homeland with the intent of subjugating us all.

The true offense here is that there is nowhere in the Constitution that says a man cannot display the Southern Cross because someone purports to be offended by it, or for that reason any flag. God bless.

Your brother,
HK