While I do think anyone joining the military in this day and age should have their heads examined, unless endless war is their bread and butter, I support out troops without question. The leaders that send them into harms way is another matter as well as the occasional dumbass how throws puppies over cliffs or massacres small children. But these are anomalies as I know a great many retired and active military personal who all fine, upstanding human beings.
The funny thing is, a person like me is the one vilified for being anti-war (when not necessary which is pretty much every war we have been in for the past forty years) and questioning government while the Teatards, Rednecks and GOP faithful are constantly waving the flag while letting our solders get screwed in every way possible.
Let's start with the most obvious. Our soldiers have been in a constant state of war for more than a decade now and, surprise, surprise, they are coming back more damaged than any war previous. Disability claims have shot up to near fifty percent of returning personnel, ranging from everything from missing limbs to hearing loss to mental issues. Ten years in a war zone will take quite a toll and God forbid we have a draft which would help end these wars a lot sooner. In the first Gulf War, only 21% came back with disability claims, a number that has more than doubled now.
Even worse, when these come back, they find out that the care they get from VA hospitals is no better than the care you would get in some back alleyway in Bangladesh. Here's a story from Prison Planet.com.
Take the case of Rebecca Tew, a 43-year-old psychologist who fought for seven years to get benefits due her husband, Duane Kozlowski, after he left the Army with brain damage and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) so bad he couldn’t hold a job.
Eventually she got them, but not before she borrowed $20,000 from family, ran up tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills for Duane, stopped paying on student loans and ruined her credit in the process. As of this writing, she was working on finding a landlord willing to rent to her, her husband and their five children.
“It’s basically been like a tornado,” she toldBusinessWeek, regarding her dealings with the VA. “It’s wiped out our future. It’s wiped out our relationship with our extended family. It’s wiped everything out and we’re starting out again below ground.”
Nice to see that this brave man who gave up everything for his country has been thrown out with the trash.
Of about 905,000 claims pending at the department, nearly two-thirds of them are taking longer than the VA’s 125-day target for handling claims. And the backlog is not only delaying veterans’ care, it’s placing a huge financial burden on them as well – which, in turn, is only fueling veteran anger at Uncle Sam.
“A lot of veterans feel betrayed after being wounded, injured or sickened in the service of the country. The government is just not fulfilling their promises to them,” David Autry, a Washington-based spokesman forDisabled American Veterans, a group that helps veterans with their VA claims, told BusinessWeek.
The California-basedRAND Corp., a non-profit research organization, says about one-third of returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan may have brain injuries, depression or PTSD.
The VA says its goal is to get to the 125-day target.
“In 2015, our requirement is no claim over 125 days,” said Allison Hickey, the veterans department’s undersecretary for benefits. “And we’re going to get there.”
She said the department is adding technology, placing review teams at regional offices and redirecting the tougher claims to more experienced personnel in order to meet the agency’s goal.
But again, the VA’s history has been one of slow response.
Michael Wade, a former Army reservist who lives in Alexander, Ark., who returned from Iraq in 2005 with mental health issues, said he finally got the benefits he had coming – six years later, in 2011.
“Somebody who went through what we did over there, they shouldn’t have to fight for four years to get what they deserve,” he said, according toBusinessWeek. “I’ve got friends of mine, they’re going through the same thing.”
For the record, a special commission in 1996 advised Congress on how to fix the VA’s claim system.
So we've known there's been a problem for more than fifteen years and have done nothing to fix it. Yet another promise made by our government which they have no intent on keeping. They are too busy stealing from us on a regular basis to care and I hope that when the time comes, and martial law gets declared, that the soldiers realize that they would be better off standing with us then the elite overlords. Unless being thrown to the wolves when their time comes sounds good.
On top of all this, soldiers returning from combat are being told their jobs are gone, an act which is illegal and one that never gets prosecuted. Employers are supposed to hold onto jobs that soldiers left to go fight in war but that law, so many others that the elites ignore, has fallen by the wayside as our cops are too busy protecting America from the scourge of pot, raw milk, and jaywalkers.
One of the reasons that so many police are getting caught in beat downs is the inexplicable hiring of ex-military into the police force. These two are not compatible and, with so many returning with mental issues, this is the NOT the place to put people used to having enemies shoot at them. Let us find less dangerous jobs for ex-soldiers so they can actually heal and not body slam innocent people just because.
Our solders are being treated poorly, yet the GOP keeps waving that flag and telling us how much they support them while simultaneously cutting funds that would help them. Voting for the GOP, as many in the military are wont to do, is not in their best interests unless endless war and no help on their return is their idea of a great time. Let us remember those that have fallen today and those that are returning different from when they left. Let us fix this country together and start demanding answers from both parties and leave behind this birther nonsense, the failed Drug War, and every other stupid piece of nonsense that we are bombarded with lately.
And for those that are busy serving overseas, stay safe soldiers. We all want you to return in one piece. Happy Memorial Day all.
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