VA scandal is an indictment of US health care, not Big Government

Bravo, Mr. Wapshott!  Conservatives too often employ a version of the following syllogism: John is bad; John is a government employee; thus all government employees are bad.  

Here's a good 'graph:

Cannot those employed on salaries by private companies, particularly employees of corporate behemoths who operate near-monopolies, also ration their customers and say they have been put them on waitlists that do not exist? Can employees of commercial firms not also be corrupt and lazy? Does the free market not employ salaried workers? This muddled thinking is simply partisanship posing as intellectual rigor.

Intellectual rigor mortis, yes, but intellectual rigor among conservatives? Heck, no!  

Waitlists, Charles Krauthammer laments?  Gee, I called my primary care physician in January; he said the earliest he could see me was April.  Rationing, he says?  Gee, what do you call preferred providers networks, approved lists of procedures, payment ceilings, and the whole list of restrictions that private insurance companies put on our health care to cut costs and increase their profits?Private health insurance is all about rationing, because that's the only way they make money!

VA scandal is no mark against big government

By Nicholas Wapshott

June 3, 2014 | Reuters

For some, the veterans hospitals scandal is a human tragedy pure and simple. Those who loyally served their nation in uniform, putting their lives on the line, were shunned when they sought medical help.

For others, however, the troubles at the Department of Veterans Affairs have provided what one pundit called “A gift from God.”

For those commentators, the scandal confirmed their worst fears. The logic runs like this: The VA provides a government-run health service; the failures of the VA are a disgrace; ipso facto, all government-run health systems are a disgrace; proving that all government-run bodies are a disgrace. So all government should be sharply reduced — if not abandoned altogether.

The VA troubles, however, prove no such thing. The poor treatment of veterans has nothing to do with funding and everything to do with administrative incompetence combined with craven deceit.

Anyone who has been kept waiting inordinately by a doctor or hospital, or who has had their treatment or prescription drugs denied by their health insurance company, knows that. Anyone kept hanging on the line for an ill-named “customer service representative” and told by an automaton, “Your call is important to us,” knows that private companies treat customers with equal disdain.

The difference is that in the VA scandal, democratic accountability eventually — it took far too long, we know — kicked in. The top man resigned and top managers who presided over the incompetence and subterfuge were fired. It is a further scandal that it took President Barack Obama himself to push the wrongdoers into admitting responsibility. But at least the problem was ultimately addressed.

When can you remember a chief executive officer of an aberrant cable TV company or phone or utility company or even a health insurance company — fill in your favorite offender here — falling on their sword for keeping their customers waiting?

This is the full quote from the “Gift from God” analyst, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson: “What’s happening with the veterans is a gift from God to show us what happens when you take layers and layers of bureaucracy and place them between the patients and the healthcare provider.”

Perhaps, as a brain surgeon, Carson is given special treatment when he visits the doctor. But the rest of us endure “layers and layers of bureaucracy” whenever we try to access the healthcare we have so expensively bought.

One reason American healthcare is two-and-a-half times more expensive than in comparable countries is because of the “layers and layers” of insurance sales agents, ID checkers, referral faxers, hospital debt collectors from insurance companies and all the other expensive bureaucrats with no medical knowledge who are employed to administer and police the system. Add to that routine over-charging by doctors and Americans seeking healthcare are being ruthlessly abused and exploited by a commercial scheme that offers them little real choice.

Why do even the smartest free-market dogmatists, who like to paint the world in black and white, fail to see the flaws in commercial companies? Here is the dean of conservative commentators, Charles Krauthammer: “If there’s ever been evidence that a government-run system of healthcare is a disaster, it’s here,” he said. “It’s rationing, it’s waitlists, and corruption and laziness — as you get when people are salaried, rather than working in the free market.”

Cannot those employed on salaries by private companies, particularly employees of corporate behemoths who operate near-monopolies, also ration their customers and say they have been put them on waitlists that do not exist? Can employees of commercial firms not also be corrupt and lazy? Does the free market not employ salaried workers? This muddled thinking is simply partisanship posing as intellectual rigor.

The public-private divide is a red herring that used to distract the left from clear thinking. For a century or more, socialists and communists believed that the world’s problems would be solved if only the “commanding heights” of an economy and the “means of production” were brought into state ownership. Many otherwise smart people fell for an ideology that failed to fulfil its promise the second it was put into practice.

State socialism is now as extinct as the broad-faced potoroo and few except die-hard ideologues dare suggest the government should run everything. Yet the government, tempered by democracy, still has an important role to play when the private sector is found wanting.

It is not merely in treating veterans — whose profound mental and physical wounds can often be so expensive to treat that private insurance companies cannot offer an affordable rate. In many Western European countries taxpayer-funded health systems keep down the skyrocketing costs of treating their ageing populations, just as here in the United States the Social Security system provides an equitable, and relatively inexpensive, way of providing a decent standard of living for retirees.

Other essential services, too, are best administered by the state. Such as the armed services and the police. Schooling, too, is too important to the nation to be left solely to the private sector. State education too often fails, but it is not because taxpayers fund it — it is because the money is spent unwisely.

The question is not whether to have the government provide services the private sector cannot supply. It is a matter of where to draw the line between public and private.

Putting vets on a pedestal doesn't help them

On Veteran's Day, let's resolve to help our returning troops do what the WWII generation did after war: get back on with civilian life.  

Applause, "hero worship" and movie theater discounts aren't what they need from us right now. They need education, training and job opportunities. They need patient assistance with reintegrating into society.

Help Veterans by Taking Them Off the Pedestal

By Alex Horton

November 10, 2013 | Atlantic

URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/help-veterans-by-taking-them-off-the-pedestal/281316/

Bernie Sanders tells it like it is on GOP shutdown

U.S. 'GPS of freedom' on the fritz?

This Iraq war vet protected our freedom "over there," so we didn't have to fight them "over here," and survived it only to fall... to his 4-year-old son at home.

Maybe our national "GPS of freedom" is miscalibrated?

4-year-old accidentally shoots, kills father

June 8, 2013 | FOX 10 News

URL: http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/story/22535487/2013/06/07/shooting-in-prescott-valley-leaves-man-critically-wounded

Junger: Spend more time listening to vets

This Memorial Day, keep in mind that what our troops did over there, they bring back home with them.  Do we really want to want to share that burden with them?

But the obscenity of war is not diminished when that conflict is righteous or necessary or noble. And when soldiers come home spiritually polluted by the killing that they committed, or even just witnessed, many hope that their country will share the moral responsibility of such a grave event.

Their country doesn’t. Liberals often say that it’s not their problem because they opposed the war. Conservatives tend to call soldiers “heroes” and pat them on the back. Neither response is honest or helpful. Neither addresses the epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder afflicting our veterans. 

Junger suggests we spend less time showing our admiration of veterans and more time listening to them:

Civilians tend to do things that make them, not the veterans, feel better. Yellow ribbons and parades do little to help with the emotional aftermath of combat. War has been part of human culture for tens of thousands of years, and most tribal societies were engaged in some form of warfare when encountered by Western explorers. It might be productive to study how some societies reintegrated their young fighters after the intimate carnage of Stone Age combat. It is striking, in fact, how rarely combat trauma is mentioned in ethnographic studies of cultures.

Typically, warriors were welcomed home by their entire community and underwent rituals to spiritually cleanse them of the effect of killing. Otherwise, they were considered too polluted to be around women and children. Often there was a celebration in which the fighters described the battle in great, bloody detail. Every man knew he was fighting for his community, and every person in the community knew that their lives depended on these young men. These gatherings must have been enormously cathartic for both the fighters and the people they were defending.

But I wonder if we really want to know what they did and saw over there?  It's easier for us to hang yellow ribbons and give them a pat on the back than to try and comprehend the terrible, gut-wrenching things they did and experienced in our name, at our orders, to defend us.

Veterans need to share the moral burden of war

By Sebastian Junger

May 25, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/173oQoN

Dying Iraq vet's letter to Bush-Cheney

Tomas Young's letter deserves to be posted in full.  Read it and support our troops.

P.S. -- My opposition to the Iraq occupation was the main reason I started this blog over six years ago. One of my first posts was a revenge fantasy written in sickened response to a brief, barely noticed AP article about how Dubya was "moved" during his annual pre-Christmas visit to wounded soldiers. When it dawned on me that this had already become a kind of holiday tradition for him and his wife, I knew the occupation was too old and institutionalized.  I don't know if Dubya still visits wounded Iraq vets; but he will certainly have the opportunity to continue visiting them until his dying day, even if he lives another 80 years, the smug fucker.

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

March 18, 2013 | Truthdig

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. 

M. Moore: We don't 'support our troops'

Well said!  Nothing I could add.

Those Who Say "I Support the Troops" Should Just Stop, Out of Respect for the Troops

By Michael Moore

January 3, 2013 | MichaelMoore.com

I don't support the troops, America, and neither do you. I am tired of the ruse we are playing on these brave citizens in our armed forces. And guess what -- a lot of these soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines see right through the bull**** of those words, "I support the troops!," spoken by Americans with such false sincerity -- false because our actions don't match our words. These young men and women sign up to risk their very lives to protect us -- and this is what they get in return:

1. They get sent off to wars that have NOTHING to do with defending America or saving our lives. They are used as pawns so that the military-industrial complex can make billions of dollars and the rich here can expand their empire. By "supporting the troops," that means I'm supposed to shut up, don't ask questions, do nothing to stop the madness, and sit by and watch thousands of them die? Well, I've done an awful lot to try and end this. But the only way you can honestly say you support the troops is to work night and day to get them out of these hell holes they've been sent to. And what have I done this week to bring the troops home? Nothing. So if I say "I support the troops," don't believe me -- I clearly don't support the troops because I've got more important things to do today, like return an iPhone that doesn't work and take my car in for a tune up.

2. While the troops we claim to "support" are serving their country, bankers who say they too "support the troops," foreclose on the actual homes of these soldiers and evict their families while they are overseas! Have I gone and stood in front of the sheriff's deputy as he is throwing a military family out of their home? No. And there's your proof that I don't "support the troops," because if I did, I would organize mass sit-ins to block the doors of these homes. Instead, I'm having Chilean sea bass tonight.

3. How many of you who say you "support the troops" have visited a VA hospital to bring aid and comfort to the sick and wounded? I haven't. How many of you have any clue what it's like to deal with the VA? I don't. Therefore, you would be safe to say that I don't "support the troops," and neither do you.

4. Who amongst you big enthusiastic "supporters of the troops" can tell me the approximate number of service women who have been raped while in the military? Answer: 19,000 (mostly) female troops are raped or sexually assaulted every year by fellow American troops. What have you or I done to bring these criminals to justice? What's that you say -- out of sight, out of mind? These women have suffered, and I've done nothing. So don't ever let me get away with telling you I "support the troops" because, sadly, I don't. And neither do you.

5. Help a homeless vet today? How 'bout yesterday? Last week? Last year? Ever? But I thought you "support the troops!"? The number of homeless veterans is staggering -- on any given night, at least 60,000 veterans are sleeping on the streets of the country that proudly "supports the troops." This is disgraceful and shameful, isn't it? And it exposes all those "troop supporters" who always vote against social programs that would help these veterans. Tonight there are at least 12,700 Iraq/Afghanistan veterans homeless and sleeping on the street. I've never lent a helping hand to one of the many vets I've seen sleeping on the street. I can't bear to look, and I walk past them very quickly. That's called not "supporting the troops," which, I guess, I don't -- and neither do you.

6. And you know, the beautiful thing about all this "support" you and I have been giving the troops -- they feel this love and support so much, a record number of them are killing themselves every single week. In fact, there are now more soldiers killing themselves than soldiers being killed in combat (323 suicides in 2012 through November vs. about 210 combat deaths). Yes, you are more likely to die by your own hand in the United States military than by al Qaeda or the Taliban. And an estimated eighteen veterans kill themselves each day, or one in five of all U.S. suicides -- though no one really knows because we don't bother to keep track. Now, that's what I call support! These troops are really feeling the love, people! Lemme hear you say it again: "I support the troops!" Louder! "I SUPPORT THE TROOPS!!" There, that's better. I'm sure they heard us. Don't forget to fly our flag, wear your flag lapel pin, and never, ever let a service member pass you by without saying, "Thank you for your service!" I'm sure that's all they need to keep from putting a bullet in their heads. Do your best to keep your "support" up for the troops because, God knows, I certainly can't any longer.

I don't "support the troops" or any of those other hollow and hypocritical platitudes uttered by Republicans and frightened Democrats. Here's what I do support: I support them coming home. I support them being treated well. I support peace, and I beg any young person reading this who's thinking of joining the armed forces to please reconsider. Our war department has done little to show you they won't recklessly put your young life in harm's way for a cause that has nothing to do with what you signed up for. They will not help you once they've used you and spit you back into society. If you're a woman, they will not protect you from rapists in their ranks. And because you have a conscience and you know right from wrong, you do not want yourself being used to kill civilians in other countries who never did anything to hurt us. We are currently involved in at least a half-dozen military actions around the world. Don't become the next statistic so that General Electric can post another record profit -- while paying no taxes -- taxes that otherwise would be paying for the artificial leg that they've kept you waiting for months to receive.

I support you, and will try to do more to be there for you. And the best way you can support me -- and the ideals our country says it believes in -- is to get out of the military as soon as you can and never look back.

And please, next time some "supporter of the troops" says to you with that concerned look on their face, "I thank you for your service," you have my permission to punch their lights out (figuratively speaking, of course).

(There is something I've done to support the troops -- other than help lead the effort to stop these senseless wars. At the movie theater I run in Michigan, I became the first person in town to institute an affirmative action plan for hiring returning Iraq/Afghanistan vets. I am working to get more businesses in town to join with me in this effort to find jobs for these returning soldiers. I also let all service members in to the movies for free, everyday.)

Sorkin: Bumper stickers don't help our troops

Sorkin has got it all wrong. Everybody knows that the best way to honor our troops is to vote Republican and keep them at war.

Bumper-Sticker Patriotism Is No Way to Honor Our Veterans

By Aaron Sorkin

November 11, 2011 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-sorkin/supporting-our-troops_b_781543.html

Ratigan: Fairness demands a GI housing credit

Veterans: Lip Service, Bankers: Billions & America: Foreclosures - Here's the Fix

By Dylan Ratigan

November 12, 2009 | Huffington Post

One thing about doing a two hour show that heavily covers both the financial crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that you notice on a daily basis the shocking juxtaposition between the lucky Wall Streeters and the unlucky soldiers.

We all know at this point that our banking system is being used as an unregulated bonus-seeking mechanism for bankers, now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth.

Bankers lent pretend money to home buyers to award themselves actual money in bonuses -- making home prices balloon and, in the process, bankrupting America's treasury, currency, the states, and many of its citizens.

To simply let the housing market rapidly correct itself (or more likely over-correct) would result in massive societal disruption, possible violence and unnecessary suffering.

So while we slowly attempt to close the taxpayer-funded bank casinos and try to restore the basic rules of investment and lending in our economy, we have difficult decisions to make. Unfortunately, our only choice for a less jarring social transition so far has been to artificially adjust the real prices of our homes via government guarantees to banks (for bad mortgages and losing gambling bets) -- or relatively arbitrary handouts to home buyers.

What did these people do to deserve the handout?

How do you feel about a Wall Street Banker who has been renting an apartment here in New York and this year combined the bonus money he made on bundling new taxpayer-sponsored Fannie Mae CDS with a first-time home buyers tax credit gift from the taxpayers to buy the penthouse in his building?

Meanwhile, we have already been at war for 8 years with no end in sight. World War II was 5 years. We are fighting these wars with the fewest number of soldiers in modern U.S. History. To avoid incorporating a politically unpopular draft, we deploy the same soldiers five or six times with comparatively minuscule breaks in between.

However, the dire state of the economy has been a boon to military recruitment, but I am not sure if we will ever see the Wall Street bank scammers claim their rightful credit for that.

So instead of using these bad- (Wall Street) to- arbitrary (first time home buyers) ways to pump money into rescuing our housing market, let's give it to those who are truly deserving of handouts: our servicemen and women.

I propose that we immediately enact the following:

• Give every single man and woman that is fighting for us a housing credit of $50,000, with the caveat that the credit must be used by someone within two years.
• Make it so that the credits are completely fungible, meaning that if the veteran doesn't wish to buy a house, he or she can sell the credit to someone who does -- and keep the money. If the reselling of gift cards on Ebay is any indication, I am sure there will be a thriving market where soldiers could probably get pretty close to 90 cents on the dollar for their credit.

Considering the roughly 2 million veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, this would give a much needed $100 billion boost to the housing market. Just as a template for comparison, Goldman Sachs (albeit it doing "God's work") and the other complicit banks like JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley will pay $29.4 billion in personal bonuses this year.

In reporting on this financial crisis, I have been most surprised by the blatant disregard that our politicians and even some journalists have shown for the most fundamental American notion of fairness. I don't think handing taxpayer trillions to some of the least worthy individuals is something that our country will stand for, regardless of what the current incumbents think.

If we must resort to handouts to save our country, let's at least put them in the hands of the most deserving.

Dylan Ratigan hosts MSNBC's "Morning Meeting," M-F at 9AM ET and "The Dylan Ratigan Show" on WABC Radio, Sunday at 7PM ET

U.S. vets' health care massacre

Yeah, we have much more to fear from a "socialist takeover of America" than the actual consequences of our f-ed up health care "system" in the U.S.

Support Our Troops, indeed!

Study: 2,200 Vets Died Last Year Because They Lacked Health Insurance

By Alex Seitz-Wald

November 10, 2009 | Think Progress

On the eve of Veterans Day, a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School has released a study finding that an estimated 2,266 veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they did not have health insurance. That "translates to six preventable deaths per day" and more than twice the number killed in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

Being uninsured raises a person's odds of dying prematurely by 40 percent. The researchers found that 1.46 million veterans between the ages of 18 and 64 lacked insurance in 2008. While most veterans are eligible to receive excellent care from the Veterans Administration, those who were not injured in combat and whose income is above a certain threshold are often ineligible. Others are assigned low priorities, providing them with less consistent and more expensive access to care:

"Like other uninsured Americans, most uninsured vets are working people – too poor to afford private coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care," said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a professor at Harvard Medical School. [...]

Dr. David Himmelstein, the co-author of the analysis and associate professor of medicine at Harvard, commented, "On this Veterans Day we should not only honor the nearly 500 soldiers who have died this year in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the more than 2,200 veterans who were killed by our broken health insurance system. That's six preventable deaths a day."

Unfortunately, health insurance is just one of many serious problems vets face. Up to one-in-five veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, while male vets face suicide rates double the national average. And, as the VA under President Obama recognized, veterans still account for up to a quarter of all homeless.

The fact that even veterans cannot receive adequate health care demonstrates that the current system is broken and in need of dramatic overhaul. A robust public option will guarantee that vets and all working-class Americans will be able to afford quality health insurance. Still, the study's authors warn that the health care legislation "would do virtually nothing for the uninsured until 2013" and would "leave at least 17 million uninsured over the long run when reform kicks in," leaving many veterans without care.

Update Politico reports, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) 'illogical' for holding up a veterans care bill Tuesday, criticizing the Oklahoma Republican for supporting war funding while blocking health care funding for veterans.

PTSD is new US Military norm

I hope we've all moved on from the days when "Support Our Troops" meant "Keep Them in Harm's Way," and "Make Them Develop Mental Illnesse and Lose Their Families Through Extended and Repeated Deployments."

"We know that there is a statistically significant association between having more than one deployment and P.T.S.D.," said Dr. Karen Seal of the Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco.

I hope that now, since Obama is in office, and conservatives don't feel a knee-jerk urge to defend our unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan simply to show support for their nation's leader, that we can all be more reasonable and rational and agree that our current occupations of two countries are not sustainable, and in fact, are destroying our nation's armed forces. The Right and the Left must come together and put overwhelming pressure on Obama for him to end these disasters and bring our weary troops home to their suffering families.

Stress Beyond Belief

By Bob Herbert

November 6, 2009 | New York Times

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

AARP: 10,000 recent vets rely on parents' care

If you really "Support Our Troops," then you should be calling your Congressmen demanding increased federal spending on medical care for returning vets. Damn the cost. Our wounded heroes shouldn't have to rely on charity, or their parents in retirement, in order to survive. They shouldn't have to fight the Pentagon or VA bureaucracy. Our government should be bending over backwards to serve them.


When Wounded Vets Come Home

As more troops than ever are surviving the fearsome injuries of war, parents are increasingly being thrust into the role of long-term caregivers

By Barry Yeoman
July - August 2008 | AARPmagazine.org

[Excerpt:]

At that moment, Cynthia became one of a growing number of parents who are, by necessity, stepping back into the role of caregiver for their children who are returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating and often long-term injuries. According to officials from three national organizations—the Wounded Warrior Project, The Military Family Network, and the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes— an estimated 10,000 recent veterans of these conflicts now depend on their parents for their care. Working unheralded, these parents have quit jobs, shelved retirement plans, and relocated so they can be with their injured sons and daughters. Many have become warriors themselves, fighting to make sure this new wave of injured veterans gets the medical care and rehabilitation it needs.

These parent caregivers, many of them boomers and some older, face a 21st-century challenge: their children are coming home in unprecedented numbers with injuries that would have been fatal during earlier conflicts. "This is a war of disability, not a war of deaths," says former Army physician Ronald Glasser, M.D., author of Wounded: Vietnam to Iraq (George Braziller, 2006). "Its legacy is the orthopedics and neurology wards, not the cemetery." Not only have better helmets and body armor saved lives, but battlefield medicine now borders on miraculous. Someone arriving at the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, has a 96 percent chance of survival. He or she can sometimes be stateside within 36 hours of the injury. As a result, there are just 6 deaths for every 100 injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared with 28 deaths per 100 in Vietnam, and 38 in World War II, according to Linda Bilmes, a researcher at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

If this survival rate is heartening, the flip side is that many of these injuries are fearsome and require extended and complicated care. Part of the reason is that the nature of warfare has changed: today's troops face a constant threat of IEDs. When these makeshift bombs detonate, they throw off pressure waves so intense that bystanders' brains literally bang around in their skulls. "These are enormous explosions," says Glasser. "The physics are astonishing—they will turn over a 70-ton tank. Anyone caught in the blast wave is going to be in trouble." Sometimes injured brain tissue swells so dramatically that part of the skull must be removed to let the brain expand.

As of April 29 the Pentagon counted 31,848 wounded service members in the current conflicts. Independent experts say that is a conservative figure. They estimate the number of brain injuries alone might total 320,000, or 20 percent of the 1.64 million who have served so far—a number that S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, calls "plausible." In addition to the physical injuries, there are thousands of cases of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Last year military screeners detected psychological symptoms in 31 percent of Marines, 38 percent of soldiers, and 49 percent of National Guardsmen returning from war.

Do YOU support our troops?

(Sigh). If only it were that simple.

And just FYI, a magnetic bumper sticker is not able in any way to "Support Our Troops." It takes money, honesty, and commitment from us citizens and our government to support the troops.

Are we really supporting our troops when all that we demand for them (as if we're doing them a favor!) is a continued presence in Iraq? Indeed, the real cost of war starts when they come home.


Our Armies, Ourselves
By Nancy Gibbs
May 15, 2008 | Time.com

Etched onto the wall of a sentry box in Gibraltar is an unsigned indictment from an unknown soldier. You imagine him there many wars ago, keeping watch and weighing his prospects for a normal life.

God and the soldier, all men adore

In time of danger and not before.

When the danger is passed and all things righted,

God is forgotten, and the soldier slighted.

President Kennedy quoted the verse in 1962 to the men of the Army's 1st Armored Division, who had been secretly moved into position during the Cuban missile crisis. "This country does not forget God or the soldier," Kennedy said. "Upon both we now depend."

How we treat returning soldiers once the parades have passed is a measure of a country's character and a government's competence. Often the war shadows the warriors: to the returning victors of World War II came honor and glory and the GI Bill. But for veterans of Korea--"the Forgotten War"--there was silence. Infantryman Fred Downs returned from Vietnam with four Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and one arm. Back in school, he was asked if he'd lost his arm in the war. Yes, he said. "Serves you right," he was told.

We've grown up since then, embraced complexity: it doesn't matter that nearly two-thirds of Americans say the Iraq war wasn't worth fighting; three-quarters say the government is not doing enough to help returning vets. They protect us when we hand them a rifle and say, "Go fight the enemy." We betray them when we hand them a pencil and say, "Now go fight the bureaucracy."

At least they're not fighting alone: Kennedy's promise to "not forget" is honored by every town that welcomes home its National Guard unit by helping members reconnect; by the ingenuity of groups like Sew Much Comfort, which provides "adaptive clothing" for vets with burns and other injuries, casts and prostheses. Mental-health professionals volunteer through Give an Hour to treat vets for free; pro bono lawyers help them navigate the dense disability-benefits maze. But private charity can't replace a public commitment to finish what we start, to do the long, hard, expensive work of making soldiers whole when they come home.

Wars are like icebergs: much of the cost remains hidden, and the near doubling of the defense budget since 2001 does not cover what lies ahead. Better body armor and trauma care mean new life for thousands of soldiers who would have died in any earlier war. But many are broken or burned or buried in pain from what they saw and did. One in five suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, says a new Rand Corp. study; more than 300,000 have suffered traumatic brain injury. The cost of treating them is projected to double over the next 25 years. Four hundred thousand veterans are waiting for cases to be processed. The number seeking assistance for homelessness is up 600% in the past year.

In the face of so much need, too often comes denial. At a May 6 hearing, lawmakers lit into officials from Veterans Affairs after an e-mail surfaced from Ira Katz, its chief of mental health, on suicide rates of soldiers in its care. The subject line: "Shhh." The VA had been insisting there were fewer than 800 suicide attempts a year by vets in its care; the real number was closer to 12,000. "Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" Katz asked. Bob Filner, chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, saw criminal negligence. "The pattern is deny, deny, deny," he told Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Peake. "Then when facts seemingly come to disagree with the denial, you cover up, cover up, cover up."

It took a YouTube video to scald the conscience of officials at Fort Bragg, where soldiers returned from 15 months in Afghanistan to a barracks festooned with filth, paint peeling in pages off the walls. "Soldiers should never have to live in such squalor," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who saw the video. "Things happen too slowly." But even if the system worked perfectly, it would still take billions of dollars to meet the need.

Memorial Day was designed to honor dead soldiers; the other 364 belong to the living. Of the private efforts there is much to be proud, for they reflect the best traditions of the country the soldiers are fighting for. But the holes they are patching reveal a system in tatters; the very least veterans deserve from their government is honesty about its failures.

Let wounded soldiers keep sign-on bonus

This is terrible. Our troops aren't pro athletes whose contracts can be canceled if they get hurt. You don't stop being a U.S. soldier once you're wounded. They're putting life & limb on the line for us! We at least owe them what they were promised.


Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back
Reporting - Marty Griffin
November 19, 2007 | PITTSBURGH (KDKA)


The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.

It's a slap for Fox's mother, Susan Wardezak, who met with President Bush in Pittsburgh last May. He thanked her for starting Operation Pittsburgh Pride which has sent approximately 4,000 care packages.

He then sent her a letter expressing his concern over her son's injuries, so she cannot understand the U.S. Government's apparent lack of concern over injuries to countless U.S. Soldiers and demands that they return their bonuses.

While he's unsure of his future, Fox says he's unwavering in his commitment to his country.

"I'd do it all over again... because I'm proud of the discipline that I learned. I'm proud to have done something for my country," he said.

But Fox feels like he's already given enough. He'll never be able to pursue his dream of being a police officer because of his wounds and he can't believe he's being asked to return part of his $10,000 signing bonus.

KDKA contacted Congressman Jason Altmire on his behalf. He says he has proposed a bill that would guarantee soldiers receive full benefit of bonuses.

Let's Give Vets Their Due

Let's support our troops when they leave the battlefield, too.

For instance, many vets have trouble getting jobs after they leave the armed forces because they don't have a home address. In America, if you can't write a home address on a job application, you can't get a job. As a result of unemployment, many vets end up living on the street. Legally, there should be some way around this problem for vets who have recently left active duty. Congress needs to address this simple but serious problem for veterans seeking civilian employment.


Giving Vets Their Due
by Kay Steiger | November 12, 2007 | Prospect.org

On December 22, 2005, Joshua Omvig, a 22-year-old reservist from Davenport, Iowa, committed suicide with a gun in his pickup truck, after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq a year earlier. He suffered post traumatic stress disorder, a common problem with soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Omvig's parents, Randy and Ellen, began lobbying for comprehensive PTSD care for all veterans; they even used his memorial webpage to lobby for mental health care. Omvig became a symbol in committee hearings for veterans suffering from PTSD. The Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act was signed into law last week. On this Veterans Day, nearly two years after Omvig ended his own life, and more than six years after the invasion of Afghanistan, it seems appropriate to step back and survey the state of veteran benefits.

The exact number of Iraq or Afghanistan veterans experiencing PTSD is unknown. In 2004, the Associated Press estimated as many as one in eight returning soldiers might experience symptoms related to combat stress. The percentage of soldiers who encounter combat stressors like being ambushed or receiving rocket fire is estimated to be about 90 percent of those serving in Iraq, according to the National Center for PTSD, which is part of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Of the 1.5 million troops that have returned from Iraq, the VA estimates that at least 283 soldiers have committed suicide after exiting the military; 147 have killed themselves while stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Suicide rates for soldiers once they have returned are double the rates during deployment.

The Omvig bill mandates a comprehensive suicide reduction plan. It calls for mental health training for VA professionals, a 24-hour suicide and information hotline and increased availability of mental health workers, and the tracking of veterans for further research. When soldiers receive treatment for mental problems such as PTSD and other forms of stress, their suicide rates are no higher than in the civilian population getting treated for depression, according to a joint study from the University of Michigan and the VA. The challenge, though, is making sure those veterans who need treatment get it. A 2004 study estimates the number of veterans who are uninsured because they lack access to the care they are eligible for was close to 1.7 million. Additionally, many soldiers resist treatment or help because of social stigma; they view themselves as models of bravery and masculinity and fear a perception of weakness.

The bill also sets aside separate funding for veterans who suffer from trauma resulting from sexual assault. As the New York Times reported in March, PTSD rates for women in the first Gulf War were nearly double that of their male counterparts. Recently released army statistics show sexual trauma rates among women in the military range from 21 to 23 percent, compared with about 1 percent of men.

"There are real barriers [to diagnosis and treatment] while these women are still in the military. The perpetrator may be higher ranking, or in the same unit. They don't want to be ostracized from their unit," said Kerri Childress, spokeswoman for the VA's Palo Alto Health Care system. To address this, the VA has started the Women's Trauma Recovery Program, one of three inpatient treatment programs specializing in treatment for both standard combat stress and trauma from sexual assault for women. "It's kind of the ugly underbelly of the military. Combat stress is unavoidable, but not sexual trauma. That is absolutely avoidable."

The Palo Alto program typically lasts three months, and there are 10 beds in the women's program, compared with 41 in the men's program. There isn't a wait list, "per se," as Childress said, because women are treated as a group, or cohort. "Applicants are assigned an admission date that aligns with the next cohort start date," Childress said. The latest cohort was composed entirely of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. In the meantime, women are encouraged to seek outpatient treatment, which can be less disturbing to daily life than a multi-month inpatient treatment program. "These women shouldn't wait to get help," Childress said.

The Joshua Omvig bill provides for sexual trauma and PTSD treatment, but the battle to put that funding into place has been a long one. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) said, "We live in a culture that undervalues mental health treatment, and the military is even worse. If you have PTSD, you face no promotion, or losing your job. There's a whole dynamic that we need to change."

Filner says that they've pushed for $13 billion in extra care, a more than 30 percent increase since Democrats took power. But veterans advocacy groups like VoteVets.org, say that the VA remains vastly underfunded -- and the problems go deeper than just funding.

Currently, treatment for soldiers falls under the purview of two different departments. Active duty forces like the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force are automatically covered by the world-renowned VA system once they exit the military. The National Guard and reserve forces can receive treatment from the VA, but aren't automatically covered. Instead, they can opt in to a DoD health insurance program called Tricare. But if a Guard or Reserve veteran can't hold down a job due to mental problems like PTSD, they can be denied coverage. The original argument that "weekend warriors" should get inferior benefits no longer holds water. Now, reservists are serving more and more active duty tours. Filner said the committee plans to work on legislation hooked to the next defense authorization bill that would bring the National Guard and Reserve under the care of the VA.

Although Congress' major focus has been on veteran health care since the Walter Reed scandal early this year, a next battle will be over GI Bill benefits. Currently, National Guard soldiers cannot access their education benefits after they leave service, where active duty forces can access GI Bill benefits up to ten years after exiting active duty. Before the war in Iraq, this was never an issue, since most of the time guard and reservist soldiers spent was at home. Earlier this year, Rep. Vic Snyder (D-AK) introduced legislation that would combine care and education benefits to close the gap between the two types of forces, but it has languished in committee. Filner talked of a plan to expand the GI Bill early next year, what he called "A GI Bill for the twenty-first century." The proposed bill would extend the same post-military benefits to the Guard and Reserve.

It's easy to get Republican votes on extra funding for veterans once the legislation is in Congress, but the administration hasn't presented leadership in the budgets they submit. Amending the problems with veterans health care and education benefits will take a lot of funding that had remained fairly stagnant in the decades before the war. But Susan McAvoy, spokeswoman for the Omvig bill's House sponsor, Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA), is hopeful, "This is an issue that crosses party lines, no matter what your thoughts are on the war, both parties want to see their veterans taken care of."

Report: 25% of U.S. homeless are vets

What does this study say to those who consider the homeless to be lazy ingrates who deserve their lot in life? America should be doubly ashamed for allowing so much chronic homelessness to exist in the richest country on earth.

We do not indeed "support our troops." Whether it's at Walter Reed or on the cold pavement of D.C., we forget our troops when they're not useful to us anymore. Shame on us!


Study: Many of homeless are vets
November 8, 2007 | CNN


More than 25 percent of the homeless population in the United States are war veterans, although they represent only 11 percent of the civilian adult population , according to a report to be released Thursday.

On any given night last year, nearly 196,000 veterans slept on the street, in a shelter or in transitional housing, the study by the Homelessness Research Institute found.

"Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people," the report said.

"This is true despite the fact that veterans are better educated, more likely to be employed and have a lower poverty rate than the general population."

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, which includes the Homelessness Research Institute as its research and education arm, planned a press conference in the morning to discuss the study's findings.

"These findings highlight the need to provide veterans with the proper housing and supportive services to prevent homelessness from occurring in the first place," said Nan Roman, the organization's president. "If we can do that, then we can greatly reduce the number of homeless veterans in general."

The states with the highest number of homeless veterans include Louisiana, California and Missouri, according to the research. Washington, D.C., also had a high rate.

About 44,000 to 64,000 veterans are classified as "chronically homeless" -- homeless for long periods or repeatedly.

Other veterans -- nearly 468,000 -- are experiencing "severe housing cost burden," or paying more than half their income for housing, thereby putting them at a high risk for homelessness.

The rates of the burden of housing costs were highest in Rhode Island, California, Nevada and Hawaii, but Washington, D.C., had the highest rate, according to the organization.

In order to reduce chronic homelessness among veterans by half, the report concludes housing coupled with supportive services should be increased by 25,000 units, and the number of housing vouchers for veterans should be increased by 20,000.

Some veterans, like Jason Kelley find themselves in a catch-22, not able to find a job because of the lack of an apartment, and not being able to get an apartment because of not having a job, The Associated Press reported.

"The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," AP quoted Kelley as saying in a phone interview. In addition, he's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said, according to AP. Kelley served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard.

A new Gallup poll released by Fannie Mae showed that nearly a quarter of veterans, or 24 percent, report having been concerned they may not have a place to live. Eighty-six percent of poll respondents believe homelessness among veterans is either staying at the same level or increasing.

In addition, 61 percent of poll respondents believe veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are at least as likely to become homeless as veterans of previous wars.

The poll of 1,005 veterans was conducted September 4-October 17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

At the National Alliance to End Homelessness event, Fannie Mae will announce a $200,000 grant to the Common Ground organization that will enable the construction of more permanent housing units for veterans.

"Our veterans have served America, and America must serve them," said Daniel Mudd, president and CEO of Fannie Mae, in a statement.

Common Ground is a nonprofit developer of housing and other solutions to prevent and end homelessness, according to the Fannie Mae statement.