Message from a vet--you have got to read this!

[OldSoldier]

This comes from a military newsletter I receive...

NO SUPPORT

Bush administration ignores military retirees

What makes me think our military veterans are not getting the respect and support from this administration that they were promised and that they earned in dangerous service to our country?

Could I be influenced by the fact that an army of government lawyers fought Col. Bud Day all the way to the Supreme Court and crushed his petition to get a minor repayment of medical bills of veterans who were promised lifetime free medical care? I see that Sen, Robert Byrd of West Virginia got it for 50,000 miners who had a similar promise. I guess miners are more important.

Last year both the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly for the "Concurrent Receipt" bill so veterans' earned disability pay would not continue to be taken out of their own retirement pay. This administration threatened to veto it as too expensive so a compromise was reached where only a few veterans with special circumstances would benefit.

I guess it's who you are and where you die that determines your value to America. If you died in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, the government decided you were worth $1.85 million on average. If you died in the Pentagon that day, or on any day in Iraq, you are worth only $6,000, which is taxable.
Service widows do not escape the current anti-veteran bias, either. We pay to insure 50 percent of our retired pay for our wives should we die first. But when they reach age 62 their benefit, which we largely funded is slashed to 35 percent.

Some observant Democrat is going to notice these slurs against military veterans and come to our rescue. Granted, we are not a large, nor wealthy, constituency but we are a voting bunch. If you deduct our votes from the Republicans and add it to the Democrats you would swing a lot of close races.

//name withheld//
Colorado Springs

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Democrats take heed!

We can a) serve justice and expose rethug hypocrisy.
B) gain a valuable voting block

[RainDog]

2. Most importantly, it's the right thing to do

Bush and his cronies in Congress dishonor the veterans with their policies.

why should Ken Lay be wallowing around in his piggish millions and remain unaccountable for the shit he's pulled, while veterans have to beg for medical care?

It's an outrage, and it's totally typical of this crooked cabal.

[TahitiNut]

11. (OT) Why do people say 'importantLY'??

"Importantly" is an adverb. It thus modifies a verb and serves to describe the manner or tone of a predicate, not a subject. I've really never understood this. What's wrong with "More important..." or "Of greater import(ance)..."??

Oh well, I'm also a "who/whom"-er. :shrug:

[LiberalLibra]

3. SET UP AND TAKE NOTICE PEOPLE this is the path by which we................

....Dems can take back the WH and Congress. Here is an overwhelming win laid in our laps so let's not pass it up.

Oh I know someone will come along and say "but I don't support war or at least not this war". No one is talking about supporting war - rather just support the poor souls who fought the war.

[REP]

4. Damn Straight!

Taking care of vets has nothing to do with supporting any war. How this country treats its vets is a shame and disgrace.

[caledesi]

12. LL - I am taking notice!

[TreasonousBastard]

5. What else is new?

Remember the Bonus Soldiers' march?

Anybody remember where the line "yer paid to stop a bullet..." came from. I seem to remember it from Yip Harburg lyric, but can't find it in a quick search.

Now, ponder this-- we have often treated the enemy better than we have our own.

During the Revolutionary War the Brits "rented" German soldiers for much of the fighting. German nobility found this to be a great source in income, and the troops had nothing to say about it. To keep them in fighting mood, they were told the "rebels" were cannibals, and worse. After the battle of Trenton, the captured Germans were terrified, but the local populace, knowing that they were forced into this, actually welcomed them as settlers and gave them farmland.

Jump to 30 years ago when my landlord in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, told me of his wonderful trip to Colorado and how beautiful it was. It wasn't until several months later that he admitted that the "vacation" was actually his incarceration as a POW during WWII.

Fond memories of a POW camp?

We WERE the good guys back then.

[ShimokitaJer]

8. That phrase is from a Chad Mitchell Trio song

Don't know the name of the song, but it goes:

You're paid to stop a bullet.
It's a soldier's job, they say.
And so you stop the bullet
And then they stop your pay!

[catzies]

13. I just learned about the Bonus Army 's march to D.C. from Howard Zinn

And it leads me to wonder when history will repeat.

[T Roosevelt]

6. Nauseating

I gave some money to a panhandler at an intersection here in Florida - a veteran. Asked him where he served - Viet Nam, '69, Da Nang, Marines. Wounded in combat and still has health problems. Now he's homeless and begging for money. Sick...

[oneighty]

7. There is a VA

program in which a qualified veteran can recieve a monthly stipend. They will have to have served in wartime. At one time I recieved it. When a friend of mine became ill unable to work he recieved it. As I recall it was not much, but it would feed and clothe you, no problems. I would not go so far as to say your Vet was not a Vet, but there are a lot of wannabe Vets out there. If he were wounded in combat he would be taken care of.

180

[OrdinaryTa]

10. Sympathetic Response

There's no guarantee than the panhandler actually was in Vietnam. It's easy enough to say, and it evokes a sympathetic response.

[bearfan454]

9. I'm a Vietnam Era vet and

The VA here in Tx sucks. They don't want to spend any money on anything. I had a severe abdominal pain and they wanted to send me to their block clinic where they kill the nerve and it blocks the pain. I told them I wanted to find out what was causing the pain. They said I could discuss it with my regular VA doctor in 4 months. They suck. Thank God I have an HMO also. I had a colonoscopy, endonoscopy, Ct scan, and an upper GI series done. It is diverticulitis. Bush cut funding where the VA is not accepting any new members this year or next year also probably. This misadministration's record on veteran benefits is damn close to criminal. Sorry for the rant folks.