What the Next President Should do for Vets

[unhappycamper]

What the Next President Should do for Vets
Paul Rieckhoff | September 04, 2008

In this election year, the presidential candidates disagree over everything from the economy to the Iraq war to how many houses they can remember to own. But one issue that should be bridging the partisan divide is the importance of caring for our veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama have pledged their support for our troops and new veterans -- but will they put their money where their mouth is? IAVA is working to make sure they do.

Over the past two weeks, IAVA has been on the ground in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. We have brought a team of our top veterans from around the country to meet with delegates and convention guests to raise awareness about the most critical issues facing the 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and highlight our historic fight for the new GI Bill.

IAVA is nonpartisan, and does not endorse political candidates. Instead, we're making sure that our message is being heard -- veterans' issues must be at the top of the agenda for both political parties and the new Administration.

This week, we released our list of the top 10 veterans' issues that the next president, Democrat or Republican, needs to address starting Day One. IAVA's number one priority for the next president is to ensure mandatory and confidential mental health screenings for all returning troops. Other critical actions include providing adequate care to wounded service members and ending homelessness among veterans. For the full list of actions, click here.

But we could use your help getting the word out to the presidential candidates. Please take a minute to sign IAVA's open letter asking Senators Obama and McCain to pledge that, if elected, they will enact the recommendations we've made.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,174831,00.html?wh=news

[Blaubart]

1. Mandatory and confidential mental health screenings?

First and foremost, I don't know that anything in the military can ever truly be "confidential". And what would be the purpose of making something mandatory if the results are going to be confidential?

Second, I love it how people always want to mandate that our soldiers do something that ordinary citizens would no doubt object to. Yeah, they signed on the dotted line, so we can push whatever the hell we want to on them...

I would like to see the current system continue as it is. Soldiers can opt for evaluations or leaders in their chain of command can force them to get an evaluation if they believe they might have experienced things that would cause most people to have a melt down.

People that come up with ideas like these either want to force their agenda on the soldiers or they believe that soldiers don't have access to health care while they're in the service, on their way out of the service or shortly after leaving the service.

I wouldn't doubt that the people that came up with this idea also support the idea of denying the right to bear arms to former soldiers that might have PTSD.