Veterans For America's Paul Sullivan on CNN-DVA-NO PLAN for returning Vets

[fed-up]

Glad to see some real news getting coverage:

http://www.veteransforamerica.org/ArticleID/8453

Veterans For America's Paul Sullivan on CNN

John Roberts

CNN
Oct 15, 2006

THIS WEEK AT WAR: Week's War News Recounted

Aired October 14, 2006 - 19:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

...snip

ROBERTS: Paul Sullivan, there's a report that suggests that one in five veterans who are coming back from either Iraq or Afghanistan are in some way disabled and that over the course of the war and who knows how long that is going to last, those numbers, according to projections are going to skyrocket. How big could they get?

PAUL SULLIVAN, VETERANS FOR AMERICA: The numbers could get very large. The Department of Veterans' Affairs is facing a crisis. Right now if the trend continues, it's ominous.
And about 400,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans could end up filing disability claims.


...snip

SULLIVAN: The bottom line is Iraq and Afghanistan are going to be very expensive for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and billions of dollars a year in taxpayer money spent for healthcare and disability checks.

What's needed is a plan to find out how much money is going to be needed for V.A.
Last year, V.A. was short $3 billion because of poor accounting methods and here we have the Department of Veterans' Affairs trying to give a weak statement.
Where's the plan?

ROBERTS: Right.

SULLIVAN: The veterans want to know when they come home, John, if they walk into a V.A. hospital, can I see a doctor right away? When I need disability benefits, because I can't find a job and I'm disabled, will I get that check?
And right now, the
Department of Veterans' Affairs has no plan to beef up the number of doctors, no plan to beef up the numbers of claims processors to make sure that those veterans get the benefits that need and they earned from fighting on the front lines.

..snip

[salin]

1. imagine... bushco doesn't have a plan... n/t

[fed-up]

7. that Bushco has NO PLAN for our own needs to be repeated loud/often nt

[sarge43]

2. Well, there's no plan for them while they're incountry,

why should there be one for them when and if they return?
:sarcasm:

[trof]

3. Head injury is "signature wound" of this 'war'.

Insurgent snipers learned early on to aim above or below the kevlar.
Roadside bombs/mines/booby-traps throw up massive amounts of shrapnel in a "shotgun" effect.

Better body and vehicle armor and significant advancements in battlefield medical triage mean many more disabled survivors than any other military conflict.
Many of these kids would have been KIA in past wars.

'We' created them and we have to care for them.
Kind of kin to the law of unintended consequences.
:-(

[meti57b]

4. Probably because they don't expect them to ever return.

... at the rate things are going over there.

[acmejack]

5. VA methodology

Delay, deny, hope you die...

[Toots]

6. V.A. was short $3 billion because of poor accounting methods

:wtf: Short because of poor accounting.....Three billion dollars short......Who's pocket is this ending up in besides the GOP? Maybe all the money was spent on purple-heart bandaids.....