America's Biggest Lie: "We Support The Troops"
The most pathetic hyperbolic chamber of them all-congress
By haystack Posted in Congress — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
[image courtesy Liberal Scum(dot)com ]
Of the myriad fluff lines from our political heroes, paid well BY us to lie TO us, perhaps
[T]he best way to support our troops is to finally start bringing them home, and out of the sectarian civil war that we have no business being part of.
I could say the best way to support Hillary's campaign would be to send HER home. Or Obama's, or Edwards', or Kucinich's. In fact, I could even suggest that the best way to support Congress in general would be to send the lot of these bums packing for their hometowns. Think they'd agree?
Let's get something straight up front. As a nation, we need the ability to protect and defend ourselves from enemies both foreign and domestic. We need a Military for this purpose; one in which there are real live people (Soldiers) hired, paid, trained, and equipped to be able to serve that function and ensure our continued survival and sovereign integrity. To suggest we should only sustain a body of war fighters so long as they fight no wars is, perhaps, the most imbecilic attempt at logic from the body politic I have ever had to reconcile in my mind with the realities on the ground for those who serve.
More below the fold...
Putting aside, for this little essay, the rightness or wrongness of Iraq, or even who has done well or poorly in its management and execution, the one truth for America is that she has Soldiers. Right NOW, they are fighting a war. Some are dying, others are getting wounded, and still others are having to face the effects on themselves and their families and friends and loved ones, for having participated in it.
These men and women leave home, some leaving spouses and children behind, others leaving behind credit card bills, and mortgages, and car loans. More than a few come back forever changed; war IS hell, it has been said over the years.
When you consider the Walter Reed (Building 18) fiasco, and the endless stream of media attention it enjoyed ONLY after it appeared likely this President might get a whole "new" line of fashionable beatings over this fresh red meat, and the heads that rolled in the aftermath of this news flash, you would think we were finally headed toward some REAL Soldier Support initiatives.
The Bush response to the Building 18 disaster was to issue an Executive order which formed a Committee led by Bob Dole and Donna Shalala. Called the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, they were asked for two things:
1 - Conduct a comprehensive review of services America is providing to our wounded warriors and
2 - Deliver recommendations to the President, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Veterans Affairs this summer.
With the help of 7 hand-picked Commission members, the report has been finalized and was submitted to the President on 25 July 2007. The 7 additional members included Marc Giammatteo, Jose Ramos, Tammy Edwards, Kenneth Fisher, C. Martin Harris, Edward A. Eckenhoff, and Gail Wilensky. Their Objectives and Scope:
Per our charter, the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors will recommend ways to:
1. Improve The Transition From Deployment To Other Military Service Or Civilian Life.
2. Ensure High-Quality Services For Returning Wounded Service Members.
3. Increase Access To Benefits And Services.
4. Commission Members Will Consult With Foundations, Veterans Service Organizations, Non-Profit Groups, Faith-Based Organizations, And Others, As Appropriate.
Before we review the final report, pay close attention to how THEY define "Supporting the Troops"
As a Commission, we believe that honoring our injured service men and women means:
* Our nation must acknowledge the significant sacrifices of our wounded and injured service members
* While in most cases service members receive excellent care, the care provided should meet the highest standards of quality
* Improving the system of care where needed will benefit all veterans for generations to come.
* Our goal is that the care provided heal, to the greatest possible extent, the physical and mental wounds of our service members to enable them to achieve their maximum potential.
* It is imperative that we continue to value the significant contributions of family members in supporting the health and well-being of their loved ones.
THAT, America, is what "Supporting the Troops" is all about...not forcing them to lose a war they can and ARE winning. Not, as our Democrat friends would suggest, by bringing them home while telling them they failed or that they created the enemy or that their Commander in Chief tricked them into signing up...and certainly not by de-funding them or suggesting they have done some terribly wrong thing by having gone there in the first place.
While the Walter Reed story may have woken up the sleeping American public, or perhaps given fodder to Bush opponents in hope of finding something ELSE to capitalize on politically at the expense of the American war fighter (yet once again), these revelations of a flawed and terribly inept and dysfunctional system of Veteran care are not new to Soldiers and their families...they have been in existence for years-farther back than even the post-Vietnam days when far too many of our Heroes found themselves denied adequate health care for any number of reasons...not the least of them being the horrible bureaucracy that accompanies access to ANY Government-controlled program.
Try as anyone may, Veteran care, and support of the war fighters and their families lies squarely and SOLELY in the collective laps of Congress-they write the laws...Presidents only sign them IN to law. Why would anyone be surprised by what Dole and Shalala and company actually FOUND after their commission efforts had been wrapped up?
The title says it all:
Serve, Support, Simplify.
1. Immediately Create Comprehensive Recovery Plans to Provide the Right Care and Support at the Right Time in the Right Place.
Recommendation: Create a patient-centered Recovery Plan for every seriously injured service member that provides the right care and support at the right time in the right place. A corps of well-trained, highly-skilled Recovery Coordinators must be swiftly developed to ensure prompt development and execution of the Recovery Plan.
Goals: Ensure an efficient, effective and smooth rehabilitation and transition back to military duty or civilian life; establish a single point of contact for patients and families; and eliminate delays and gaps in treatment and services.
2. Completely Restructure the Disability and Compensation Systems
Recommendation: DoD maintains authority to determine fitness to serve. For those found not fit for duty, DoD shall provide payment for years served. VA then establishes the disability rating, compensation and benefits.
Goals: Update and simplify the disability determination and compensation system; eliminate parallel activities; reduce inequities; and provide a solid base for the return of injured veterans to productive lives.
3. Aggressively Prevent and Treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury
Recommendation: VA should provide care for any veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts who has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). DoD and VA must rapidly improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of both PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI). At the same time, both Departments must work
aggressively to reduce the stigma of PTSD.Goals: Improve care of two common conditions of the current conflicts and reduce the stigma of PTSD; mentally and physically fit service members will strengthen our military into the future.
4. Significantly Strengthen Support for Families
Recommendation: Strengthen family support programs including expanding DoD respite care and extending the Family and Medical Leave Act for up to six months for spouses and parents of the seriously injured.
Goals: Strengthen family support systems and improve the quality of life for families.
5. Rapidly Transfer Patient Information Between DoD and VA
Recommendation: DoD and VA must move quickly to get clinical and benefit data to users. In addition, DoD and VA should jointly develop an interactive "My eBenefits" website that provides a single information source for service members.
Goals: Support a patient-centered system of care and efficient practices.
6. Strongly Support Walter Reed By Recruiting and Retaining
First-Rate Professionals Through 2011Recommendation: Until the day it closes, Walter Reed must have the authority and responsibility to recruit and retain first-rate professionals to deliver first-rate care. Walter Reed Army Medical Center has a distinguished history and, with
one in five injured service members going directly to Walter Reed, continues to play a unique and vital role in providing care for America’s military.Goals: Assure that this major military medical center has professional and administrative staff necessary for state-of-the art medical care and scientific research through 2011.
These are reasoned, researched, and reconciled recommendations that will not solve ALL the ills of the Veteran's Care system(s), but will certainly go a tremendously long way toward improving a system clearly functioning well beyond its means...almost in SPITE of the systemic shortcomings it is forced to endure.
Is it any wonder, given the observations the Dole/Shalala commission, why there is a class action lawsuit forming?
"Hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed a class-action lawsuit against the United States Government, accusing it of providing them with deficient medical and financial support."
The veterans accuse the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) of violating the constitutional rights of war veterans and leaving them to face a bureaucratic nightmare with claims pending for up to 10 years.
"The delays have become an insurmountable barrier, preventing many veterans from obtaining health care and benefits," the plaintiffs said in their complaint.
The 11-page complaint was filed at a US District Court in San Francisco.
The Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and Veterans United for Truth (VUFT) have complained on behalf of "hundreds of thousands of men and women who have suffered grievous injuries", alleging the system for deciding VA claims "has largely collapsed".
"The huge influx of injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan has overwhelmed the VA's outmoded systems for providing medical care and disability benefits," the complaint said.
In addition, it said the VA's "archaic systems are structurally unsuitable for dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)," which afflicts many war veterans.
The veterans charged the VA with deliberately tricking some PTSD sufferers by having them acknowledge pre-existing personality disorders in order to avoid giving them benefits.
"Unless systematic and drastic measures are instituted immediately, the costs to these veterans, their families and our nation will be incalculable, including broken families, a new generation of unemployed and homeless veterans, increases in drug abuse and alcoholism," the complaint said.
If the Presidential wannabes want us to believe they support the Troops...no really, "we really mean it"...then they need to do 2 things. Stop blaming Bush and start blaming themselves (won't happen). AND, legislate change...not MORE Veteran care funds which further expands Governmental bureaucracy...basic, fundamental, and comprehensive change.
They certainly know what "comprehensive" means along our borders. Perhaps they will figure out what that means on Military bases and in Military care facilities.
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America's Biggest Lie: "We Support The Troops" 21 Comments (0 topical, 21 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
First and foremost, supporting the troops means ensuring that we have the force structure to accomplish the mission. At the present time our force structure is incompatible with the duration and scope of the present conflict. Asking a solider to spend 3 years out of 5 in a war zone is anti-family, and over the long term, degrades the effectiveness of the warfighter.
Supporting the troops at the present hour requires that we either expand the size of the army and marines to a size consistant with the task at hand, or scale back our policy objectives and bring them into alignment with a force that was designed for "shock and awe," not nation building.
Well, if *someone* hadn't reduced the Army from 18 divisions to 10 in the 1990s..
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(Formerly known as bee) / Internet member since 1987
Member of the Surreality-Based Community
Join the Win the War campaign, joshlevy@yahoo.com, www.win-the-war.com.
Our leaders waver, but we can give them the courage they need.
but is seems that you are saying losing or destroying government property is okay? Is that right?
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
...who play political games with funds needed to fight. It has been pointed out here numerous times that this funding game has a direct effect on troop readiness and how existing funds are allocated. Perhaps if the army was awash in money, then it could afford to be more cavalier with lost or damaged equipment. But times are tight, and as the veterans advocate said, "this is all part of the military’s push to be run more like a business." Bottom line: it's the bottom line now.
I've been billed by employers several times for lost and damaged equipment before, in similar amounts to that of Rodriguez. I paid if I owed and disputed charges I felt were incorrect. Won some, lost some.
It looks to me that the average debt owed is a little over $1,000. I know soldiers' pay is low, but so was mine when I incurred my similar debts, and I didn't have a powerful Democrat senator fighting to get me off the hook. Naturally, my well of sympathy is low.
The reporter says that, "despite repeated requests, the Army never could tell us what piece of equipment Rodriguez was billed for, nor would they get rid of the debt." I'm guessing two basic responses: " I'm sorry ma'am, I can't release that information due to privacy and legal concerns" or, "We don't keep that information in our billing records. The bill is just a guesstimate." And am I supposed to be amazed that the Army didn't roll over and forgive the debt because CBS was hounding them?
I find it hard to believe that nowhere in this man's service record, or that of his unit, is there an itemized list of billable items which he negligently or intentionally lost or damaged. Not saying it's not possible--fog of war, government bookkeeping--just a little skeptical.
There is nothing sinister about the fact that, ""although unit commanders and finance offices are authorized to write off debts for lost and damaged equipment ... they have not always done so." Is it possible that they have not always done so because sometimes they were pretty PO'ed at some joker who, let's say, maybe took some explosives he had at his disposal and blew up a latrine just to see what would happen?
This whole "debt of service" thing could be the latest example callous bureaucratic tyranny, but it seems from reading comments about it, that there is an element of faux outrage at another sign of Bush's callousness and incompetence. The same people who advocate tying our soldiers' hands with the most restrictive ROE, and who gladly believe every allegation of brutality by our troops are probably the ones crying the biggest crocodile tears for these debtor soldiers.
Nothing new here all the services are a paperwork jungle. When you in-process you draw personal equipment, there's a sheet with the items your allowed to draw. These differ among specialties, pilots get some special items like flightsuits(6),sunglasses(1), and flightboots(1), but in the end you sign in triplicate for all of it. If you wear something out you take the used item back to supply and they issue you a new one. But, if you loose it , you bought it.
They don't bill you for anything until you out-process, when that truckload of paperwork that's been following you around for years finally catches up to you.
Even then some things aren't discovered until an audit is done by one of the agencies. Any straggling paperwork catches up to you eventually until all the i's are dotted and t's crossed.
P.S. A year after separation I got a $2,000.00 bill for being overweight on my household goods move from Germany to the US over two years previously. I thought I was going to slide on that one, but it was a clean kill (I packed up crates of white wine from the Mosel region and that stuff adds-up), so I sent them a check. You can run but you can't hide from the paperwork in the service.
"The only way to negotiate with your enemy, is with your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat." - Anon.
Absolutely right, XHog Driver:
"They don't bill you for anything until you out-process, when that truckload of paperwork that's been following you around for years finally catches up to you.
Even then some things aren't discovered until an audit is done by one of the agencies. Any straggling paperwork catches up to you eventually until all the i's are dotted and t's crossed."
Rodriguez knew exactly what he was being billed for. I'm sure that the first bill he got told him so. As anyone who has ever received follow-up collection notices knows, the follow-ups never repeat the itemized charges, only the total amount, usually in big red numbers. I'm guessing Rodriguez managed to lose that first itemized bill, or he didn't show that one to the intrepid CBS reporters. And if he did show it to them, they said,"We'll pretend we didn't see that, OK? It doesn't fit our agenda."
If the Army operated on a pay-as-you-go basis, docking the pay of soldiers in the field as loss or damage occurs, we'd have already heard the howls of outrage from the likes of Schumer about that, too.
Raoul, what say you? Raoul?
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"The only way to negotiate with your enemy, is with your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat." - Anon.
You'd never know it from the coverage provided by the terrorist-coddling, fifth-columnist uber left-wing media, but the fact is that the Iraq War has been and is a roaring success by every meaningful standard. I often listen to a radio program to which active-duty service personnel frequently call in, and I can tell you that the optimism, confidence and morale that I hear in their voices truly is sky high.
The only one recurring sour note comes from the realization that if not for the aid and comfort provided to the Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq by the America-hating liberals in this country, our boys job would likely at this point be all but finished, ready to hand things off to the Iraqi army and government, and all set to board those ships and planes for their eagerly awaited trip home.
When I think of the needless deaths and suffering our boys have had to endure as a direct result of the machinations of the liberal blame-America-first crowd, it is very, very difficult for me to contain the intense anger and outrage I feel. In fact, I'm all set to volunteer as an interrogator at Guantanamo - just so long as I'm permitted to take a couple of plane loads of liberals down there with me.
I think we should just trust our President in every decision that he makes and we should just support that. -A Patriotic American
you gotta be able to do better than that...
“Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the Democrats believe every day is April 15.”
-Ronald Reagan
Because you ain't getting another shot at it.
As it were.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
they truly are the best that America has and I am grateful to each and every one of them and on a smaller scale if you want to support the troops go to http://www.soldiersangels.org/ .
"I think we should just trust our President in every decision that he makes and we should just support that. -A Patriotic American"
My bumper sticker idea:
"Hate Bush: It Beats Thinking"
Iraq is complex. Many of the people here have questioned the president many times on many things. You should seriously consider two things:
1. Studying the issues from all sides.
2. Thinking for yourself.
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We would also like to know your advice for somebody like my daughter, who's going to graduate in two years, advice that you would give a young person.
SEC. RUMSFELD: Advice for a young person. Study history.
for sale. It would sell.
Join the Win the War campaign, joshlevy@yahoo.com, www.win-the-war.com.
Our leaders waver, but we can give them the courage they need.
This:
Try as anyone may, Veteran care, and support of the war fighters and their families lies squarely and SOLELY in the collective laps of Congress-they write the laws...Presidents only sign them IN to law.
Is simply wrong. The President's responsibility is not only to sign laws, but to implement them. Congress could pass the most perfect set of laws ever devised to care for the troops but if the executive branch is incompetent in its execution of them, all is likely lost.
You implicitly recognize this point when you state "the horrible bureaucracy that accompanies access to ANY Government-controlled program." The bureaucracy is, for the most part, an executive function (appoints, hires, fires, expends, regulates, etc.).
I agree that our wounded veterans and their families deserve the best of care, but your assertion that this is "SOLELY" a function of Congress is absurd.
THIS President IS implementing the laws as ascribed by this and previous Congresses...this is NOT a Bush issue, tempting though this may be for you-
Congress writes laws, and they perform oversight of same...this IS a Congress problem...Bush or whomever pre-or-pro-ceeds him can make all the noise they want...Congress owns this, period.
haystack's 12th:
Conservatives (and Presidential Candidates especially) shall offer no aid and comfort to the opposition in times of legislative conflict (and ensuing political campaigns).
nearly enough. For instance, why are so many troops being forced into third and fourth tours in Iraq? Why are too few troops in Iraq being expected to keep security? (see, e.g, http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009034 )
So on and so forth. The Republicans in Congress should have been pounding the Bush Administration (in private at first, and in public if necessary) to increase the military sufficiently to support our two new wars and to support any new wars that might occur while we were fighting the first two.
Read Frederick Kagan on this point, too (and he's been arguing this for years): http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/734nya...
Join the Win the War campaign, joshlevy@yahoo.com, www.win-the-war.com.
Our leaders waver, but we can give them the courage they need.