[Gimpy]

Do Republicans really support the troops?


The heartbreaking stories that appeared this week in The Washington Post and the Army Times would make one question their devotion to the morale and welfare of those who paid such a high price for President Bush's war.


Both publications told stories of badly wounded men and women who had their lives saved on the battlefield, only to be trapped in what the Post called "a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas."


Walter Reed Army Medical Center has become "a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients," the Post reported. Some have been languishing in crumbling, squalid buildings infested with mice and cockroaches for months, and in some cases, years, for the military to process their paperwork and determine disability ratings and future treatment for their injuries.


The Army Times reported that the military has gotten as good as civilian insurers (and the VA!) in the area of what's become known as "denial management," or making sure clients don't get the benefits their entitled too.


A 30 percent or higher disability rating entitles a wounded soldier to a lifetime pension and medical benefits. Less than that, and you receive a lump sum payment and no medical help.


Even though there have been thousands of badly maimed soldiers from nearly six years of war, the Army is handing out fewer permanent disability benefits than ever. The Army Times reported that in 2001, 10 percent of the soldiers going through the medical retirement process received permanent disability benefits. By 2005, only 3 percent got benefits. And, as of last year, the Veterans Administration also has a 400,000-case backlog on new medical claims. President Bush promised in the 2000 election and again in the 2004 campaign that his administration would REDUCE this "backlog" and REDUCE the waiting time for veterans to receive a decision on their medical claims. Just the OPPOSITE has taken place-----------There are MORE claims 'pending' than when he took office in 2001 AND 2005! And, the waiting times for a decision on these cases have INCREASED rather than decreased!


So much for supporting our troops.


Any Republican running for re-election in 2008 should be continually reminded of the gap between their words and actions regarding the Iraq war and the intolerable treatment of the men and women who have been maimed while fighting it.


If the 2006 election wasn't enough of a wake-up call for the Republican Party, the GOP has positioned itself to electoral oblivion in 2008!......... If the Republicans still want to stand shoulder to shoulder behind a failed president and his failed war polices, they will pay a steep price at the polls in 2008.


Bottom line!..... This is one more way, besides not providing enough troops in the beginning to prevent the mad house we now see in Iraq, not providing adequate body armor, not building enough 'up-armored' hummers right, not taking care of the military families, cutting their pay, and sending recovering, wounded soldiers to languish in cockroach infested hospitals/former motels while the Army does all it can to prevent them from getting their benefits, that the Bush administration and its lackeys' at the Defense Department are failing, or worse, betraying, this generation of our beloved troops. When there is talk of supporting the troops, add these things to the list of ways the radical right wing has failed to do its job.


There WILL be a further "house-cleaning" in 2008, I can't wait to see these so-called "compassionate CONservatives" thrown out on their fat-cat asses!