Disabled Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld

[travisab1]

By DAVID VEST
The organization known as Disabled American Veterans has been helping U.S. combat casualties figure out what benefits they have coming to them and how to apply for them since 1920. Lately the Bush administration has been going out of its way to make the DAV's job harder.
Their job would be hard enough even if the government appreciated their efforts and was glad to see them coming. Incredibly, it doesn't and it isn't. Not any more.
An army of U.S. veterans more than twice the size of Operation Iraqi Freedom have lost their health insurance benefits since Bush took office. As many as half a million vets are homeless. Seven VA hospitals are being closed as part of an effort to "restructure" the Department of Veterans Affairs. Meanwhile, veterans of the Iraq campaign can fall in line with over 250,000 U.S. veterans who are already waiting at least six months to see a doctor.
Although it hasn't hesitated to send them to face death in Iraq, the administration has consistently opposed any attempt to extend full benefits to Reservists and National Guardsmen, twenty percent of whom have no health insurance by General Accounting Office estimates.
It was one thing when the White House tried to roll back increases in monthly imminent-danger pay and family separation allowance, and another when it called a modest proposal to increase the sum given to families of soldiers who die on active duty "wasteful and unnecessary."
Finally, it occurred to the firm of Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Rice Minions and Myrmidons to wonder how much money the country would save (and how much more could be diverted to Bechtel and Halliburton contracts) if veterans couldn't even find out what their benefits are.
And so now we learn that ever since Operation Iraqi Freedom got underway, it has been easier for a terrorist to get into the United States legally than for a DAV representative to get into a military hospital to help wounded soldiers with their benefit applications. Sickeningly, the Pentagon has been severely limiting DAV access to wounded veterans and doing it on grounds of "security." Oh, yes, and protecting "privacy."
It protects the veterans' privacy by not allowing them to speak with DAV representatives "unmonitored."
Fortunately someone blinked and it wasn't the Disabled American Veterans.
When he got back to the office after celebrating New Year's and opened his mail, Donald Rumsfeld found a letter informing him that he had messed with the wrong people this time.
Here's part of what DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman had to say to the Secretary of Defense:
"At one facility in particular [Walter Reed Army Medical Center] our efforts to visit with wounded patients have been severely restricted. For example, all requests to visit patients must now be made through the WRAMC headquarters office, which then selects the patients we may visit and strictly limits information about the patients, even the patient's name and the nature of the injury is withheld without express permission. The DAV's representatives also are escorted at all times while in the facility, and all contact with patients is closely monitored by the escort. This is particularly unnerving and inappropriate as all conversations between a representative and client are confidential in nature.
"I believe these overly broad restrictions on patient access inhibit the ability of our professional accredited representatives to help ensure these wounded service members have the vital information they and their families need in order to obtain the medical care and benefits many of these veterans will depend on for decades to come.
"The American public would be outraged if these restrictions became public knowledge."
[Would they? Hard to tell. There has been little or no coverage in the mainstream media since the DAV released the letter.]
Gorman goes on to say:
"The record of benefits awarded by the VA shows our honored wounded and injured are getting less than they are rightfully entitled. Those wounded and disabled in service to our nation should not be held captive and deprived of the knowledge that would allow them to receive all their rightful benefits, earned on a battlefield half a world away. It brings great dishonor to our nation to learn of disabled veterans suffering physical and economic hardships following their release from medical treatment solely because they are unaware and uninformed of their rightful benefits."
Think of it ... wounded veterans "held captive" ... prevented from seeing people who have a congressional charter to serve them ... not allowed to speak with DAV reps in private, lest their "privacy" be violated ... an administration that regards Disabled American Veterans as security risks.
A government increasingly unable to tell the difference between terrorists and its own citizens.
David Vest writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. He and his band, The Willing Victims, just released a scorching new CD, Way Down Here.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com

I thought you'd want to know.

Regards,
Travis

[MORTARDUDE]

Travis :

Thanks for posting. How anyone can consider voting Republican in November is way beyond my ablity to grasp. I just emailed this to a bunch of friends on the 'Net. I would encourage others to do the same.

Larry

[Gimpy]

me as well Travis.

And, Larry.......I got me copy via E-mail,,,,and promptly forwarded it to as many folks as I could! Thank you as well.

It's hard to comprehend the extent of despicable and virtually criminal behavior of this administration.

[travisab1]

MORTARDUDE, Gimpy & all who read the above. Be sure to follow the links to see all the comparisons between 1933 & now as well as unarmed protesters being shot in the back as they ran.

I hope I haven't offended anyone. I've been a Republican since 1964. I couldn't stand to see all the tax & spend the Demo's did over the year's.

Now I'm so damn confused I don't know which way to turn. I feel I've been stabbed in the back. I guess some people just don't know how I feel. When I express my opinion's I suppose I do alienate some. Those are just one's opinion. Now I feel like butting my head in to a wall.

What is becoming of my/our country?

If I've said something wrong, I'm truly sorry. I can always fall back on being half crazy I guess.

Regards,
Travis

[HARDCORE]

TRAVIS, GIMPY, DUDE etc. -

"JUST A QUESTION ?"

How does this affect the "DUTY TO ASSIST", or is that no longer a concern in government? :cd:

VERITAS

[MORTARDUDE]

Our country is almost flushed down the toilet. One more "contrived terrorist act", and it is over, per Tommy Franks...not me. Anyone who depends on the alphabet news media to contradict this, has their head way up their ass. Until about 8 months ago ,I was a rabid, raving conservative Republican...look at my earlier posts. The time for action is now. Kerry has his problems, but a change is needed. Get your freiends and neighbors to vote for him, and if he screws up we can change that too.

I have been told by some that some of the article may not be true.
If so, I sure would like to know. Curtis, what do you think ?

Larry

[MORTARDUDE]

This was posted on another group I belong to :



mariagiorgianni@comcast.net

An aquantance of ours has a daughter that was serving in Iraq. She severely
wounded her hand. A tank fell on it. She will probably lose it. What
Walter Reed has put her through is disgusting. They really don't want to
save her hand due to "costs". And they want to give her a crappy
disability. Why the media igores this is beyond me.

[Hawk]

What we need to do is when the media circus, comes to town during the primary elections. If as many veterans as possible go to the town meetings that the candidates hold, and bring this up to all of them. Ask the candidates what they are going to do to fix this. The more the candidates get asked during the primaries the better chance it has of getting attention during the national elections. It's a way to draw attention to what is happening.
Just my 2 cents anyway.

[MORTARDUDE]

Hawk :

There is a big problem with the George Bush entourage. Anyone who has anything negative or in a protest fashion to say , is herded and quarantined ( see my other posts about this ) a mile away out of the media's range. Even LBJ and Nixon didn't do this...It would be interesting if a bunch of vets in wheel chairs were arrested for protesting. God... this sucks.

Larry

[HARDCORE]

DUDE et al -

They really don't want to save her hand due to "costs".

"And therein, I fear, lies the whole problem!!"

Money used to treat wounded, injured or sick vets, or any other "Honorable American" for that matter, is that much less available to feed the likes of "Helliburton" etc (opinion), political appetites, foreign back-stabbers, and other assorted pork and foreign generated snot!

I thought that the Conservatives deplored excessive spending. I guess this applies only if that spending is in the States?!

Pissing away billion$ abroad is OK to some I guess, and I have even heard of ex-governors running for other offices after the days of wine and roses have evaporated!! But has any president (of any party) ever considered a stint as Secretary General of the U.N. (Unmitigated Nincompoops) after the Oval Office (I WONDER)?? :cd:

And why not, considering the fact that a few have been far more concerned about foreign intrigue and world affluence than their own people - but then, who in the Hell do we think that we are anyway - just the guys and gals that pay the bills, spill the blood, shed the tears, and eat the shit generated by the few who feel themselves above the will of people themselves!!

VERITAS