I Cogitate
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Dishonoring Our Soldiers On Veteran's Day
How do those politicians who rush to send our soldiers off to war, yet fail to adequately support them, dare look at themselves in the mirror each morning?
Too often, these are the very same hyprocites who strut about and fervently shout that all life is sacred, then demonstrate they don't give a damn what happens to anyone but themselves and their own family members once birth takes place.
This screed is directed at those very pols who who put party politics and financial deliverance far, far above any greater sense of morality.
It's old news but a president with even a remote semblance of actual integrity would have sacked his Secretary of Defense for the comments Donald Rumsfeld made about his (our) troops lacking personal body armor and steel plating for vehicles. At the very least, a president who truly supports the troops he sent to battle would have demanded a public apology from his Secretary of Defense, followed by monthly reports on how the armor problems were being solved.
Here is Rumsfeld's comment when asked by a soldier about the missing but needed armor:
"As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."Rumsfeld went on to blame the problem on physics and then said everything was being done to alleviate the shortage. Of course,this was another set of lies as the manufacturer of such armor later said his company could easily increase output but hadn't been asked to do so.
Any Secretary of Defense worthy of his position and the respect of his troops would have resigned for such improprieties..
Although the lackey veterans organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion weren't the least bit bothered by any of this and have continued their walk-all-over-those-we-represent feasance to the Bush Administration, give credit to right winger, sometimes spot-on, sometime wacko Bill Kristol for his closing comment in an extremely critical December 15, 2004 column in The Washington Post:
"...These soldiers deserve a better defense secretary than the one we have."The following are excepts from an October 17, 2005 column by Gene C. Gerard at Truthout.org:
"The Veterans Affairs Department is currently reviewing approximately one-third of the cases of veterans who are receiving disability benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After conducting an internal study, the VA believes that they were too lenient in deciding which soldiers were eligible for PTSD benefits. Last year, the VA spent $4.3 billion on PTSD disability payments, and the VA hopes to reduce these payments by revoking PTSD benefits for many veterans. This will be the final insult to soldiers who were asked to fight a war in Iraq on false premises.So slap that 'Support Our Troops' bumpersticker on your SUV and wave your flag. After all, what more could be expected to show your support with George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld as your exemplars?
Owing to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of veterans receiving compensation for PTSD has increased by almost 80 percent in the last five years. By comparison, the number of veterans receiving compensation for all other types of disabilities increased by only 12 percent. Under the guidelines of the current review, soldiers who cannot prove that a specific incident, known as a "stressor," was sufficient to cause PTSD, their benefits will be revoked. Given the nature of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, it's not surprising that many returning soldiers are suffering from mental illness.
In the July 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Colonel Charles W. Hoge, MD, the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Institute, published a preliminary study of the effects of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan on military personnel. The study concluded that close to 20 percent of soldiers who served in Iraq and approximately 12 percent of those who served in Afghanistan returned home suffering from PTSD. The study found that there is a clear correlation between combat experience and the prevalence of PTSD. The study determined that "Rates of PTSD were significantly higher after combat duty in Iraq."
Approximately 86 percent of soldiers in Iraq were involved in combat, as were 31 percent in Afghanistan. On average, soldiers engaged in two firefights for each tour of duty.
The study indicated that 95 percent of soldiers had been shot at. And 56 percent of soldiers had killed an enemy combatant. An estimated 28 percent were directly responsible for the death of a civilian. Equally grim, 94 percent had seen or handled corpses or bodily remains. Additionally, 68 percent witnessed fellow soldiers being killed or seriously wounded.
Although the number of soldiers suffering from PTSD is high, Dr. Hoge's study found that a majority of veterans are not seeking treatment. Only 40 percent of returning soldiers acknowledged that they need mental health care, and only 26 percent were actually receiving care. Therefore, the number of veterans approved for PTSD compensation by the VA is relatively small. Yet the VA believes that too many soldiers were approved for PTSD disability compensation and is now seeking to deny soldiers this benefit...."
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