‘The Plight of American Veterans’

November 12, 2007

In honor of Veterans’ Day, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) wrote a joint-post for Wired’s Danger Room on the thousands of U.S. troops who return home only to find that their jobs (and benefits) are gone. In 1994, Democrats in Congress and the Clinton White House successfully passed a law to protect veterans’ seniority, salary, and benefits when they return home, but today, the Bush administration is lax about forcing private businesses to follow the law.

Today, however, the federal government is failing in this responsibility. It’s not even adequately informing returning service members about their rights, and it’s not protecting them when their rights are violated. A study by the Government Accountability Office this year found that when the Department of Labor decided to refer federal cases for litigation, it took an average of 247 days.

The Government Accountability Office also found serious problems in collecting and reporting data on claims under the law. Four different agencies collect this data. But they collect it in inconsistent formats, making it impossible to understand the problems that veterans face — particularly disabled veterans.

Until the hearing, the public had little knowledge of the problem, because the Pentagon had been classifying the most accurate statistics. Now that we know the extent of the problem, Congress must act to protect the reemployment rights of our forces.

Damn straight. I know a few too many Republicans believe “supporting the troops” means “supporting their mission,” but protecting veterans when they return home seems to be the trickier part for the Bush administration.

On a related note, the NYT had a good editorial today on just how “bleak” a time it is right now for our veterans returning home from the Middle East.

Recent surveys have painted an appalling picture. Almost half a million of the nation’s 24 million veterans were homeless at some point during 2006, and while only a few hundred from Iraq or Afghanistan have turned up homeless so far, aid groups are bracing themselves for a tsunamilike upsurge in coming years.

Tens of thousands of reservists and National Guard troops, whose jobs were supposedly protected while they were at war, were denied prompt re-employment upon their return or else lost seniority, pay and other benefits. Some 1.8 million veterans were unable to get care in veterans’ facilities in 2004 and lacked health insurance to pay for care elsewhere. Meanwhile, veterans seeking disability payments faced huge backlogs and inordinate delays in getting claims and appeals processed.

The biggest stain this year was the scandalous neglect of outpatients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a sluggish response to the needs of wounded soldiers at veterans clinics and hospitals. Much of this neglect stemmed from the Bush administration’s failure to plan for a long war with mounting casualties and over-long tours of duty to compensate for a shortage of troops.

Happy Veterans’ Day.

Support the troops: Impeach the criminals in the Bush administration and send them to the Hague. It’s not really about them, it’s about sending a clear message to all of the other wingnuts that killing people for political and financial profit will be rewarded with long prison terms. It’s about saving America’s future troops from their worst enemy: unbridled warmongering.

  • Failure to plan

    Should be stamped on the foreheads of every minor BushShit in the land. The major BushShits will get Failure to Give a Fuck.

    But what do I know? Apparently I don’t really support the troops because I don’t want to fuck them over.

  • Republicans are in favor of supporting “a culture of life” – until you are born, at which point if you’re not One of Us, please go drop dead.

    How can we expect a bunch of draft-dodging cowards to ever care about veterans, when their existence is proof of the asswipes’ mendacity, cowardliness and treason?

    Further proof my great-grand-uncle was right that “the only ‘good Republicans’ are pushing up daisies.”

  • It’s a shame that such a “for the troops” administration is clearly not for the troops. At no point in American history has an administration politicized our military to the point that it has been politicized by our current morons in the White House. Perhaps Nixon came close, but I think this was more the fault of surrounding events – protests, rallies, etc.than it was his own doing.

  • Republican Plan #137:

    “If we make life at home really difficult for our veterans, they may become so desperate as to (1) volunteer for another tour of duty in Bushistan (formerly known as Iraq), or (2) commit suicide, thereby saving us the cost of keeping our empty promises.”

    Sound brutal? Tough. I dare the little lemmings at DoD to give me a better reason as to why our vets are getting screwed over like this. Meanwhile, it’s just another tool in the toolbox of “convincing more of America’s youth to forego military service.”

  • I dare the little lemmings at DoD to give me a better reason as to why our vets are getting screwed over like this. — Steve, @ 5

    We need the money to recruit *fresh* meat to feed into the war’s ever-hungry maw. The vets are used up, so who cares what happens to them?

  • Bush hates the military. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He wants to destroy the instiution that did not respect his “service” properly.

  • A Republican is someone who ignores when recruits are lied to by recruiting officers, doesn’t care that their mission is a lie, inhibits the introduction of much needed material to the war front because it would take money away from an overly expensive “defense systems”, doesn’t want anyone taking photos of them when wounded or dead because of the negative PR value, uses them as props for speeches and rug purchases, won’t attend their funerals (or if they do it’s in protest because God wanted them dead because this nation loves fags), overlooks their poor care when they return home, denies them VA benefits because it takes money away from their corporate welfare plans or bridges to nowhere and frankly tells them “why didn’t you die for your country?” when they return home from war. Republicans supporting troops? … BS.

  • As a Veteran two things:

    First, I would imagine they don’t want people coming back and having an option other then re-enlisting.

    Second, not one of the Houston republican pukes I work with said anything about Veteran’s Day. They all know, and most still have doe eyes for Bush.

    • Comments are closed.