Check out the timeline of Senator Murray's work to fund the VA (and the Republican's obstructionism) at this link.

Choice bits:

Throw the woman some turkee, or contact her office to say thanks!

Hickok: "You know the sound of thunder. Can you imagine that sound if I ask you to? Ma'am, listen to the thunder."

... they just want to know that we all stuck a fucking magnet on the ass end of our cars.

((((Susan))))  You Rock'n Roll!

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

I'm sorry to say, however, that I must disagree with you concerning the treatment of returning veterans.  Yes, the public, by and large, were respectful to returning soldiers (the myth of anti-war protesters spitting on returning soldiers from Vietnam is just that -- a myth; I never met or heard of ANY soldier that that happened to), but respect is a whole lot more than a pat on the back, a yellow ribbon decal on the car, and a "welcome home". It's what people DO that counts.

The sad reality of fighting in a war is that many, if not most of those who survive return home with substantial problems.  For some, those problems are physical -- traumatic, life-altering wounds that will never heal, that will require ongoing treatment for a lifetime.  In Vietnam, the life-saving procedures of getting severely wounded men from the front line to the operating room were perfected, and have been reimplemented in Iraq.  Lives are saved, but men (and now women) who would have died on the battlefield in previous wars, are given the "opportunity" to live armless, legless, sightless, brainless lives.  Such lives are a blessing, I suppoose, considering the alternative, but they cost money.  Who will pay?  Sure, we'll all raise our hands now, and demand proper treatment for the returning wounded, but what about ten or twenty years from now, when the war, hopefully, is a distant, painful memory, and the economy is in the tank (given the Bushco economic policies, that seems a reasonable conclusion), and there is real competition for where the federal dollars will be spent?  What will happen then, to the invisible, powerless refuse from the long-forgotten war?

And then there's the other "problems": the PTSD, the lost jobs, failed marriages, broken lives.  As`they say, all wounds do not pierce the skin.  There was a point in the seventies and eighties when twenty percent of the prison population in the US were Vietnam veterans.  Respect?  It's my experience that when a vet becomes percieved to become a problem, people don't give a flyin flock about his (or her) service.  Whe Iraqi veterans start becoming a "burden" on the community, I'm afraid the "respect" of their neighbors will disappear.

Every benefit that Vietnam veterans got, were not given to us; we had to fight for them.  The men and women in today's army, by and large, come from lower socio-economic groups.  As a rule, in our political system that does the bidding of those with the bucks, such people will be cut out of the pie when the time comes.  

Respect?  Sorry, the sad recent history of our country is that veterans get the shaft.  And I'm afraid that Iraqi veterans are gonna get it worse than any.

 

Soldiers are required to do their jobs when politicians fail to do theirs

When the health crisis rose up so quickly with the Bush recession, more and more vets turned to the VA, particularly given the out of control costs of meds.

Then the war. More seriously wounded men and women proportionately than any any other war. More mental health problems. Modern medicine saves lives that in other wars were lost. The lives saved are good, but the quality of care is not going to continue with these future cuts.

These soldiers and ex-soldiers are out of sight and out of mind, and that's just where this administration wants them. So their services can be cut, cut, and cut again.  And unequally offered to families of regular military versus families of soldiers in the guard.

This is one of those many damnable things that runs just beyond the horizon. It is hardly "video of the day" matter for local TV.

And of course, ending those terrible "death taxes" and making permanent the huge tax breaks for the extremely wealthy, are more important than anything else our government could do with the money.