Don't make vets fight for care

Don't make vets fight for care


By DEN CARROLL

Congress just approved President Bush's $87 billion budget for the war on terrorism, nearly $20 billion of which is targeted for the reconstruction of Iraq. Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs, under the direction of CARES - the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services Commission - is preparing to close veterans hospitals.This is troubling for veterans at home and the future vets now on active duty in the Mideast. There are more than 2,000 sick and wounded coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the casualty lists are expanding every day - but CARES doesn't care.Slated for closure in New York State alone are the huge Veterans Affairs Medical Center on E. 23rd St., Westchester County's FDR veterans hospital in Montrose and the Canandaigua facility in Ontario County. It has been more than 30 years since my Army recruiter told me Uncle Sam would pick up my doctors' bills for the rest of my life. But decades of budget cuts have made getting proper health care an obstacle course. CARES plans will make it worse.In addition, the Pentagon is still deducting service-related disability benefits from military pensions. It seems there's always enough money for the wars, never enough for the warriors.To be fair, all is not gloom and doom. Congress did pass a pay raise, which will take some service families off food stamps; firms like Goodyear and Chrysler offer military discounts; Metro-North has reduced-fare vet packages; some airlines are soliciting frequent-flier miles from business fliers and reallocating them to G.I.s returning from the Mideast, and local pols are sponsoring bills that would raise the $24,000 income threshold for vets seeking low-cost health care and are fighting to keep the hospitals open.Still, it's awfully tough to be in a veterans hospital bed these days, wondering if you're going to be chucked out the back door like an old pair of Army boots. Failing to deliver on promised health care to veterans is a betrayal of trust that contributes to a widening chasm between the greatest consumers of liberty in the world - American citizens - and the greatest manufacturers of that liberty - American soldiers. As Americans watch young soldiers fighting and dying every day in Iraq and old soldiers fighting for their health care back home, can anyone blame a youngster who picks a suit over a uniform?On this Veterans Day the nation should pray we run out of wars before we run out of warriors.Carroll is co-founder of Veterans Enraged at The System.
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I wonder how many of the brave souls in congress ever donned a uniform and fought for the privileges they enjoy, and how many managed to worm out of serving? Do commitments and promises have any meaning? Or do the ends justify the means?