Those Who Came Before: Veterans Affairs and President Obama

Letter to the Editor in Rebuttal to Blow's Column "The Enemy Within"

2009-04-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

On April 17th, Charles Blow wrote an editorial in The New York Times called "The Enemy Within" about the threat of domestic white supremacist groups recruiting damaged veterans into their ranks. You can read my analysis of the article here. On Saturday, a guy named Bruce Rider from Grapevine, Texas wrote a letter to the editor in response to the article. Though I mainly agree with Blow's argument and agree that something has to be done about the dangers Blow describes, Rider's letter is worth reading. I've posted it here.

Dear Editor:
I remain disconcerted by Charles M. Blow’s April 18 column, “The Enemies Within,” describing the likely participation of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in white supremacist groups.
To focus on a very small number (a few hundred out of 300,000 veterans who exhibit symptoms of “post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression”) is to do a disservice to all. Certainly, the Department of Veterans Affairs needs to respond rapidly and thoroughly to the physical and emotional wounds of those returned from war, but Mr. Blow’s hypothesis and cited studies reinforce a stereotype we faced returning from Vietnam, that war veterans are somehow “armed and dangerous” and should be feared.
I have to say, with the myriad “adjustments” I faced those years ago (depression, Agent Orange poisoning, legal blindness, divorce), I never considered joining anything like the groups described by Mr. Blow.
We faced isolation, panic, sleeplessness — and decadeslong battles with the Veterans Administration regarding health care and compensation — but we tended to stay away from group participation of any kind.
The road home is long and hard enough without characterizing our returning service members as likely participants in hate groups.

Bruce Rider
Grapevine, Tex., April 21, 2009

Pat's Run Honors Tillman Anniversary

2009-04-23T21:46:00.000-07:00

Last week was the five-year anniversary of the week of Pat Tillman's death. For those of you who missed this one heroic story out of Afghanistan, Pat Tillman was a professional football player with the Arizona Cardinals who gave up that career and joined the military. After surviving a first tour in Iraq, Pat joined the Army Rangers with his brother. Not too long into his second tour, his unit was ambushed in the mountains of Afghanistan, and when attempting to provide cover fire for his men, he was killed by friendly fire. This is only one story of heroism in Afghanistan and Iraq, of which there are countless numbers. Obviously, this one is particularly poignant because of the sacrifices Pat made to be able to serve his country.

Last Saturday, in Tempe, AZ, as well as in San Jose, CA and various military bases throughout Afghanistan, up to 25,000 will participate in Pat's Run, which is an event put together by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). The run is 4.2 miles long (Pat's football jersey number was #42) and all proceeds are going to the scholarship program of the Pat Tillman Foundation.

Nassau County Does What It Can To Find Vets Jobs

2009-04-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

I come back home to the refinery, hiring man says, "Son, if it was up to me." I go down to see the V.A. man, he said "Son don't you understand?"

Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." lyrics, released in 1984, still strike true today, as veterans are still trying to cope with the troubles of finding steady work upon their return from combat. One small glimmer of hope, however, that has arisen from the plight that veterans face is the story of The Warriors To Work program, which was announced last December in Nassau County, N.Y. The program's goal is to provide job opportunities to returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Nassau Country Executive Tom Suozzi, Warriors to Work is the first public-private program in the country to provide employment opportunities for returning veterans from the current wars.

Federal Labor Department statistics for 2007 show the unemployment rate for veterans, including those 18 to 24 who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, was considerably higher than the rate for nonveterans.

Op-Ed Sheds Light on Connection Between Hate Groups and Veterans

2009-04-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

On April 17th, The New York Times published an opinions piece by Charles Blow, which highlights a huge problem in our nation right now that few people are aware of. He writes about the increasing number of military personnel who are returning from Afghanistan and Iraq and joining various white supremacist groups, such as the KKK and the Aryan Nation.

The basis for his argument was attributed to an FBI study on the subject. The research includes some of the following facts: The National Alliance has 58 veterans listed as members, Select Skinhead groups have 45, the National Socialist Movement (a Neo-Nazi group) has 44, the KKK have 20, Aryan Nation has 17, the Creativity Movement has 7, and 12 more belong to other hate groups.

Blow wrote this article after the Dept. of Homeland Security published a study "suggesting that current political and economic conditions are energizing right-wing extremist groups, that many of these groups follow extremely conservative ideologies and that some may seek to recruit and 'radicalize' veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan." The reaction to the study, on both sides of the aisle, wasn't at all surprising. Conservatives claimed that the report was completely partisan and was written only to vilify war heroes as racists, with a higher objective to portray the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as failures in yet another light.

Though this was obviously not the objective of the report, it's a shame that this is the debate we're having, when there is obviously a much more important problem to be solved, as Blow is attempting to show us. According to an FBI report published under former President Bush, "military experience is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement” and that these groups “have attempted to increase their recruitment of current and former U.S. military personnel."

This is scary for two reasons. Firstly, the fact that more hate groups are attempting to militarize is an indication of their intent to become more violent. We don't know if they're bluffing, but either way, the merging of hateful ideologies and members of the most powerful military force on the planet is not a combo that makes me feel at peace. Secondly, the fact that more and more veterans are joining these groups is an indicator that we're still giving our veterans the care they need upon their returns from the front lines. According to a study by the foundation RAND, 300,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reported some sign of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression. The same study reported that only about half of those will seek help and only half of those seeking it will receive “minimally adequate” treatment. A large portion of returning veterans come back broken men, easy mental targets for the brainwashing ideologies of a lot of hate groups.

Policy changes obviously need to be made so that our newest veterans don't fall prey to the same traps that so many already have- for their safety and ours. According to Blow, "If they only recruit a few, that is still too many. Terrorists have shown the world time and again that a few well-trained men is all it takes."

Contaminated Equipment at VA Hospitals Causing HIV

2009-04-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Various news organizations have reported in the past few days that the use of contaminated materials and equipment at various VA medical facilities throughout the country are the cause of several patients becoming very sick. Three of the patients have tested positive for HIV, while six have tested positive for Hepatitis B and 19 for Hepatitis C. The three facilities under question are in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Augusta, Georgia, and Miami, Florida. Over 10,000 veterans that were treated at those facilities are now being tested for the various diseases. The threat to the veterans became apparent when doctors realized they'd been using unsterilized equipment to perform endoscopic colonoscopies on patients.

Though we only know of three vets that have been so far affected by the malpractice, the numbers of potentially infected people are staggering: 3,387 and 3,341 who had colonoscopies in at Murfreesboro and Miami, respectively, and 1,069 who received treatment in Augusta.

I think it's incredibly depressing that veterans who go through what they go through in war zones abroad have to still return home and be afraid of their own doctors. I understand that medical malpractice can happen to anyone, but it's still terribly upsetting when it happens to people who have already given so much for so little in return.

Obama's Budget Plans for Veterans

2009-04-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

I want to take a moment to take a closer look at the Federal budget for the 2009 fiscal year and look into what sorts of things are in it for Veterans. Of course the budget doesn't include any exact figures, but it outlines what Obama's plans are for the department and what sort of funding he wants to give them. Here are some of the more important things in Obama's VA plan:

Increase funding for the Department by $25 billion above the baseline for the next five years. Basically, Obama wants them to have more money, pretty straightforward, but it's a clear sign that he wants to separate his own VA policies from Bush's. While Bush was in office, all we ever heard about with regard to veterans were about the atrocities of the care they were receiving at hospitals and about how they couldn't be treated for PTSD and such, so Obama giving $25 billion more to VA is a message to veterans that they're going to be better cared for.
Dramatically increase funding for veterans health care. With more funding, Obama wants the VA to start creating more Centers of Excellence, which are clinics that provide veteran-specific healthcare, such as prosthetics, vision and spinal cord injury, aging and women's health.
Restore healthcare eligibility for modest-income veterans. Under Bush, veterans' healthcare was really only available to injured veterans. Obama wants to make it available to non-injured veterans with modest incomes. By 2013, this plan will make VA healthcare available to 500,000 more vets.
Enhance outreach and services related to mental health care and cognitive injuries with a focus on access for veterans in rural areas. Obama wants to expand and increase healthcare to meet the expanding needs of today's veterans. Post traumatic stress disorder traumatic brain injury, among other conditions, are becoming more commonplace to today's veterans, and the care they need isn't available, especially to veterans who live in more rural areas. Mobile health clinics equipped to provide care and mental health screenings in rural areas. The funding will also help to create awareness about these new resources.
Invest in better technology to deliver services and benefits to veterans with the quality and efficiency they deserve. Obama wants to bring the Dept. into the 21st Century, and he wants to do this by investing in information technology. By making health and service records completely electronic, VA will more efficiently retrieve active duty health records from the Department of Defense and enable all VA care sites to access the records of the veterans needing care.
Combat homelessness by safeguarding vulnerable veterans. The President is going to expand the reach of VAs current services and make them available to homeless vets, through a joint project with some NPO's. The program will maintain stable housing for veterans who are at risk of falling into homelessness while helping to continue providing them with supportive services.
Facilitate timely implementation of the comprehensive education benefits veterans earn through service. Under Bush, veterans who were promised education as part of the post-9/11 GI Bill weren't always given that opportunity. Obama plans to implement the bill more effectively, providing the veterans with unprecedented levels of education.

I think that most of these plans are great ideas, especially the plans that are being implemented to combat the kinds of injuries, such as PTSD and other mental instabilities, that have always affected veterans, but were rarely at the forefront until recently. Also, Obama's plan to make special veterans' clinics mobile is a huge help, especially when reaching rural areas. A huge percent of the nation's veterans are from these spread-out areas, where it would be incredibly expensive to build enough clinics to reach all of them. Lastly, it's extremely important that veterans get the educations that they're promised. The majority of servicemen and women come from low income families, and they see military service as the only way for them to get an education, and many sacrifice life or limb for that education, so we need to make sure they get it.

Art Show in SoHo Illustrates Horrors of War

2009-04-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

So I was doing some reading on the Veteran's Affairs page of the New York Times website, and I found a link to some photos that are part of a book called "Purple Hearts", which is a compilation of pictures of wounded vets from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The photos that I'm posting to the blog are all being shown right now at a gallery in SoHo, New York.

Insurance Change for Veterans Scrapped

2009-04-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

My last blog post was about a plan that the Obama White House was considering that would force veterans to pay for their own health insurance. However, The New York Times recently reported that the administration has decided to forget about this plan, due to the addition of the Secretary of Common Sense to the cabinet.

Seriously though, it was an awful plan, morally and ethically, and it's definitely the right move on Obama's side to discontinue moving forward with the plan. Several veterans groups are also praising Obama for putting a stop to it, such as The American Legion, AmVets, and The Veterans of Foreign Wars. "We are very pleased that the administration dropped this proposal. It flew in the face of the government's covenant to care for all service-connected needs of our veterans," said Jay Agg, a representative from AmVets.

We can also look at this situation as the first time in his Presidency where the majority of the Congress has taken a stand against Obama. When he first proposed the plan, senior members of Congress said straight up that if Obama pushed this plan to the House and Senate, that it would be "dead on arrival."

Senator Akaka (D- HI) and Representative Filner (D-CA), who are the head of the Veterans Affairs Committees for each legislative body, were extremely vocal in opposing the plan. Filner said that "our budget cannot be balanced on the backs of our combat-wounded heroes."

OBAMA WANTS VETS TO PAY FOR TREATMENT

2009-03-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know what the administration is thinking with this move, but it definitely contradicts what I said about Eric Shinseki in my last post. Yesterday, on March 10th, the CNN Political Tracker posted the following news blurb:

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance, but was told by lawmakers that it would be "dead on arrival" if sent to Congress...

Well, duh. First of all, members of the armed forces don't make that much in the first place. The military tries to cover it with benefits and other perks, but it really isn't all that much, so the majority of veterans wouldn't be able to afford the kind of private insurance that would pay for the surgeries, therapy sessions, prosthetic limbs, etc. that they might need when returning from Iraq or Afghanistan. Second of all, on moral grounds, this is easily the most disgusting thing the Obama administration has done yet. These are the men and women who have given their sanity and limbs to protect our nation, and now we're going to make them pay for their own treatment?

Shinseki Editorial in The New York Times

2009-03-10T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'd like to start with an editorial that was in The Times leading up to President Obama's inauguration, on December 9, 2008. It was published without a byline, which is weird, and I'm not sure why, but I think that means that it was written by a contributor. Anyway, it's interesting because it portrays Eric Shinseki, Obama's choice for Secretary of Veteran's Affairs, as a great general who cares about his troops, but was written off by the Bush Administration when he contradicted them about troop numbers in Iraq. The article goes on to talk about how Shinseki was publicly discredited by Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, not surprisingly, and now is redeemed by Obama when he named him the new Secretary.

I think it's good fortune, politically at least, that Obama was able to find someone like Shinseki to lead the department, because as much as he is widely-regarded as a general who cares about his troops and is willing to do anything to take care of them, he has also been painted by the media as a opponent of the Bush foreign policy. When he retired from the army in 2003, three months after the invasion, after 38 years of military service, he became a silent protester and conscientious objector to the war in Iraq. So Obama's choice is an excellent one, because in addition to the fact that Shinseki can get the job done, he is a symbol of a new direction for the Department of Veteran's Affairs that won't include scandals like Stop-Loss ad Walter Reed.