Archive for the 'Veterans' Category

This is a moving video by Haley Strategic.  Several things crossed my mind as I watched this.

First, I have no particular fondness for Veteran’s Day.  I don’t like the idea of taking a day to supposedly honor veterans.  It becomes pro forma to me.  What I do like, however, is veterans like Travis, and his director of training, engaging in things like this for veterans on a continual basis.  Good on them

Next, the story of Robert Bruce is inspiring.

Finally, I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I think often and hard about the lives lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the men lost from Daniel’s Battalion, and it weights heavily on me from time to time.  I’m certain it weighs more heavily on me than it does the bastards who deployed them on unnecessary deployments, or on necessary deployments with overly-restrictive ROE designed to get them killed or maimed.  If you are in that camp, that is, if you were in a position to make a difference and you didn’t, then these things will doubtless weigh heavily on you in the hereafter.  You don’t kill and maim men without eternal consequences.

The Captain’s Journal had decided to wait before weighing in on the appointment of General Eric Shinseki to head Veteran’s Affairs.  We’re glad we did.

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.

Washington Sen. Patty Murray used that blunt terminology, telling Shinseki that the idea would not be acceptable and would be rejected if formally proposed. She made the remarks during a Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs hearing about the 2010 budget.

No official proposal to create such a program has been announced publicly, but veterans groups wrote a pre-emptive letter last week to President Obama opposing the idea after hearing the plan was under consideration. The groups also noticed an increase in “third-party collections” estimated in the 2010 budget proposal—something they said could only be achieved if the VA started billing for service-related injuries.

Asked about the proposal, Shinseki said it was under “consideration.”

“A final decision hasn’t been made yet,” he said.

A second senator, North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, said he agreed that the idea should not go forward.

“I think you will give that up” as a revenue stream, if it is included in this April’s budget, Burr said.

Sen. Murray said she’d already discussed her concerns with the secretary the previous week.

“I believe that veterans with service-connected injuries have already paid by putting their lives on the line,” Murray said in her remarks. “I don’t think we should nickel and dime them for their care.”

Eleven of the most prominent veterans organizations have been lobbying Congress to oppose the idea. In the letter sent last week to President Barack Obama, the veterans groups warned that the idea “is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government’s moral and legal responsbility (sic) to the men and women who have sacrificed so much.”

The groups included The American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

At the time, a White House spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the option was being considere (sic).

Carefully consider what is happening here.  Even if this move is fashioned as companies paying their fair share, it is still a dark, sinister and sinful plan.  We are left without much to go on with the paucity of facts in the report above.  But let’s assume the best – that veterans still get treatment in full, paid for by the VA, unless they happen to work for a company with insurance who covers injuries to veterans (without considering them a so-called pre-existing condition).

The problem here is that if company A doesn’t hire injured veterans, and company B does and also happens to have an insurance benefit, then company B is penalized.  They are essentially taxed for having veterans under their employ.  The economy is not a perpetual motion machine, or another way of saying it is that money doesn’t grow on trees, unless you work for the U.S. Treasury.

Medical insurance means that everyone contributes out of his or her paycheck towards the health of everyone.  This cushion means that the company which hires any veteran who needs medical treatment (versus the company which doesn’t) is actually financially worse off because of it, especially small companies.  Now for the problem.  This is a disincentive for hiring veterans.

This scenario above is the best of all possible worlds, i.e., that all veterans are still covered for medical treatment in full.  According to the information above, this simply isn’t so, and veterans might have to pay out of pocket for their treatment.

Many veterans come home and continue to fight for all they are worth to keep from dying, and then to live with their injuries and disabilities.  They never leave the battle space.

So now Eric Shinseki must sit and ask himself what happened to his soul that he could abandon his fellow warriors on the field of battle like he has done, trying to save a few dollars while schemes are concocted to throw that very money away into useless programs.  And then when he finally determines how he lost his soul, perhaps he will have enough of one left to feel the shame that will always be his for the rest of his life.

I have been tracking this for a while not only as an interested military observer and father of a warrior, but also in the spirit of moral and ethical responsibilities.  God will judge America based on how she treats her returning warriors.  Read the following reports.

Military.com (excerpt):

Strained by war, recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years due partly to employer concerns about their mental health and overall skills, a government study says.

The Veterans Affairs Department report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, points to continuing problems with the Bush administration’s efforts to help 4.4 million troops who have been discharged from active duty since 1990.

Chicago Sun-Times (excerpt):

Is Illinois still a “state of shame,” as proclaimed by a 2006 Chicago Sun-Times series that revealed the state ranked among the worst at helping veterans find jobs?

The stories told how, three years into the war in Iraq, those leaving the military were facing an unexpected problem: Veterans were having a hard time finding work.

The series reported that in 2005, just one in three unemployed war veterans who sought help from the Illinois Employment Security Department found jobs.

In response, Gov. Blagojevich offered six ways to help vets get — and keep — jobs. Here’s how his plans have held up.

Chicago Sun-Times (excerpt):

Jason Heldt served two tours of duty in Iraq as a hospital corpsman with the Navy.

The 25-year-old, now living with his parents in Crete, holds certifications as a medical assistant and nurse’s aide. But he’s having a hard time finding a health care job.

Southtown Star (excerpt):

John Fudala, 29, who lives in Bridgeview with his mother, has been “full-time job hunting” for almost a year.

He served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007 as a specialist in the Army National Guard. Fudala still devotes one weekend a month to the Guard. If more troops are needed for the war zone, it’s possible he could be sent back.

That scares away employers.

It’s a “detriment to getting your foot in the door,” Fudala said.

Every one of these reports is worth reading.  It should be said that any employer (excluding very small businesses) which refuses to hire a veteran where the reason is that they might be called up for duty is not only committing an immoral act of discrimination against that veteran, but also dishonoring the very country that has given that employer the freedom to conduct business.  Such a business is also not worthy of our patronage.