The US does not treat veterans well. They offer sop like 'thanks' for service that's insulting and can be triggering for some to begin with. It's the stupidest statement in the world and it's insulting as well because it's a lie. There is no feeling that "You served so now we want to thank you." Not on the part of the government at all. There's not even a feeling of "You served so we want to keep the promises we made to you." The US government is not an honest broker as we have seen over and over. Whether it's Native Americans, veterans, what have you, the US government will make promises and then never keep them.
Each generation of wars creates a new generation of veterans who get to learn yet again that they are going to be betrayed by the government. For example, if they have an injury, they will most likely have to jump through hoops in order to get what the government has promised them. Just the basics.
One of the most appalling moments I ever saw in the hearings we attended in the last 17 years -- Congressional hearings was watching the repugnant Jim Webb as a US senator. Now, yes, anything Corrine Brown showed up for was a travesty. The felon -- is she out of prison yet? -- seldom had her wig on straight (that's not a metaphor or a joke, she never had the wig on straight -- whichever one she wore that day) and that's apparently because all she ever did was stay up late at night watching MSNBC. She would mangle some segment she'd seen on MSNBC -- confusing the anchor with another anchor, confusing the story the segment conveyed, confusing everything and droppign the story midway to instead go into a personal tale of her own. At some point, she'd come up for air, stop speaking and flash a stupid grin as though a point had been made in the words that she seemed to mistake for English.
Corinne was no friend of veterans. That's not fair. She'd offer a for-show, not real effort to assist veterans if a Republican was in the White House. If a Democrat was in the White House? Then any problem a group of veterans had was their own problem. Not getting owed benefits? That was their fault, the veterans, even if the VA was the reason for not receiving veterans. She saw running interference for a Democratic president as her true job. So when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were presidents, she openly blamed and, yes, attacked veterans when the VA and the US government failed them. That's just how Crooked Corinne rolled. And that's why veterans groups opposed her becoming the Chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Nancy Pelosi ignored them and refused to make the member of the Committee who was a veteran the Chair. She put her friend Corinne in charge of the Committee. What Nancy wouldn't do, others had to. And that's why Corinne ended up in prison. Luckily for her, COVID came along and she was able to plead risk of health to get out of prison last March.
At least we'll always have her wigs to laugh at.
No wig provided cover or laughter when the VA revealed that they knew ahead of time that post-911 veterans were not going to get their checks for school. Months after this was taking place, that just slipped out in a VA hearing (we covered it in real time). That was awful The VA knew it over half a year before it happened and did nothing and didn't bother to alert anyone. Some veterans couldn't make tuition, some couldn't make rent, some were having to postpone Christmas because the checks due in August still hadn't arrived in December. And it could have been prevented and it should have been prevented. Instead of that, they didn't even offer a heads up. They lied and lied and then they had Corrine Brown telling the world that she saw on MSNBC that it was the veterans fault, they weren't filling out the forms right and other nonsense.
That was appalling and so were the constant excuses -- and in Eric Shinseki's case, outright lies -- as to why the DoD and VA systems had not been integrated all these years and dollars after they were supposed to be to form a seamless, electronic record that would follow the service member and assist with eligibility and claims.
But in the hall of shame, Jim Webb holds his own corner of embarrassment.
He was serving in the US Senate. It was nearly 40 years after US troops had left Vietnam. He was a veteran of the Vietnam War -- a decorated one. Now I say nearly 40 years after the Vietnam War for a reason. 30 to 40 years after a war, a number of the veterans will be dead. That can be from natural causes, it can be from physical wounds and other things they were exposed to in battle. It can be from inner wounds that have been ignored by the government -- see the current and ongoing suicide epidemic among veterans in the US. But the number will have thinned and when the volume of the veterans of a particular war has reduced in a significant manner, suddenly the US Congress steps up to try to do what should have been done a long time ago -- the right thing.
We saw it after the Revolutionary War, after the Civil War, after WWI, etc.
So it was nearly 40 years after the Vietnam War ended and then-US Senator Jim Webb was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. And Agent Orange is a real thing that resulted in real illness for Vietnam veterans and by the 2010s, no one was trying to argue otherwise. But suddenly there was a registry and an effort to address these wounds created by war, the suffering imposed upon peole who had gone to Vietnam due to their government orders and their government wanting a war, suddenly the survivors of Agent Orange were going to get some of what they deserved.
But then there's Webb.
In the hearing, he made it very clear where he stood. That's why he is no longer in the Senate. After that hearing, he had no support from veterans groups and it's a story so many missed. He didn't run for re-election because he wouldn't have been re-elected. In the hearing, his concern was that the registry would lead to a large bill for the US government. His concern -- and remember, he was a decorated veteran of that war -- was that the US government would have to pay millions.
He wasn't concerned about the suffering, he wasn't concerned about the veterans at all.
And you see that all the time but it's rarely exhibited as nakedly and as exposed -- this will to profit motive -- as Jim Webb did that day.
In case you're new to this -- the news outlets weren't interested in covering it but it was news to veterans groups -- Jim Webb made his statements in a hearing covered here in "Iraq snapshot" and "Iraq snapshot," by Ava in "Senator Roland Burris (Ava)," by Wally in "Senate Veterans Affairs hearing (Wally)" and by Kat in "Jim Webb: The new Bob Dole."
Let's applaud Bernie Sanders because he was in the same hearing and he got it -- what Jim Webb didn't, Bernie did grasp as evidence by Bernie's remarks.
Senatator Bernie Sanders: What we are talking about today is the ongoing costs of war. This is what war is about. And war is about more than bullets and guns and airplanes. War is about making sure that we care of the last veteran who served in that war and that we do that person justice. And if we don't want to do that, don't send them off to war. But if you make that decision that's the moral responsibility that we have.
From the September 23, 2010 snapshot:
There are those who are concerned with covering the debt owed to veterans and there are those like Jim Webb who just want to discredit the suffering of veterans and play it on the cheap.
It's sad but there always Jim Webbs in Congress and in the US government.
PTS (Post-Traumatic Stress) and TBI are the two signature wounds of the current, ongoing and forever wars. They're not only the wounds. Tinnitus and various conditions due to exposure to burn pits are among the many other wounds from the ongoing wars. And last year, BurnPits360 had their ten-year anniversary which is good and which is bad. BurnPits360 does strong work advocating for those who suffer due to exposure to burn pits. Good work and much applause -- deserved applause to them -- for that. But that they have had to fight for ten years already is the bad part.
Why do we have to fight for this? Why can't the US government just do what it's supposed to do?
Before 2005, Evan Bayh was someone I had no respect for and couldn't stand. Then he began attending hearings on the issue (such as the ones held by the Democratic Policy Committee) and leading on the issue (as did former Senator Byron Dorgan who also deserves applause). It wasn't fake and for show. He stayed on the issue while in the Senate (and has testified to Congress on the issue since leaving the Senate). In 2009, he championed a federal registry for burn pit victims. His bill never got out of Committee despite strong efforts on his part.
I will never agree with Evan on many things but I will always credit him with taking the issue seriously and being there when few others wanted to stand up.
There have been a million and one excuses on why this or that couldn't be done to assist the survivors -- some of whom, as this fight for their basic rights has gone on, have already passed away.
So it's really appalling to learn today that the VA that played dumb and stalled so openly in hearing after hearing, always knew these issues arise. Always? Before the men and women were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, the VA knew.
Tara Copp (MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS) reports today:
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, disease researchers at the Department of Veterans Affairs began internal discussions on how to prepare for the war-related illnesses they knew would follow, agency officials told McClatchy.
“There were lots of conversations about ‘we don’t know what to expect, but we expect there to be consequences’” for the service members who would deploy overseas in response to the 2001 attacks, Victoria Davey, an epidemiologist and associate chief research officer at the VA, told McClatchy in an exclusive interview.
“We expected there to be hazardous exposures,” she said.
The VA was trying to be proactive, after a general feeling among the researchers that it had not been ready to address toxic-exposure illnesses that troops developed after previous conflicts, Davey said.
“I think our major, major impulse was — not another Vietnam,” Davey said. “To not follow these people and to look forward and to expect consequences of service in the deployed environment.”
So the VA started tracking service members as military operations began in Afghanistan and eventually Iraq following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“We have had eyes on these populations, we have been collecting data since the conflicts began,” said Davey, who has been with the VA since before 9/11.
“I think the first features that we saw coming back were what was called the ‘Iraqi lung,’ the respiratory problems,” Davey said. “It’s complicated because it’s a sandstorm environment and in addition there’s just a lot of smoke, dust, solvent exposure in the military occupation of many kinds, and then we had these chemical, biological weapons worries going on.”
The revelation that the VA was concerned that some veterans would return home with illnesses, and that it has been collecting data on those service members since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars began, deeply angered veterans who have spent years trying to convince the agency their illnesses were linked to their service overseas.
The following sites updated:
