Land of Oz

Veterans Day

Now is the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. It is supposed to signify an honoring of veterans and the end of a war. I read today a comment where someone said, "Today is supposed to be a memorial for the war to end all wars, and now we're in a war without end."

When we think of Veteran's Day, we usually picture the WW2 vets with their gray hair and canes and odd looking VFW and Legion caps, the Vietnam vets with their tiger stripe fatigues and long hair and Hanoi Jane singing the enemy's praise in the background. Take a minute to think about today's vets.

(and I'm not really making fun of Legionnaires and VFWers (I am a Legion member), just their hats - of which I don't own, and don't even know how to get one)

At last count, there have been 37 who have lost their lives just this month - and it's only the eleventh day. Along with the dead, are the wounded; there doesn't seem to be any accurate count of them. I've seen numbers ranging from 1700 to 5000. And they are called "casualties." That word casualty is just a double-speak term meant to make more the injured sound more palatable. We should be calling them for what they are: young kids who are amputees, blinded, disfigured, disabled, or just plain worn out. They get lumped under "non-combat" injuries. Did you know that means they are less likely to get care under the Veterans medical program once they are out of the military. And does losing an arm or a leg in a HUMVEE accident any less traumatic than losing it to a land mine? They're in the military, and to me it doesn't matter whether they get shot by an enemy soldier (whoever that is these days) in Iraq or run over by a Hyundai in Seoul, it's still a combat injury.

And is it really fair that someone who is disabled in the service and retires from the service has to pay back part of their pension if they are getting disabled pay? If you haven't heard yet, it's true. If a GI is making a $15,000 pension, and has 10% disability they lose 10% of their pension. However, if they retire from the US Postal service for example, and get a pension from the government, they won't have to pay back that 10%.

All these military bases that have closed over the past few years. Yes, there is a loss of civilian jobs and money going into the civilian community. And yes, we do have more military bases than we need. However one of the things that isn't mentioned is the impact these closing have on retired military. These folks, women and men, have put the best 15 - 30 years of their life into defending the country. One of the benefits many of them were expecting and planning on are now gone. Less bases mean less hospitals, clinics, commissaries and other facilities that helped make a military pension survivable. A vet is now considered to be getting good care as long as they don't have to wait more than 30 days for a doctor's appointment.

Veterans Day - don't forget them.
2fers: Veterans Affairs and DOD