{This blog is not affiliated with the VA. Though a Veteran, four yrs. all shore in Navy last year In-Country Vietnam, I don't work for the VA}
**USN All Shore '67-'71 GMG3 Vietnam In Country '70-'71 - Independent**

In 2003 some 72% of Americans fully supported the Abandoning of the Missions and those Sent to Accomplish so extremely Quickly after 9/11!!
At least some 95%, if not more as less then 1% serve them, not only still support the, just below, total lack of Sacrifice, they ran from any and all Accountability and left everything still on the table to be continually used if the political/military want was still in play in future executive/legislative wants!!
DeJa-Vu: “With no shared sacrifices being asked of civilians after Sept. 11", Decades and War From, All Over Again!!
Especially for the Corporate and Wealthy Community, investors in Defense Industries, and for these, Afghanistan and Iraq, came Two Huge Tax Cuts, with more sweetheart deals to same from states and the fed!!


Thousands of people across America don’t just talk about honoring Veterans; they walk the walk. Dedicated Volunteers Serve Veterans for Decades

On this Executive Administration, it's Cabinet and those directly around same, "Best - Ever": "We haven't had this kind of visibility from the White House—ever." Joyce Raezer National Military Family Association - Dec. 30, 2011, and plenty more of similar since Joyce, others, spoke and continues!

Ask yourself: If the Veterans Administration is so corrupt and mismanaged, as the conservative ideology, under which the seeds of are planted when they control, wants everyone to buy into as they obstruct the budgets and do extremely little after they charge same, then why does the Private sector, many problems within rarely heard about, adopt so many practices and advanced technologies developed within the VA, for free?! The VA, DoD, and in partnership with Universities and Colleges, not just Health Care are constantly in R&D and that developed that works is quickly moved into the private, for profit, sector, even as the VA is long under funded, decades, and especially during and after our wars that the few are sent into!

* * * * *
President Obama 26 August 2014
Fact: "This is not just a job of government. It’s not just a job of the veterans’ organizations. Every American needs to join us in taking care of those who've taken care of us. Because only 1 percent of Americans may be fighting our wars, but 100 percent of Americans benefit from that 1 percent. A hundred percent need to be supporting our troops. A hundred percent need to be supporting our veterans. A hundred percent need to be supporting our military families."

Fact: "We’ve been able to accomplish historic increases to veterans funding. We’ve protected veterans health care from Washington politics with advanced appropriations. We’ve been able to make VA benefits available to more than 2 million veterans who didn't have them before, including more Vietnam vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. We’ve dedicated major new resources for mental health care. We’ve helped more than 1 million veterans and their families pursue their education under the Post-9/11 GI Bill."

August 26, 2014 - Secretary Robert A. McDonald's Remarks for the American Legion's 96th Annual Convention, Charlotte, NC
Fact: "Unlike, P&G, VA may not be concerned about quarterly profit and loss statements or shareholder value, but it does have a bottom line—Veterans. "
{which is why No Government agency should be turned into a private corporate entity feeding for profit off the Countries duty and responsibility, especially the VA}
* * * * *

Fact: “We are dealing with veterans, not procedures—with their problems, not ours.” —General Omar Bradley, First Administrator of the Veterans Administration

Facts: Matthew Hoh {former Marine and foreign service officer in Afghanistan}: "We spend a trillion dollars a year on national security in this country."
"And when you add up to the Department of Defense, Department of State, CIA, Veterans Affairs, interest on debt, the number that strikes me the most about how much we're committed financially to these wars and to our current policies is we have spent $250 billion already just on interest payments on the debt we've incurred for the Iraq and Afghan wars." 26 September 2014

Fact: "If military action is worth our troops’ blood, it should be worth our treasure, too — not just in the abstract, but in the form of a specific ante by every American." -Andrew Rosenthal 10 Feb. 2013

Fact: "12 years also is a long time. We now have a lifetime responsibility to a generation of service members, veterans and their families." Dr. Jonathan Woodson 11 Sep. 2013: With 9/11 Came Lifetime Responsibility
 {two tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, came with these two recent unpaid for wars, nor the results of, DeJa-Vu all over again from the previous decades and wars from! Ignore the many issues, by those served, no need to fund!}

Fact: Sen. Bernie Sanders told Republicans: “If you can’t afford to take care of your veterans, than don’t go war. These people are bearing the brunt of what war is about, We have a moral obligation to support them.” February, 26th, 2014

Fact: 25 June 2014 U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller: Veterans' Affairs issue an 'all too similar' scene

Fact: How We Could Do More For Our Vets: "We need to go into debt to pay our debt to U.S. veterans to make sure they get the care and services we owe them."

Fact: “Why in 2009 were we still using paper?” VA Assistant Secretary Tommy Sowers “When we came in, there was no plan to change that; we’ve been operating on a six month wait for over a decade.” 27 March 2013

WHY? GOOD QUESTION THOSE SERVED SHOULD ANSWER!


Bob Herbert Losing Our Way : "And then the staggering costs of these wars, which are borne by the taxpayers. I mean, one of the things that was insane was that, as we're at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush administration cut taxes. This has never been done in American history. The idea of cutting taxes while you're going to war is just crazy. I mean, it's madness." Bill 'Moyers and Company': Restoring an America That Has Lost its Way 10 Oct. 2014

Presidential Proclamation -- Veterans Day, 2013: "As we pay tribute to our veterans, we are mindful that no ceremony or parade can fully repay that debt." read more>>>


Under two previous Executive administrations and wars from, father and son. With son and conservative congresses leading the extremely quick abandoning of the missions and those sent to accomplish after 9/11:

ProPublica and The Seattle Times Nov. 9, 2012 - Lost to History: Missing War Records Complicate Benefit Claims by Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans
"DeLara's case is part of a much larger problem that has plagued the U.S. military since the 1990 Gulf War: a failure to create and maintain the types of field records that have documented American conflicts since the Revolutionary War."

Part Two: A Son Lost in Iraq, but Where Is the Casualty Report?

Army Says War Records Gap Is Real, Launches Recovery Effort

3/27/15 - U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq
"During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today."
"When Brown and others tried to obtain their medical records to prove their illnesses were service-related, they learned that the records had disappeared."



Add in the issues of finally recognizing in War Theater and more Veterans, by the Shinseki Veterans Administration and the Executive Administrations Cabinet, what the Country choose to ignore from our previous decades and wars of: The devastating effects on Test Vets and from PTS, Agent Orange, Homelessness, more recent the Desert Storm troops Gulf War Illnesses, Gulf War Exposures with the very recent affects from In-Theater Burn Pits and oh so so much more! Tens of Thousands of Veterans' that have been long ignored and maligned by previous VA's and the whole Country and through their representatives!

How does a Country HONOR It's Fallen, by Their Own 'Sacrifice' in Taking Care of the Brothers and Sisters They Served With!!


"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today." - Abraham Lincoln

"To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan" - President Lincoln

She wrote that she's proud of her service but added this: "That doesn't change the fact that I contributed - however indirectly - to human beings vanishing from the earth in a moment of sheer agony."



Homeless Veterans/Stand Downs

Are You Concerned About a Veteran? The Veterans Crisis Line Can Help>>>

For our sisters: National Women Veterans Hotline, call 1-855-VA-WOMEN1-855-VA-WOMEN (1-855-829-66361-855-829-6636) New Hotline now up and running

Thursday, September 30, 2010

WOW: “The True Cost of the War”

The above, without the 'wow', was the title of a Congressional Hearing in the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs: 30 September 2010.

In this hearing, opening statements to the give and take talk back and forth from the Representatives to the Participants, it lays out Very Clearly how this Country has Failed it's Veterans not only as to these two present occupations but the long term as we older vets already know, from Korea and Vietnam forward. There was a Support the Veterans since after WWII and all the positives that brought us, even then they got caught up in the lack of funding and obstruction to veterans issues as to care and much more.

There were a number of memorable statements made, with facts, but one struck me like a slap in the face, though I had already heard similar. The Chairman of the Committee Representative Bob Filner made that one. It had something to do with what the Veterans Administration did back in 2005. They came to Congress and these Veterans Committee's and stated they were going to be some two billion dollars short in needed funding, Filner then says they were asked why, and he said they pretty much responded that they had forgotten all about both theaters of operations. Paul Sullivan, of Veterans for Common Sense touched on this much later in his opening statement as well as Walter Reed. There was a statement out of Congress by the ruling party at the time the Reed Debacle was breaking, something to the effect that Reed was closing soon so they needn't fund with more monies, this while they knew the wounded were being sent to Reed for Care in droves, Seriously War Wounded, from both theaters!

What is stated in this hearing and the numbers given will astound but once again this was pretty much known and said, especially by us older veterans not walking in lockstep with the already seen failed policy, even as the soldiers were being pulled out of Afghanistan and the drums beat louder for invading Iraq. We were called everything from 'focus groups' to 'non patriots', to enemy sympathizers and much more, by those in the majority in Congress, from the White House and especially All Their Supporters who now fly under the umbrella of the so called TEA party speaking the total opposite of what they readily supported not long ago!

September 30, 2010 10:00AM Full Committee
The True Cost of the War

Archived Webcast September 30 at 10 a.m. Full Committee Hearing “The True Cost of the War” {If you listen or watch No Other Congressional Hearing, This One You Should, read the opening statements and watch the back and forth talk not in the opening statements but in the Congressional Records.}

Opening Statements

* Hon. Bob Filner, Chairman, Full Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Witness Testimonies

*
Panel 1
* Linda J. Bilmes, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
* Joseph E. Stiglitz, Ph.D., University Professor, Columbia University, New York, NY, (Nobel Laureate)
* Joseph A. Violante, National Legislative Director, Disabled American Veterans

*
Panel 2
* Major General John Batiste, USA (Ret.), Rochester, NY
* Major General William L. Nash, USA (Ret.), Washington, DC, (Independent Consultant)
* Colonel James D. McDonough, Jr., USA (Ret.), President and Chief Executive Officer, Veterans' Outreach Center of Rochester, NY

*
Panel 3
* Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, Veterans for Common Sense
* Lorrie Knight-Major, Silver Spring, MD, (Mother of Veteran)
* Corey Gibson, Terre Haute, IN, (Veteran)
* Lieutenant Colonel Donna R. Van Derveer, USA (Ret.), Ashville, AL, (Veteran) Visit Site Page for Backlinks to Participants Opening Statements

This is a Hearing you should take the time to watch or listen to, they only went for a couple of hours.

It isn't the Veterans Administration that fails the Veterans, though it can be under whoever is running it and in power in Congress and or the White House, It's The Country that sends them into harms way while hiding behind the flag and the other symbols they use and call that 'patriotism' and there are even Veterans among them {they seem to quickly find fault with the VA and never seem to look at those next to them}!!

Anyone who votes for what they still call themselves, the Republican Party, in this upcoming election, that's what you want back, the no leadership and lack of concern for especially those military and veterans you 'say' you support, those words have always been hollow! Once Republicans are long gone!

Anyone hear a 'teabagger' Demand Sacrifice for the Veterans of the Wars they supported, me neither!!

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