{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!

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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}
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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

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Wars: America's Long Shame, the Results Of!

No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called 'Support' For The Troops!!

No Sacrifice now a decade long added to the previous decades!!
Already known through decades of our brothers and sisters living those false patriotic? meme's and cheap symbols of!



NPR and others have been doing a series on the closing of Walter Reed hospital, Hurricane Irene sped up the moving of the last patients by a day, and in those are givin some of the history of, but it is sadly noted in many not what Walter Reed will be remembered for, as to long time great care for the soldiers we as a nation send into our wars and occupations but for the not so dark side as an investigation not by Congress but by a few in the media brought to full light, as this country not only waged two more wars of choice but many were cheering them on as they condemned others for not walking in lockstep with them and their total support of, but none of same were demanding the Countries Sacrifice.

These reports tell the serious, very long term in relation to veterans care, problems this country has, especially as to it's chosen wars cheered on with flags waving and patriotic words and symbols, and the results from, and especially under the leadership of certain political ideology at the time both in Congress and the Executive branch giving an open book to the many other issues of this society and country not long ago. It also shines a light on the now long obstruction, and any who support same in that political ideology, complelety flipped from those previous years.

Walter Reed Was The Army's Wake-Up Call In 2007

Michel Du Cille/The Washington Post/Getty Images: Jeremy Duncan, a wounded Army specialist assigned to Walter Reed's Building 18, peels back the wallpaper in one of its rooms to show mold in January 2007.

August 31, 2011 - For more than a century, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was known as the hospital that catered to presidents and generals. Eisenhower was treated and died there. So too did Generals "Black Jack" Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall.

But in recent years, Walter Reed was shorthand for scandal.

A 2007 series that dominated the front page of The Washington Post told of decrepit housing and wounded soldiers left to fend for themselves.

But the problems were identified years before. Salon.com wrote about it in 2005. Members of Congress later said they had complained to senior Army officials a year or two earlier. Nothing happened.

Soldiers Fending For Themselves
snip

Courtesy of Oscar Olguin: At Walter Reed, Oscar Olguin and his family were visited by President Bush and first lady Laura Bush. But Olguin says that when he left the hospital, he had to fend for himself.

Among those who had problems at Walter Reed was Oscar Olguin, an Army private who lost a leg in Iraq in 2004, when a suicide bomber struck his Humvee outside the city of Ramadi.

Olguin was discharged from the hospital at night in December 2005, in his wheelchair. He was simply told to find his new quarters.

"I got out. I was in my wheelchair. I was by myself," Olguin says. "I got released in the middle of the night. I'm trying to find my way. So I just started rolling around in my wheelchair. And ended up taking the streets, and just following the signs to get to Malogne House."

He never checked in with anybody, even as he attended his physical therapy appointments. It wasn't until three months later that Olguin was contacted by an Army master sergeant. "You're in my platoon," the sergeant told him. "And you have to check in with me every morning."

That wasn't Olguin's only problem. He also had a roommate.

Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post/Getty Images: Workers for IAP World Services peel moldy wallpaper off the walls and make repairs in one of two rooms in Building 18 at Walter Reed in Washington, D.C., in February 2007.

"I had a roommate who was suffering from severe PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], who wasn't supposed to have any sharp objects," Olguin remembers. "I didn't know."

Olguin went on a ski trip with other wounded soldiers, and when he returned, his roommate was gone. Military police had taken him away.

"He tried to slash his own wrists with the knives that I had in my room," says Olguin. "That was probably the worst part. He could have killed himself, and I could've played a part in that, and not even known." to listen and read more>>>

Members of Congress later said they had complained to senior Army officials a year or two earlier. Only a few and those were mostly the minority then, not allowed to hold hearings not wanted by the majority, the majority held the comment that Reed was closing soon so funding to repair wasn't needed! Even though they rubber stamped funding for two wars they knew gravely wounded soldiers would be sent to Reed for care and rehab.

Report blames funding, neglect for Walter Reed woes

4/12/2007 - Money woes and Pentagon neglect are to blame for shoddy outpatient conditions and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an independent review has concluded.

Calling for major changes in troop care, the Independent Review Group said the aging hospital in Washington, D.C., was beyond the point of repair. It urged a quick infusion of funds to relieve short-term problems and said the Pentagon should accelerate plans to build a new, expanded facility in Bethesda, Md.

"The American ethic is that America always takes care of its wounded," said John O. "Jack" Marsh, Army secretary during the Reagan administration and co-chairman of the review, noting that problems probably extended to other Army hospitals around the nation.
snip

Citing lapses in leadership and oversight as main reasons for the problems, the nine-member independent group concluded that the Defense Department was, or should have been, aware of the widespread problems but neglected them because they knew Walter Reed was slated for eventual closure.

In addition, the Pentagon made problems worse by ordering a hold-down on costs and expenses — dubbed "efficiency wedges" — even as Walter Reed began experiencing an influx of thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Leadership at Walter Reed should have been aware of poor living conditions and administrative hurdles and failed to place proper priority on solutions," according to the report released Wednesday.

The report said the Pentagon was ill-prepared to deal with growing numbers of troops suffering from traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. read more>>>

Walter Reed One Year Later: Democrats Lead the Way for Change, While Lessons Are Lost on the Bush Administration

February 15, 2008 - By contrast, the Bush Administration has failed to grasp the lessons of Walter Reed. Its record of poor leadership, mismanagement, and underfunding has continued despite the unprecedented challenges facing the VA. Earlier this month, the President unveiled his Fiscal Year 2009 budget, once again proposing to shortchange critical health care programs for veterans. The budget underestimates the cost of medical care, calls for significant cuts in funding for construction and maintenance at VA medical facilities, grants to states to support long-term care programs, and reduces key oversight functions. read more>>>

Things didn't start being done, few hearings and very little oversite previous, until the 110th and 111th Congresses came aboard, even with the obstruction numbers from the now minority party. Then the 112th came along and in the House the minority became the majority and quuickly went into trying to cut Veterans Administration funding as well as laying any blame for perceived VA failures, as we have a VA administration finally bringing the Agency not only into the 21st century but building for beyond with little Congress help but allot of obstruction in many area's, DeJa-Vu, not fully funded for decades like record keeping technology, on the VA at House hearings as the VA is still being overloaded with soldiers returning from multiple tours in still two war and occupation fronts. One left to fester, abandoning the main mission for years, into and all out quagmire that rages on, still creating hatreds and thus weakened national security, as the numbers killed and maimed add up monthly, in theaters and at home!

Like everything they already destroyed, and are continuing to try and destroy to regain the power in Washington, their supporters as well, they send out Walter Reed on a totally negative picture, not the picture of the once great history of, even though those will be remembered by many, especially those who went through those doors!

No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called 'Support' For The Troops!!

No Sacrifice now a decade long added to the previous decades!!
Already known through decades of our brothers and sisters living those false patriotic? meme's and cheap symbols of!


1 comment:

  1. For Those Occasionally Calling For An End: The CiC is doing just what those serving want, as there isn't any great opposition within the ranks, no need to have the FBI tailing huge numbers of active duty or veterans of because they oppose, they're serving because those they're with are being sent over, many really are trying to win hearts and minds, but this country greatly supported leaving the mission of Afghanistan and invading and destroying an innocent country.

    Until the grunts fighting rise up it will be a slow withdrawal, instead you should be demanding the Country finally actually Sacrifice, been decades now that it hasn't!

    ReplyDelete