Veterans Administration into the 21st Century: France Honors American Veterans

The present Veterans Administration is the most pro-active one in my lifetime, lets keep it that way, as it always should have been! The Countries Responsibility is to Fully Fund!
“We are dealing with veterans, not procedures—with their problems, not ours.” —General Omar Bradley, First Administrator of the Veterans Administration
"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
Rachel Maddow: Obama indicates beginning of end of war on terror "We got a huge round of tax cuts in this country a few weeks before9/11. Once 9/11 happened and we invaded Afghanistan, we kept the tax cuts anyway.
How did we think we were going to pay for that war? Did we think it was free?
Then, when we started a second simultaneous war in another country, we gave ourselves a second huge round of tax cuts. After that second war started. The wars, I guess, we thought would be free, don`t worry about it, civilians. Go about your business." 23 May 2013
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."
“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!

Prior too this present Executive and Veterans Administrations and just touching on the problems:
Army Times Oct. 16, 2008 - VA claims found in piles to be shredded
CNN iReport October 25, 2008 - House Vets' Committee To Probe VA Shredder Scandal
Tampa Bay Times Oct 27, 2008 - Hundreds of VA documents improperly shredded, review finds {Tampa Bay Times search page and series of articles}
CBS News February 11, 2009 - Veterans' Claims Found in Shredder Bins
And more disturbing in relation to even before and through the early years of the Afghanistan, quickly abandoned missions of, and Iraq occupations, this:
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."
Add in the issues of finally recognizing in War Theater and more Veterans, by this 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!

America's representative democracy, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" - U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
How does a Country HONOR It's Fallen, by Their Own 'Sacrifice' in Taking Care of the Brothers and Sisters They Served With!!
These present wars have yet to be paid for, rubber stamping and rapid deficits rising started before 9/11 and continued with same for the wars. But especially in the early some six years of extremely little was added to the Veterans Administration budgets by those Congresses, and since obstructed by same war rubber stampers, as to the long term results of War, DeJa-Vu all over again. Keeping the VA under budgeted causes problems and of many grow worse, which costs more to correct much more, which is the goal of those seeking to privatize Government Agencies as they attack the people of and which was created by their own incompetence and ideologies, but doing those served will!
"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

Are You Concerned About a Veteran? The Veterans Crisis Line Can Help>>>
For our sisters: National Women Veterans Hotline, call 1-855-VA-WOMEN (1-855-829-6636) New Hotline now up and running

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

France Honors American Veterans

February 5, 2013 - France has bestowed its highest honor, the Legion of Merit, on six American veterans of World War II.

Indian Land WWII veteran awarded French Legion of Honor

February 5, 2013 - Veteran George Pulakos of Indian Land has many horrific images lodged in his head from the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, but the one he remembers most vividly is that of all the bodies.

snip
Two of the six are from the Charlotte area, Pulakos and 91-year-old Clyde Polk of Charlotte, a U.S. Air Force veteran who served as an armorer with the 507th Fighter Squadron of the 404th Bombardment Group.
The other honorees : Elbert Davis of Hampstead, Dewitt Wells of Winston-Salem, David Gordon of Cary and John Harmon of Saluda, S.C. A sixth veteran, Frank Pruitt of Spartanburg, recently died so the award was given to his family. read more>>>