Crib Sheet: Veterans
In both times of war and times of peace, the government has often neglected its responsibility to those who fought for our country. By Dorna Mohaghegh, University of Pennsylvania
Tuesday July 17, 2007
 (AP Photo) When testifying before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs this February, John Rowan, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America said, “With troops in the field, years of underfunding of health care organizational capacity, renovation of an archaic and dilapidated infrastructure, updating capital equipment, continued underestimation of usage by veterans, particularly returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan, and several cohorts of war veterans reaching ages of peak health care utilization—these are extraordinary times.”
Hundreds of thousands of veterans haven’t yet returned from Iraq and Afghanistan to begin using the already understaffed system. Furthermore, many Iraq veterans—500 to 1,000 soldiers—have returned to find themselves homeless, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA drastically underestimated the number of veterans who would return seeking mental healthcare for issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, whose victims exhibit a series of severe, long-term psychological symptoms, including flashbacks, nightmares, sleep disturbance, explosive outbursts, and relationship stress that are a result of suffering from high levels of stress for long periods of time. This is largely the result of increased troop deployment time to balance out a shortage of troops. Furthermore, thousands of veterans live in rural areas far from premium VA medical hospitals and stress doctors and therefore are, in practice, virtually uninsured.
The situation is even worse for veterans who served in the National Guard and the Reserve rather than the traditional armed services. Since the role of a Reservist or a member of the National Guard was designed to be part-time, in the military’s Tricare benefits system, run by the Department of Defense, these members of the armed services are cut off from government aide the moment their service ends. While this truncated care may have seemed logical in previous years, the frequent, long-term deployments equivalent to full-time service that these soldiers endure today makes the system outdated.
Several Congressmen and Senators have introduced varying legislation to improve VA funding and service delivery. Iraq war veteran Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have introduced a new GI Bill revision that would provide funding for eight semesters of college expenses, remove loan fees and increase access to low interest rate loans for home purchases and improvement, and provide low interest microloans of up to $100,000 for entrepreneurial endeavors. Furthermore, all service members, including National Guard and Reserves, would be eligible for these benefits. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) proposed the Montgomery GI Bill for Life, which would remove the current 10-year limit on the availability of education benefits. Members of the National Guard are currently ineligible for education benefits the day they are discharged from service.
Although President Bush continues to push for more and more funding for the war, he has cut the VA’s already insufficient budget for the past five years despite recommendations from Rowan and other veterans’ advocates for a $6.9 billion dollar increase. Meanwhile, the VA as still managed to give $3.8 million in bonuses to its workers in the face of these budget cuts.
Budget cuts are hardly new. As veterans began returning from Vietnam, Congress updated the GI Bill in 1966, but they cut a significant amount of support for education and healthcare. The GI Bill has not been updated since.
In an interview with The Lowell Sun, Vietnam veteran Joseph MacShane, Jr. described the difficulty he faced in receiving treatment for his injuries sustained during the war. MacShane returned from Vietnam in 1966 suffering from exposure to the herbicidal toxin Agent Orange. His left eye is blind, and he’s losing sight in the other eye due to severe diabetes. He has heart problems as well, which he also attributed to Agent Orange. Until 2002, MacShane only qualified for 50 percent of disability benefits. His status was changed to 100 percent only after 36 years of working through mountains of paperwork, several eye surgeries, and doctors’ visits that required him to travel all over the country in order to receive the appropriate care.
In 1952, the GI bill was readjusted to also provide for veterans returning from Korea. By 1956, roughly 7.8 million veterans had taken advantage of the assistance provided by the GI Bill to go to college, buy a home, and receive healthcare.
The cuts following Vietnam were a dramatic decline from the golden age of veteran treatment following World War II, which saw the birth of the GI Bill.
As WWII drew to a close, the federal government moved to prepare for the veterans’ return with passage of the 1944 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, known today as the GI Bill. It essentially provided for returning veterans’ education, housing, and medical needs through providing financial support and easier accessibility to care, although WWI vets remained ineligible for benefits.
World War I veterans saw perhaps the worst example of the government’s neglect and contempt for veterans. Thousands of veterans came home in 1918 and 1919 only to find themselves in a post-war recession with no organized system to ease their transition back into civilian life.
Eventually, with the Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924, veterans were able to convince Congress that they deserved reimbursement for the wages they lost when they left their civilian jobs to enlist. The compensation came in the form of “bonus” certificates that wouldn’t be redeemable for cash until 1945.
But then, the Great Depression hit. As the country sank deeper into its economic crisis, many veterans had nothing to their names but their bonus certificates, and they began lobbying for the right to redeem them immediately. In 1932, groups of veterans began trickling, and then streaming into Washington to demand payment. The Bonus Army, made up of 45,000 veterans, set up camp in Anacostia and other areas of D.C. waiting for President Herbert Hoover to pay up.
Fearing an insurrection on the part of the veterans, Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to use force against the campers and clear them out of the area. MacArthur waged an all out battle with fully armed cavalry and infantry against the unarmed, unsuspecting veterans. The media covered the fighting that ensued and the deaths of two veterans at the hands of MacArthur’s troops.
The event was a public relations disaster and virtually guaranteed Franklin Roosevelt’s success in the upcoming election. Yet despite their hand in ensuring his election, Roosevelt four times vetoed a bill that would grant veterans their bonuses early until Congress finally overrode his veto in 1936.
Veterans today face a long list of complications in getting basic services such as medical care, education benefits, and even housing. Soldiers have been overextended for months beyond standard deployments and re-deployments, causing a spike in PTSD—and therefore psychological treatment—for returning soldiers. With so many shortcomings in the past, consistently lukewarm government support, and the prospect of a flood of veterans coming home only to be backlogged onto waiting lists, the future of veterans care seems to be as bleak as its past.
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Comments
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Fantastic job, Ms. Mohaghegh! I knew the VA was a debacle but I never quite realized the depth of the crisis. Looking forward to your future endeavors!
— Julie Siegel - Jul 17, 06:19 PM - #Great article, Dorna. Bout time someone summed up this issue for me. Your closing words stayed in my head as I biked past Walter Reed today. Let’s hope Bush doesn’t just bring in another good ol’ boy to pick up where Nicholson left off.
— Zach Marks - Jul 17, 11:27 PM - #Very good article, Thanks
— C.McReynolds - Jul 18, 09:46 AM - #Just one thing. Soldiers who are in Walter Reed Army Medical Center are not veterans. As active duty personnel, they are not eligible to recieve care or benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs until they leave the military. Once they leave the military and have their DD-214 (Discharge papers) in hand, they are legally veterans and can apply for veterans benefits. This designation was established by Congress and put into law. The anger over Walter Reed and veterans is misplaced and the VA has worked hard to correct this error in fact. Unfortunately, well meaning reporters and journalists keep perpetuating this error. The VA has its problems for sure, it is a large bureaucracy governed by conflicting laws and regulations and is easy political fodder for congress.
— M.J. Wilson - Jul 18, 12:42 PM - #Because it is so large and deals with more than one million veterans a day, there will always be some problem, scandal, or a veteran who feels that they have been wronged by the “system.” I’m a veteran and VA has even lost my records (twice!), however, I cannot argue with the service and treatment that I have received from them.
Yes, the VA is not perfect and it has its problems, but Walter Reed Army Medical Center is not one of them. It’s the U.S. Army’s.
The cuts the Bush administration has made (DURING TIME OF WAR) is having a dramatic adverse affect on the VA. The neocons and right-wing Republicans are fond of saying they have increased VA funding 69% over the past six years, but what they do not tell you is that THE NEED HAS INCREASED OVER 400% DURING THE SAME PERIOD. Clinton started rebuilding the VA in 1994 and by 2001, the VA was the premier health care facility in America (refer to TIME Magazine’s article last autumn). As a 100% S/C disabled Vietnam-era veteran myself, I have nothing but the highest accolades for the VA, from physicians all the way to janitorial. I frequently told people that if a great model for universal health care in this nation was needed, they need look no further than the VA health system. Unfortunately, the Bushies (the same ones who so like to get their pictures taken in front of troops and veterans) have stabbed us in the back at every turn with their cuts and downsizing over the last 6 years, systematically undoing all the progress made during the Clinton years. We never want to go back to the way the VA was portrayed in “Born On The Fourth Of July,” Ron Kovick’s story starring Tom Cruise — but the Republicans have certainly damaged the VA over the past six years while ignoring our military health facilities at the same time, and again, they did/do this in a time of war. Just as they cut IN HALF the funding for traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and PTSD DURING WARTIME, when BTI is the signature wound for the Iraq invasion and occupation. Thank God Nicholson is gone from the VA. Should have happened long ago. M.J. Wison cleared up the difference between Walter Reed and the VA, but the insulting disregard and distain for troops and veterans indicative of the Republicans track record remains in place and must be fought tooth and nail by every patriotic American, veteran, and active-duty service person. As George Washington said, “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.”
— Bruce Freeman - Jul 19, 12:46 PM - #that’s not entirely true, M.J. You’re correct that Walter Reed is not a VA hospital, it’s an Army hospital. But someone who has returned injured from Iraq and is recovering at Walter Reed while still enlisted is also a veteran in the sense that he or she has completed his or her service in the war.
— Ben Adler - Jul 20, 09:59 AM - #Great Crib Sheet, Dorna!
We must all do everything that we can to support our returning Iraqi war veterans.
From health care to the completion of a college degree, we each have the responsibility to urge those who have influence and those in power to make the right choices in order to garner additional resources for our men and women with active duty or veteran status.
— Daryl Levine - Jul 25, 01:09 PM - #