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Only the Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease!
by Tom Barnes, Staff Writer
Is it just me or do the major veterans organizations seem to be out to lunch?
I am a lifetime member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and I have been a member of the American Legion for about ten years now. To be fair, both groups attempted to help me get my IU rating disability and without them, I would not have it. But it took almost eight years and all sorts of effort on my part to get the job done. It was, well, lets just say, it was hell.
Sometimes they were in my corner and sometimes they insisted that I cool it. I never really knew who they were supporting, me or the Department of Veterans Affairs ( DVA). Often, the people at these organizations seemed to act and speak like government agents. It confused me. And then I did some research.
Now, I am not real active in either group at the local level because they frankly are constantly involved in issues at the national level which I consider to be ridiculous. I want better benefits for veterans and disabled veterans. That is pretty much it. I frankly do not care if someone burns the flag.
That is a bona fide and longstanding American tradition of dissent. It has been a tradition since the beginning of the Republic. And it gets attention. And all Americans have a right to demand that their government pay attention. Is it disrespectful to American veterans? That is a matter of opinion.
But in my opinion, this issue and others like it is taking up way too much focus from organizations that are supposed to be spending their juice on helping us and not spinning their wheels in the mud on these goofy marginal issues that do not help us and our life situations one whit. I think this is intentional.
Now I realize that flag burning is a hot button issue but I think that is the point. It is NOT worth the major veterans organizations getting involved in it. Because there are much more important things for them to get involved in…like why did they not do anything to get the Executive Order changed years ago that allowed the DVA to stop payment to IU disabled veterans even when the law was changed in 2008 to get it done? Why?
I will tell you why. Because they were dicking around with flag burning and other equally ridiculous, non jermaine issues. I personally think that the ultra conservative blocs of power in this country push these organizations to get involved with these tangential issues specifically to keep them away from the substantive issues. Because the substantive issues involve paying us more money and giving us more benefits, which is in turn, more money in and of itself.
What I am trying to say is that the veterans organizations have become our worst enemies in many ways. They are simply tools of the ultra right. They spend their time, energies and resources on tangential issues and I believe that this is done on purpose. It is deliberate circumvention of pertinent issues that will cost money.
These organizations are now blatant and obvious tools of the ultra conservative elites that do not want to pay out the billions of dollars that veterans are owed. Now I am going to tell you something. I am a left wing Democrat and I can personally vouch for you that the left wing elites do not want the billions to go to us either because that would divert money from other pet projects of the left. I trust neither wing and I am very active in Democratic politics here in Northern Virginia.
My grandfather was a ward leader and heavily involved in GOP politics in Philadelphia when I was a kid. I know both parties and how they operate very well and neither is really a friend to us. We veterans are seen as a pimple on the national rump.
They scratch us every now and then to keep us quiet but neither party and neither extreme wing in either party wants to really do much for us. We are too damned expensive in their view. Veterans never seem to grasp this. We are the perennial red-haired step children of this government because of the expense of treating us correctly. And they give us meaningless congressional ‘thank you’s’ and goofy parades and stupid declarations of support while we have homeless veterans everywhere and minimal pensions that do not fully cover the costs of a normal American life.
We have waiting lines in Veterans hospitals that are a year long to get an appointment to see a doctor who will tell you that you need more tests. And that takes another year. Is it me, or am I living in the Twilight Zone here?
And do you know who I blame? Us. You. Me. And all the veterans that preceeded us. We are too nice. We are too respectful. We are too damned complacent. "The government will take care of me" seems to be our mantra. I am here to tell you. No it won’t. You need to demand that your benefits be honored and upgraded in a timely fashion with a letter to your Congressman at least once a fiscal quarter. How many of us do that? Okay, besides the eight people that you just counted on your fingers, how many are capable of actually doing it? The answer is 25 million.
Think about it. Pass the idea around. Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)
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Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=5477
Posted by Veterans Today on Mar 25 2009, With 0 Reads, Filed under Benefits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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You are right on target. Those VSOs you mentioned have anything but the veteran on their agendas. I have personally contacted all 49 VSOs that are charted by congress in hopes of having them assist me in gaining recognition for a special group of the Merchant Marine Veterans who served in WW II. Only one responded with a positive answer. They were the Itailian American War Veterans of the USA. I had 9 messages returned as underliverable and two that flat said no. The other 39 have just ignored my request for help. So much for the VSOs mission statement saying veterans first and we are there for you. They get up on get up on the hill in congress and praise all and tell what they want for the veteran and the n go home and sit. They easily talk the talk but they don’t walk the walk. You can add the VFW to that list of no help to veterans also.
You don’t burn the flag, you don’t piss on people’s feet in a resturant, you don’t spit in someones face. I don’t care what the different veterans organizations do but the least a veteran or just average citizen can do is to show common courtesy.
Im fighting my IU for 3 yrs the VA had come with a bounch of excuses to denied my claim 3 times already Im 80% disable I have a 40 and a 70 my doctor tell me that I cant work Im under medication all day long and in pain the VA official dont care they do their best to take for ever in a claim and their goal is tell you that you are denied. I send them a letter telling them this because Im tired of them not doing their job or caring for us I think the goverment got a lot to do with it cause if they are paying doctor to give you an evaluation and them they going to take their on decition on your condition is better off if they dont spent the money sending you to the specialist I will keep appealing until they listen to my doctor I think we should stand together here like we stand in the war and remember is just us outthere nobody else care
You are right Tom. When I was terminated from the WLA VA Hosp for helping other vets and exposing the misuse of VRA appointments, the DVA saw to it that I took treatment for PTSD. That was in 2004. I was awarded 100% in 2005, but when they found out that I had asked for treatment for PTSD in 1986 and the VA failed to answer my request, then the DAV started acting like I was greedy because I wanted to be paid from the date of claim like the law states. I was wounded by gunshot in Nam and the VA stated that the gunshot wound was my in-service stressor, that was the direct link to the PTSD symptoms I was suffering from. All of a sudden they and the DAV declared that since I was not diagnosed in 1986, I didn’t have it then. Although I was shot in 1967. I withdrew from the DAV representing my case and have represented myself since then. The BVA law judge came up with new symptoms I should have been suffering from that I never suffered from like forgetting close family members names or drug use or alcoholism. I have submitted a request for Reconsideration with the BVA and am waiting on an answer, but prepared to hire an attorney to take it to the Court of Veterans Appeals. In the meantime I have been helping other Veterans with their cases, and I have noticed a propensity by the VA to come up with the most ridiculous reasons for denial. Lets all hope and pray that The Honorable Sec. Eric Shinseki sets a new tone and clears out the Benedict Arnolds in the midst of the Veterans Administration.