I’m having a hell of a time to get this posted because they tell me I DON’T know my identification.

wdgray@shawneellink.net

I’ve been BETRAYED along with 432,000 cohorts on retired pay and loss of my earned life-time haltth care.

I see the goat turds are still around. I must give you credit for a perfectly warped and demented view of reality. Although all Veterans benefits since the Continental Congress’s day have been and still creatures of the political system it is rather inconsistent that one party or the others has Veterans interest in mind.

I will defend Nixon on the issue of Veterans benefits. During his administration several new Medical Centers were authorized and built and VA healthcare was their for ALL Veterans at no cost. During the Vietnam War initial VA claims were routinely adjudicated with in three months and this was long before computerized records. Ford wasn’t in long enough to have much of an effect on Veterans issues, but Carter sure fu**ed things up.

It was under Carter’s head of the then Veterans Administration Max Cleland that things really went in the toilet, and we haven’t recovered from Carter/Cleland yet. To be civil about Sec. Cleland he shamelessly walked over Veterans backs to advance his own political goals, and although he would lose his Senate seat to a Draft Dodger, I don’t remember any Veterans shedding tears, Max. Max Cleland’s lasting memorial with in the VA is establishing co-pays for services and prescriptions.

The Reagan Administration ripped the heart out of the VA mainly the handy work of David Stockman head of OMB. Funding cuts and low balling of the number of Veterans who applied for VA benefits tore the institution apart. The most lasting memory of the Reagan Administration is the elimination of benefits and TREATMENT for substance abuse. This misguided cost cutting by Mr. Stockman took the lives (suicides) of many Veterans and in the end cost society far more the meager amount of VA funding that was cut. Bush (41) was just more of Reaganomics, even after Gulf War I, Bush (41) was still cutting VA budgets, and people wonder why Bush a genuine WWII hero was defeated by a Vietnam Draft Dodger.

Clinton though that the cutting VA funding was part of the “Peace Dividend” that came with the ending of the Cold War. Both Healthcare and Disability payments were reduced under Clinton, the feeling that many Veterans have today for the Clintons regardless of their other political feelings is fully justified. Toward the end of his administration Clinton did increase budgets a little but it was way to little to late.

Bush (43) used the Veterans Administration as a piggy bank, his first Sec. of the VA Anthony Principi was in it for his own personal gain and greed, he was the principal stock holder in a company, and now CEO of a firm that contracts for doing exams for VA disability claims, they are paid on incentives that don’t include being fair to Veterans.

His next Sec. of veterans Affairs was James Nicholson a Republican political hack who will be long remembered as taking a $ billion here or a billion there from the VA Healthcare Budget for other Government uses. The total robbed from Veterans during the Bush (43) years is in excess of $10 billion of Congressional authorized funding. It is noted that during the constant wars of the Bush Administration there are five fewer VAMC then when he too office, and two Central Florida and Las vegas that were authorized under Clinton were never built.

Obama, well it’s still a work in progress. Everyone who knows or knows of general Eric Shenseki says he is the right guy to set things right in the VA, but so far all that I have seen is some promises. I know that this is a work that yet to started because Sec. Shenseki doesn’t have his own budget yet, and word from the field is that badly needed money is being released into the system that Bush had with held in his last budget, but it’s still to early to pass judgments.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

And for this ‘the blue max’, you’d better catch up there son!! Regurgitating the ‘rushlican’ talking points don’t fly with those of us not led around by the nose ring like you!

Take a good look at All that has come out and is still rising to the surface of the care and support of the soldiers, and their families, in these last 7plus years as invasions and occupations raged on and were Cheered On by those willing to send Others!

Take a Good Look at the Hearings and Investigations within the government, and in the media the investigative reporting, these last 2years, Finally, and all that is being brought forth that was Not Done Nor Mentioned Nor even given a Crap About, by the party of ‘Strong National Defense’!!

Now lets go back to your Memory Lane visit to our conflict and occupation, ‘Nam, and who kept us there for years longer than we should have, think little nixon, and since we get clowns like you still doing the ‘nixonian verbal spitting’ on us ‘Nam Vets!!

Get your senses back, if you ever had your own, and join reality!!

By the way, Ill just Bet you still get a kick out of the ‘purple heart bandages’, I know some of your ilk still do, had a nice tear down of those little ‘chickenhawks’ recently!!

‘Navy ’67-’71 All Shore GMG3 ’70-’71 ‘Nam In- Country!
And a lifetime Indie!!

This is where I hope I am pointing.  Can we do this and still go to the VFW pancake breakfasts at the same time?

g

I half believe that somebody somewhere needs to fund an Unalligned Veterans of America group to pick and choose our way throgh the various candidates for election in all fifty states for local, state and local elections.  We tack up that candidate’s voting record on a website and then let the veterans choose.  We must stop using the major veterans’ groups as a sounding board as to who is veteran friendly and who is not.  They are not reliable and do not represent our interests.  They have proven that over and over. 

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)