Political Crossfire Forums

I'd probably call this and our criminal justice system (read: prison system) our two great national embarrassments. No excuse at all in a country as wealthy as ours.

It's a complete disaster and it's not even just the VA. When I was still serving, I had one of my guys hurt his shoulder when he slipped on ice and fell down some steps on base. I took him to the medbay and they looked at him for five minutes , gave him a bunch of percocets and sent him on his way. His injury required surgery, but by the time they actually had a spot for him or actually tried to get him a spot, his shoulder had already healed and did so in a position where he lost a lot of mobility in his arm. His right arm can't be lifted higher than chest high, similar to John McCain. To literally add insult to injury, since he lost that mobility in his dominate arm, he was deemed unfit for service and discharged out of the Army because of his injury. Damn shame. Guy did 3 tours in Iraq, manages to avoid serious injury during all 3 deployments and a slip on some icy stairs leads to his removal from the Army because he couldn't get proper treatment whilst he was still serving.

It really is a national tragedy we can't help our veterans. The worst part is the American people overwhelmingly agree on how veterens should be treated, but our policy makers can't seem to get it right. That, and it is the government after all.

I'm sorry Ben, its embarrassing we don't take care of our veterans. Time to start contacting representatives.

A lot of why this doesn't get resolved is because of politics. The GOP wants to immediately pin this on Obama which forces the Dems to protect the President and join in on the politicking. To hell with that. This is a very, very longstanding issue that has nothing to do with any single one President, and trying to lay in it on Obama is doing no good. There needs to be reform. My soldier not getting surgery for his destroyed rotator cuff was a primary reason I got out of the service. I enjoyed my time and I'll never take back my experience, what I did during my service or the relationships that I established with my comrades, but the bullshit became too much. The shit health services, shit educational resources, enforcing policy that hurt enlisted soldiers after an officer committed a crime off base, etc. Field grade officers (Majors and higher) would beg higher-ups to let their battalions be deployed so they can get the combat experience to help them get promoted. Naturally, their units sustained casualties, but hey a private's life is worth making Colonel or General, right? Bullshit. A major theme in the military is jacked up paperwork. In fact, I couldn't take advantage of VA benefits until a year after I got out because whilst I was out-processing they botched my DD214 (basically a general record of your active duty service and awards), meaning I couldn't prove to the VA that I was even in the military and eligible for benefits. Since Iraq and Afghanistan have been long going issues, they are given special commendations (awards, pay increases, etc.) to combat vets, which is fine. To take advantage of this though, your ERB or ORB (a more specific record of your service history) has to be complete and show that you did indeed deploy and spent at least 6 months in a combat zone. Problem is, most combat vets had botched paperwork that did not include any of their deployment history, meaning no commendations. Don't even get me started on higher-ups giving themselves Medals of Honor for being stay at home FOB soldiers. I knew a SFC (E7) that tried to give himself a Silver Star with Valor after spending his entire deployment simply giving radio commands to convoys to ensure communications were running properly. A neccessary job sure, but he never saw combat, never left the FOB and yet he thinks he deserves the second highest medal that can be given to military personnel? Again, bullshit.

see if you defected you wouldn't have to deal with this.

balls in your court, ben.