[FYI: I have offered to post this for someone who wishes anonymnity.]
With more than 1.2 million members, Disabled American Veterans is an organization of disabled veterans who are focused on building better lives for disabled veterans and their families.
The organization accomplishes this goal by providing free assistance to veterans in obtaining benefits and services earned through their military service. It is fully funded through its membership dues and public contributions. It is not a government agency and receives no government funds.
~snip~
The DAV was formed as our country faced the painful effects of World War I. Throughout our 85-year history, DAV has grown and adapted to face the needs of disabled veterans. As a new generation of wartime disabled veterans return from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the DAV is working hard to ensure all veterans are cared for well into the future.
Nice folks at DAV, so they should be able to help some wounded vets eh?
No. They have been denied access to Walter Reed patients.
Why?
911 of course.
DAV Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman wrote this letter to Rummy quite some time ago.
January 2, 2004
Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Dear Mr. Secretary:
I am writing to express the serious concerns of the more than 1.2 million members of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) about the future of those brave men and women who are wounded, sickened, or otherwise disabled in service to our nation, particularly those returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, and the war on terror.
~snip~
The current policies of the Department of Defense citing the Privacy Act and security are preventing our skilled representatives from carrying out our congressionally chartered mission.
At one facility in particular-Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) in Washington, D.C. -- our efforts to visit with wounded patients have been severely restricted. For example, all requests to visit patients must now be made through the WRAMC headquarters office, which then selects the patients we may visit and strictly limits information about the patients, even the patient's name and the nature of the injury is withheld without express permission. The DAV's representatives also are escorted at all times while in the facility, and all contact with patients is closely monitored by the escort. This is particularly unnerving and inappropriate as all conversations between a representative and client are confidential in nature.
WHY?
According to a Walter Reed hack on March 20, 2004....
Joan Malloy, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the new policy was prompted both by post-9/11 security concerns and the need to meet a patient-privacy law that took effect in April 2003.
"It is a closed post now," Malloy said. "The world has changed for everybody, including people who want to visit the hospital."
Yep, 911 changed everything, including allowing neocons to deny patient access to an organization that has helped injured vets for over 8 decades and has the approval of Congress to do so.
From another care denier at Walter Reed...
Colonel James R. Greenwood, deputy commander for administration at the hospital, wrote Gorman and told him that laws passed by Congress limited what information could be released.
"All military health care facilities are required to comply with these medical information privacy rules," he wrote, adding that "there is no exception for organizations such as the Disabled American Veterans, whether they possess a congressional charter or not.
~snip~
to which Gorman replied.
"We do not seek access to their medical records, only the patients themselves. It is inconceivable to me that this present administration would deny these wounded men and women knowledge of their rights and benefits by using a cloak of obfuscation and ignorance against them."
Again we ask why?
We tried to fight the war "on the cheap" so it only stands to reason that the administration's policy is to treat our wounded veterans "on the cheap".
And what better way than to deny these veterans their benefits than by denying information to them about what benefits are available to them
Wounded Troops Denied Benefits?
GIs Back From Iraq May Have To Battle For Medical Benefits At Home
from CBS Evening News WASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2003
"I think that the military wants to get them off their hands," says David Gorman, who lost both legs in Vietnam.
Gorman is executive director of Disabled American Veterans, a group he says normally has easy access to wounded soldiers; but not this time.
"I don't know if it's a clouded secret about who's coming back, who's there, the nature of their disabilities, the nature of their wounds or not but there is not the kind of unfettered access that we used to have at Walter Reed," says Gorman.
A spokesman for Walter Reed Army Medical Center says the restricted access is the result of post 9/11 security concerns and new federal guidelines protecting patient privacy, which by coincidence took effect just as the war in Iraq was starting.
"We can't do our job which means in many cases, I believe personally, that there's just an outright denial of benefits coming to these young men and women because they simply don't know about it," says Gorman.
This was confirmed in the hearings by Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon when he said,
Soldiers would sign anything to get on with their lives."