Huh????
They have to Visit Afghanistan in relation to Veterans Issues??
Typical obstructionist ideology, decades now, ignore what's right in front of you and waste time and money doing the foolish, by ignoring it costs tons more to fix then if funded up front in the beginning and maintaining after, DeJa-Vu All Over Again!!!
As to congress and especially the tepubs and their supporters, It's Easier To Blame The Agency Then Do Their Jobs They Were Hired To Do!!
Country Must 'Sacrifice' not just Groups Within nor Just Non Profits Fighting for Donations!
No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called 'Support' For The Troops = DeJa-Vu all over again, Shared Sacrifice My A**!!
Lawmakers visit Afghanistan to understand veterans’ needs
October 13, 2011 - Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan showed freshman Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, Calif., a hint of what's to come in a war whose costs will keep accumulating for decades.
Accompanied by four House colleagues, three of them doctors, Denham spent last weekend touring Bagram and other Afghanistan bases. Although brief, the trip put the lawmakers face-to-face with the war's extended health-care price tag.
"It's obviously going to be a huge expense," Denham said Thursday. "It's undefined, but the one thing that is defined is that we have to take care of the veteran."
The bills already are piling up.
More than 513,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had filed for disability benefits as of last year. Some of these war-disabled are obvious, such as the approximately 1,600 who have had one or more limbs amputated. Some wounds are hidden, such as those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury.
Nearly one in five of the more than 2 million veterans who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from mental health conditions, according to a study released earlier this month by an advocacy group called Veterans for Common Sense. read more>>>
Speaking of Congress and Especially the Committee's related to the Veterans the Senate's last hearing was this: Joint Hearing on the legislative presentation of The American Legion September 21 2011, notice the date, this was the first and only hearing after they came back from their August vacation, and none are listed as coming up since, nor held since, that Joint Hearing, not one more hearing on veterans issues!
As to the House, they have had hearings, most have not covered the wide issues related to All veterans. They've already tried to do cuts to the Veterans Agency Budget and if you watch or listen, back to the same from the 108th and 109th and previous years, never Demanding the Country Sacrifice as they waged two wars, the questioning from some of the representatives sounds like a 'gotcha relay', they ask a question interrupt the witness as they start to answer asking another question or same one and this continues, never getting an answer while they seek that 'gotcha political' spin point for their media outlet, FOX!!
Example of the long years of obstruction as to Veterans issues, and there are plenty:
"Testvets", military personal, have been used as guinea pigs for much more then just nuclear and the Country refuses still to pony up, 'Sacrifice', including and especially related to it's wars of choice, for decades! Wave flags, cheer on with empty slogans and cheap symbols, blame the agency rather then look in their mirrors, and ignore as the soldier returns and joins our veterans ranks!!
Marine veteran is free to tell the story of America's nuclear test subjects
October 13, 2011 - James D. Tyler stuffed cotton balls into his ears and waited for the announcement.
He was kneeling at the bottom of a 6-foot-deep ditch, bearing every piece of his combat gear, too young at 18 to even consider that this might be the end of his life. If it was going to be, he wouldn't be alone. No one in Company F had any better odds.
Except that Tyler, then a grunt in 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines, would not go over the ditch into the teeth of the enemy.
He and everyone else knew their orders - hug the side of the ditch, close your eyes, put your face in the crook of your arm. Do not raise your head, under any circumstances.
"It was just before dawn," said Tyler, 72, of Burleson. "We assumed that the people in charge knew what they were doing."
The countdown began, and then everything went blindingly white. read more>>>
Country Must 'Sacrifice' not just Groups Within nor Just Non Profits Fighting for Donations!
No Revenues = Still No Sacrifice = That's Called 'Support' For The Troops = DeJa-Vu all over again, Shared Sacrifice My A**!!