As a disabled veteran I am disappointed in the lip service paid to veterans and to active duty military. Many politicians from both parties love to have the photo ops with veterans from all the Service Organizations, but let a veteran or a family member contact them for help, and are you from my district, No, but you are on the Veteran Affairs Committee, you supposedly represent all american veterans, not just the ones from your district, the committee is for everyone.
I have contacted all the "names" from both parties that are the Presidential "wannabe's" Clinton, Richardson, Kerry, Edwards, Clark, Vilsack, from the veterans friends the republicans, McCain, Allen, Romney, Dr Frist, Hagel, none of them have responded to the request for help for the 10,000 veterans of the Cold War tests, who have been denied benefits by their "grateful nation" since the tests were made public in 1975. The Veteran Affairs and Department of Defense have played every game they can, ignore, lie, ask for evidence that DOD has in their possession and refuse to release.
Here is a VA manual from October 2003 that shows the 13 presumptive diseases and medical conditions caused by the experiments that the Army and the CIA conducted from 1952 thru 1975. http://www1.va.gov/vhi/docs/CBR_www.pdf
2300 men were used in the biological tests at Fort Detrick Maryland the tests there stopped in 1972, after the US signed the Bio weapons treaty.
7120 men were used in chemical weapons and drug tests involving LSD, PCP, Scopolomine, Mustard agents, nerve agents, and other toxic weapons.
6000 men of the SHAD/112 experiments that took place from Hawaii to Alsaka, to Florida, Edgewood Arsenal and other places, from the early 1960's thru the early 70's DOD has not completed declassifying all of the data yet, the SHAD veterans have filed a lawsuit and deposed some Department of Defense employees from the 60's. The court case has yet to come to trial. http://www.shadvets.net/
The unknown thousands of the Nuclear tests from the Pacific to Nevada, and the medical nuclear tests that were conducted during the Cold War era in hospitals across the country. The ACHRE committee investigated this subject deeply in the mid 90's http://www.gwu.edu/...
The American government has a terrible track record when it comes to human experimentation and the elected officials that want to be our President, the Congressmen and Senators of the Veteran Affairs Committee's have also shown a complete disregard to holding the administrations for the past three decades to account for the failure to care for the veterans harmed in these tests, it is time for the lip service to end. Accountability must be demanded by the public, these tests were ordered for the public good, what good came from them, the CIA and other agencies got to spend money on "classified research" that by international law was considered illegal. Now Congress refuses to hold the government to account, thousands of men have died as a result of these exposures, many thousands more are disabled, and DOD stonewalls the claims, by refusing to release the data these men or their widows need to get the veterans benefits they deserve.
In this instance the entrenched democrats are no better than the republicans, if the "wannabe's" want to be President take a leadership role in calling for a solution to DOD's refusal and foot dragging in helping these veterans, instead of the photo ops, help the vets. No help no photo ops. No Help no votes, we all have relatives, and we all have at least 4 friends. 26 million times 4 is over 100 million voters, wannabe's do the math, you need veterans, we do have influence, ask your advisors.
If you don't help us now, do you really expect our help in 2008?