March 6, 2007 6:40 AM

So who's the hero? And guess who gets the shaft? Chalk up another victory for our brave and selfless Chickenhawks....

Congress Hears of Neglect in Veteran’s Care

‘It Is Just Not Walter Reed’: Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Military Health Care Across U.S.

Another witness at the Congressional hearing, Annette L. McLeod, spoke of how the Army tried to deny benefits to her husband, Wendell, for a brain injury he suffered, by suggesting that he had always been a slow learner. Mr. McLeod, a specialist in the South Carolina National Guard known by the nickname Dell, was injured in Kuwait near the border with Iraq. Army officials resisted determining that he was in fact brain-injured, Mrs. McLeod said. “They stated that Dell appeared to be intellectually slow and that this was the cause of the problem,” she said. “They also said he over-exaggerated his injuries so that he could get attention.”

It was difficult for me to watch news reports from yesterday’s Congressional hearing on the American military’s health care system without a growing sense of outrage. Yes, I understand that the hearings were set up to inflict maximum embarrassment, but so what? The reality of the substandard care some of our wounded soldiers receive IS embarrassing, and it should have the blinding white light of public hearing focused on it. This is not a partisan issue; it’s not about blue or red or Republican or Democrat. This is about how we take care (or, in this case, how we don’t) of those who volunteer to do our fighting and dying. It’s about how we’ve allowed our government to fail these heroes by burying them in red tape, bureaucratic minutiae, and in some cases an appalling and inconceivable lack of compassion worthy of the old Soviet Union.

This is how America supports our troops. Or not.

Ironically for an Administration normally so adept at controlling and massaging the news, it was also announced yesterday that Vice President Dick Cheney is to be treated for a blood clot in his leg. Gee, d’ya think Cheney will have ANY problem getting the best care known to man? This for a man who was 4F before there WAS a 4F. The closest Cheney has ever come to combat is engaging in a snowball fight in the Rose Garden…yet he will have doctors fawning over him 24/7, making certain he is properly cared for. Meanwhile, Dell McLeod is accused of goldbricking and of being just plain stupid. So who’s the hero? And who should be getting the very best care known to man- no questions asked? Hint: it’s not Dick Cheney.

For senior officers to state publicly that “we have let some soldiers down” is a necessary, but wholly insufficient first step. What I really want to know is where the outrage is? Where is Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © …and why is he not using his bully pulpit to demand that changes be made NOW? Where is Congress? Yes, they’re staging the equivalent of public show trials, but where are the demands for accountability? Where are the demands that real, substantive changes be made NOW? Where is the action?

Yes, I understand that Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © is advocating for a commission, which is the moral equivalent of a celebrity going into rehab when they’re busted with a 12-year-old hooker and a grocery sack full of Bolivian marching powder. A commission is little more than a means of gaining for political cover for doing exactly nothing. Anyone remember the Iraq Study Group? How’d that turn out for y’all?? How many millions of our tax dollars were burned through so Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © could shove the report generated by the commission into a drawer before the ink was dry.

Until, and unless, regular, everyday Americans demand changes be made yesterday, NOTHING will change. Today’s embarrassment will be yesterday’s news before you know it, and unless we insist that our elected representative take meaningful action now, our sons and daughters will remain exactly where they are- fighting the bureaucracy, the pinheads, and the long waits for care…and suffering the consequences for it.

Fixing this travesty needs to be made JOB ONE, and if it’s need then heads need to roll- starting at the top…and yes, I mean impeaching Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © . If he can insist that we have sufficient resources to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, then there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have sufficient resources to care for our wounded. If Dick Cheney can get the best care known to man, then why shouldn’t a 19-year-old PFC wounded by an IED be able to expect the very same level of care?

WE DESERVE BETTER. And so do our wounded soldiers, who’ve done their duty and paid the price. It’s time for our government to do theirs…and if they refuse or drag their feet, then they need to be held accountable for their sloth and ineptitude.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 6, 2007 6:40 AM.

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