In America, what price glory?
Meanwhile, those from the National Guard and the Reserve who are injured on duty must navigate a system suited more to full-time soldiers. Most are required to stay on military bases to get government medical treatment and to collect their active-duty salary, as well as finish the evaluation that determines whether they return to duty or leave with severance and disability payments. This means they are away from home for way too long. The VA should allow part-timers to receive active-duty pay while they're being treated at hospitals and VA sites closer to their homes and, if necessary, to be treated by their own doctors with appropriately reasonable medical insurance.
There is some good news, however. The VA has been working hard to reduce the backlog of soldiers' claims and to cut waiting times for medical appointments. There has also been an increase in veterans' disability compensation rates--up to $2,300 a month, or $27,600 a year--for 100 percent disabled veterans without dependents. But President Bush proposed to cut the VA's 2005 budget request by $1.2 billion, over the objections of the secretary of veterans affairs, and to reduce the number of VA staff who handle benefit claims at the very time when the number and complexity of such claims are increasing.
This is, to put it plainly, outrageous. Our military personnel should not be treated as second-class citizens. Those wounded and disabled while fighting the war on terrorism for the rest of us will need special help to cope with the scars and disabilities inflicted by a savage, amoral enemy. Soldiers who volunteered to leave their loved ones to defend the rest of us deserve better, much better.
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