Tuesday
was Veterans' Day and it has come and gone with the usual fanfare of parades
and tributes.
If
this is your first time visiting my corner of the Internet, a brief piece about
my background. I served in the United States Navy from 2002-08. I was a nuclear
mechanical operator stationed aboard the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) from 2004-08. I
did a deployment to the Persian Gulf in 2005. Upon my return to the states, I
was in the Virginia shipyards for the remainder of my brief Navy career. During
my time in Virginia, I played a role in assisting the ship during Reactor
Complex Overhaul (RCOH) where we took out the two nuclear reactors and replaced
them with two brand new ones along with performing other critical maintenance
that extended the life of the ship for another quarter of a century.
I
am passionate about Veterans issues ranging from ensuring that our benefits are
honored and finding ways to improve upon them to my small efforts to help
repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and that ALL military families are
recognized to ensuring that we continue a responsible drawdown from Afghanistan
and make sure that we use our military and other instruments of foreign policy
responsibly.
In
the past year, Veterans issues have been in the spotlight.
During
the Senator Ted Cruz (TX, R) led and Republican backed government shutdown in
October 2013, the Veterans Administration closed their regional offices and
their call centers during this time period. The shutdown happened while I took
a class on American Foreign Policy and Introduction To Mathematical Analysis,
both featured Veterans like myself.
I
listened to an Army Reservist after my American Foreign Policy class talk about
how he is feeling the pinch of the Republican led Government Shutdown. He has
the benefit of the Post-9/11 GI Bill but had the government continued its
shutdown, things would have gotten uncomfortable for him as he had bills to
pay. Another service member in the math classes was a former Navy Nuke like
myself, but she was a reactor operator and she also not pleased with the
government shutdown either.
It
should be noted that this shutdown was avoidable and it was unprecedented in
that it was the first time that a government shutdown occurred when we had
active ongoing military operations. Right now we are expanding our military
operations into combating the Islamic State (known as: ISIS/ISIL/IS) and there
is the usual political posturing about whether we should have a debate on going
to war.
Article I,
Section 8, Clause 11
as well as the War Powers Resolution
of 1973
states that war making decision is vested in the legislative branch and not the
executive as many people think. Yes, the president is the
Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces as it says in Article II, Section 2, but the
constitutional framers had the vision to place the decision to go to war in a
body of many and not in one person. Over the last half century, the decision of
war and peace has drifted away from our constitutional requirements and into the
hands of a few in the executive branch.
Jack
Kingston will soon be out of a job because he opted to run for the US Senate in
Georgia. Before Congress took 7 weeks off prior to the election, Kingston made it known
what Congress' priorities were on debating and voting on war:
“A lot of people would like to stay on
the sideline and say, ‘Just bomb the place and tell us about it later. It’s an
election year. A lot of Democrats don’t know how it would play in their party,
and Republicans don’t want to change anything. We like the path we’re on now.
We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what
took him so long.”
On
Wednesday Congress returns from its election break to return for the lame duck
session where they are expected to work a total of… 15 days.
One
7-day period over the next two weeks and then an 8-day period in the first two
weeks of December.
Meanwhile,
President Obama
authorized 1,500 more troops to train the Iraqi army. This is in
addition to the 1,500 already in Iraq advising the Iraqi forces.
The
debate during the midterms was about the highly improbable of what ISIS COULD
do, but not about the realities of what are we going to do to combat ISIS and how
much was this new Middle East War going to cost us in terms of both the
monetary cost and the human cost.
I
would have liked for any member of congress during the midterm election season
to have justified why they could not return to Washington to have a debate and
vote on force authorization. Instead we had debate by proxy via the ads and the
people who were wrong about our last Middle East adventure.
Congress
should have explained to the 3,000 families why they did not have the debate on
combating ISIS. They should also explain to the families of the sailors and
Marines aboard the carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) why does
Congress get a break for Thanksgiving and Christmas and shirk their
constitutional duties while those service members are spending the holidays in
the Persian Gulf away from their loved ones and not having a clearly defined
mission.
Then
there is the question about how we will take care of our veterans. We will
still be paying for these wars long after we leave
Afghanistan
and when we finally decide that the human and monetary cost is no longer worth
it in the Middle East.
Over
the summer there was the Veteran's Administration hospital scandal that resulted
in the firing of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and the passage of a
new VA Hospital funding bill that had bipartisan support from both
chambers of congress.
Republicans
were quick to turn this into a political opportunity without realizing their
culpability in all this.
For
starters, it was under a Republican president that took this country to war
without providing additional funding to VA Hospitals. It was under that same
president, George W. Bush, that resulted in the revelations of neglect at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Bobby Muller, then president
of Veterans for America, said, "Walter Reed is not a photo-op. Walter Reed
is still broken. The DOD health care system is still broken. ... Our troops
need their commander in chief to start working harder for them."
Ronald
Reagan is regarded as a saint in the Republican Party. He cares for the troops
they say… that is until you read this
congressional report from 1990 that states:
"The Reagan administration had
adopted a legal strategy of refusing liability in military and civilian cases
of contamination involving toxic chemicals and nuclear radiation. ... The
Federal Government has suppressed or minimized findings of ill health effects
among Vietnam veterans that could be linked to Agent Orange exposure."
Before
Democrats get all high and mighty, you are also
culpable in this as well. Agent Orange was used during the Vietnam War, a
war expanded under President Johnson and the authorization of the use of this herbicide
was under President Kennedy. Under President Carter, the VA created the Agent
Orange registry where veterans who were worried about exposure to the chemical
and its side effects during the Vietnam War could be examined. However, four
years later a GAO report discovered that over half of the respondents felt that
the examinations were not effective and provided little to no information on
exposure to Agent Orange.
The
VA has a terrible backlog of processing claims and problematic history with
modernizing their records. President Truman in May 1945 said, "The
Veterans Administration will be modernized... as soon as possible, but I can't
do it immediately."
A
lot of the problems with the Veterans' Administration has been highlighted by The Daily Show. As shown here, Jon Stewart
goes through the history of how Veterans have a history of been screwed over.
One
the things to come out during the debate on the new VA funding bill was a
letter written by Senator Richard Burr (NC, R). The
letter, posted to his
website,
stated that Veterans groups do not have their priorities in order and are more
interested in defending the status quo.
I
think it is this congress that does not have its priorities in order when it
comes to the needs of Veterans. As a matter of fact, Senator Richard Burr and
his Republican colleagues blocked a VA funding
bill in February 2014 by attaching a poison pill of adding new sanctions on
Iran.
In
response the Burr's letter several Veteran Service Organizations (VSO) such as
the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) offered their
own response.
Disabled American Veterans (DAV) had their response
as well.
The
best had to come from the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). They called the
letter
a "monumental cheap shot" and
a "disgusting style of politics." In addition was this shot across
the bow:
If
we’ve been remiss in anything Senator, we’ve been remiss in being too polite
with Congress. For years, the VFW has come to Congress with hat in hand and for
years, we’ve heard the same old story. You can be assured Senator, that you’ve
done a superb job in showing us the error in our ways. You can also be assured
that in the future, we will spend a substantial percentage of our time seeking
to inform our members and our constituents of the repeated failure to act by
our elected officials. We will not stand by and let our members be distracted
by rhetoric or finger-pointing and we certainly won’t abide our veterans being
used as political footballs. And you can be sure that we will let our
membership know the low-regard you hold for their organization.
In
other words: We have long memories and we look forward to when you are up for
re-election which is in… 2016.
There
is a reason why I titled this "Support The Troops*." For the last
decade that has been the rallying cry.
Support
The Troops.
Unless
they need education and employment training when their enlistment is completed.
Support
The Troops.
Unless
they are gay.
Support
The Troops.
Unless
they need access to health care to deal with PTSD and depression, and that
funding is opposed because we can't afford.
Yes,
like how we couldn't afford to go to war.
Support
The Troops.
Unless
when it comes to matters of debating whether we go to war and do not define the
specifics of the mission at hand.
Perhaps
it is finally time to live up to that slogan.
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