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The frustrated follow a leaderless because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

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Lincoln’s Statement
“Fulfill America’s promise to care for those who have borne the battle,”

Webmaster's Note: It's interesting that Politicians and Political Appointees can simply quit or resign (Rumsfeld & Nicholson) but the troops are in it for the long haul. It's easy to talk commitment and honor and obligation but it's another thing to follow through with what you have started.

"Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither"
Benjamin Franklin

OUR INFO SITE IS BASED ON THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPALS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

Amendment I : Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Senate Finally Angry With Bush Ignoring America Or, Will refusing to grant the decider's Emergency $108 Billion request result in another false flag attack?

Do we hear anger instead of snoring in the senate? Apparently this is the case with one powerful group of senators in a recent budget hearing. As you shall see in this report, they fed up with being ignored by the self-appointed "decider." We never see actual numbers in television statements, so here's what 108 BILLION dollars looks like: $108,000,000,000. That's $381.75 for every man, woman and child in America, assuming a population of 280 million. And this is ONLY for "emergency funding" the dictator claims he must have for the war which supposedly ended several years ago, according to him. And for rebuilding Iraq, too. But a large chunk of this money is for rebuilding the infrastructure in Iraq the very infrastructure we bombed into oblivion in the first days of the war. When the Iraq economy hit bottom, dead copper cables on utility poles became a great source of revenue and enterprising Iraqi's climbed poles, took down the wires and resold them for scrap. And now the American people are supposed to PAY to rewire Iraq? Do we hear anger instead of snoring in the senate? Apparently this is the case with one powerful group of senators in a recent budget hearing. As you shall see in this report, they fed up with being ignored by the self-appointed "decider." The following is from a Senate Appropriations committee hearing broadcast on April 19th, 2008 on CSPAN television network. Statements in quotations are actual statements made by either senators or the witness Jim Nussle. He is the white house budget director.

Below is a summary of some incredible facts made in this hearing boldly stated by several senators:

* White house budget director statement was labeled as "A page out of Orwell's 1984

* The rebuilding of Iraq's oil infrastructure has been completed

* A man who testified before the committee just last week about fraud and abuse with war funds has had THREE ATTEMPTS TO KILL HIM

* Crime victim's fund has been reduced to ZERO

* California will have NO AID from the federal government to deal with wildfires

* Thousands of guns sent to Iraq for their police force were lost, but have been used against US troops

* White House demands 108 BILLION dollars to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, without a penny set aside to rebuild ANY infrastructure in America

* White House has demanded emergency funding of $350 MILLION dollars a year, three years in a row with no explanation why it is always that same exact amount

* There are 60 BILLION DOLLARS here in a bank from Iraq here in America, which is doing nothing to help America

* The war will reach $1 TRILLION dollars if $108B approved

* White house budget director told his testimony and demanding statements are "snorky, dismissive and pugnacious"

* White budget director Nussle told "The game is over" and "I'm not going to sit anymore and keep playing this game" and "We've all been a part of this, and we're not going to let this happen."

* Never before in history has a war been funded on debt

* Presidents' budget doesn't have one dime for those men and women coming home with PTSD and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)

* The emergency supplement called either a bad sales job or a dirty cover-up

On April 15, 2008 in a Senate Appropriations committee hearing Partick Leahy D-VT vehemently told Nussle that "Enough is enough!" At one point, Leahy stated that Nussle's statements were "A page right out of Orwell's 1984." It's clear Leahy can see what the rest of us see in America's future, but Leahy is in a powerful position to do something about it. And he has been proactive as well. The war in Iraq will reach almost 1 TRILLION dollars That is, if the $108B addition for funding the decider's war known as "emergency funding" is granted by the senate. Leahy also stated that while "veterans are coming home sick and dying, the president remains focused on the war while ignoring numerous critical issues at home." Leahy also "stated it's was time for Iraq to help pay for the war."

Perhaps 1 TRILLION DOLLARS is the senate's pain threshold?

Senator Leahy stated "Thousands of handguns were sent to Iraq for use by their new police force, but that we didn't know where these guns went until they began to be used on our soldiers." Leahy also noted that the crime victims fund will be left empty, while more money will be sent to Iraq. In response, Mr. Nussle tried to justify raiding the crime victims fund. That was a big mistake and did not go over well with anyone. Senator Craig R-ID expressed his frustration trying to complete the committee's work this year, because of a "phenomenal catch-22" as he put it. He also sternly noted it was time for Iraq to look at HOW they spend their money, and that we helped Iraq rebuild their oil infrastructure which has now been completed. Mr. Craig firmly stated he does not find it comfortable to be funding the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure while America's is left ignored. Senator Tom Harkin D-IA stated that "I hear from my constituents that clean water and infrastructure, and that this need is going ignored." He also stated that "We have un-met reconstruction needs right here in our own country." Harkin also noted "the cuts of 2008 will eliminate 15 out of 21 task forces." He noted that the cuts MUST be restored right now, not next year and that it cannot wait. Nussle boldly replied that "We've tried to take a lot of successful grant programs and consolidate them into four programs." Then he rambled on how "We know there are limited resources" and how Congress doesn't do their job. Harkin interrupted him to state that "a $350 million dollar cut was made because the president forced the issue in order to sign a bill." Nussle began to complain how the troop funding has been held up for 14 months, even AFTER Harkin stated "they would add the funding for the Burn program to the troop funding." None of Nussle's bold demands went unnoticed by the other committee members, as we shall see. Senator Robert Bennett R-UT noted the dilemma we're all in, and that there are other problems that have to be tackled. He strongly stated "The previous three supplemental emergency war funding requests the white house wanted were all $350 million dollars, THREE YEARS in a row." Bennett wanted to know why this wasn't a regular budget item since it's ongoing - And How could it always be $350M EVERY year despite inflation? Clearly Bennett smells a rat, but doesn't want to call it a rat. Further, Bennett noted that the WIC program a program to help feed American women and children isn't being increased as costs increase, citing numerous details why it should increase. He also noted that "farmers are being encouraged plowing under wheat fields and planting corn for ethanol." Nussle claimed he couldn't respond to why the supplemental was always $350M, and performing as the masterful apologist that is, he stroked that committee and agreed [the yearly emergency funding request] that perhaps it should be regular line item for PL480. Bennett noted that the FDA regulates 20% of all consumer expenditures. He added that the FDA stated it needs an increase of $375M now to do more science and add more staff, which can't be absorbed all in one year. He "warned" Nussle that this is something he wants to see happen and he will be watching. Ms. Mulkulski on the committee stated to Nussle "I'm really disappointed with the snorky, dismissive way of your testimony." She stated that "Since you are pugnacious, I will be pugnacious." She stated that "What this administration has done has been outrageous" and tore into Nussle. I cannot type everything she said fast enough, as her flaming arrows kept flying at Mr. Nussle. She stated that "There is frustration from police officers and that they need help!" Nussle's calm response was to repeat the decider's instructions to him, that "The bill stays within the $108B request and to support the troops." Mkulski firmly retorted "The cops program and the Burn program were eliminated" by the president. She flatly disagreed with him on his memory about history and what the president wants. She stated she will force the funding issue for the police. Senator Patty Murray D-WA also stated she shared the same frustration with the other senators. She also mentioned layoffs, mortgages, housing, health care and the president's budget as "absolutely inadequate" for problem right here at home. Further, she noted that we are building roads and schools in Iraq, but no funding for that here in America. She also shares other senator's concerns about abuse, waste and fraud of funds and that "My constituents are angry about rebuilding Iraq" Senator Murray further noted, "There are 34 to 60 BILLION DOLLARS here in the bank from Iraq doing nothing to help America" and "The presidents' budget doesn't have one dime for those men and women coming home with PTSD and TBI." (TBI is Traumatic Brain Injury.) She strongly stated "The cost of caring for our soldiers is part of the cost of war" and that "The supplemental emergency budget is all for rebuilding roads and bridges in Iraq, nothing here at home. Roads and bridges are needed here for people to get back and forth to support and take care of their families." Nussle calmly stated he didn't take offence at her tone or others. Murray interrupted him stating "Emergency funds here are at zero." Nussle stated that "Congress isn't doing it's job" to which she corrected him. His statement only made things worse and more senators angry. Senator Byron Dorgan D-ND stated that what was disturbing to him, was that "If the emergency supplemental is granted, the war will reach $974 BILLION dollars, all of it as an emergency, and all of it borrowed." He noted that the president actions as "Let's send soldiers to war, and let's also have tax cuts." And that "Year after year the president claims these funding requests are emergencies." Dorgan credited the NY Times investigative reporting which found that A 22 Year old received $300 MILLION dollars from the US government for a shell company in Florida." Dorgan is going to subpoena him and another one like him who also received millions illegally. Dorgan also noted the "Haliburton is running their payroll through the Virgin islands to they won't have to pay US taxes." Dorgan noted item by item the amounts for electricity and other Iraq expenditures.

In another pointed statement, Dorgan pointed in Nussle's direction and said that "A man sat in that same chair you're sitting in last week and told us about excess expenditures, and there have been THREE attempts to kill him." Dorgan said "The game is over" and others on the panel unable to contain themselves yelled "Here-Here!" He added, "I'm not going to sit anymore and keep playing this game" and "We've all been a part of this, and we're not going to let this happen." Nussle stated, "I agree with much of what you have said" but no as usual, no other specifics were answered. Nussle appeared shaken but trying not to show it. Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-CA said that all the domestic items are just 18% of the funding and "Never before in history has a war been funded on debt" and that "The debt is now 9 trillion and going up." She firmly stated "It will be hard to vote for a $108B supplemental that puts it on the debt." Also, she noted "Our country is $350 million dollars short for fire suppression" and that "We can't fix bridges" on the 18% and that "there is so much fraud and abuse in the Iraq funding." Again, Nussle claimed he understands their frustration, but then added the committee "Should call up those responsible and ask them these questions." Then he claimed "The GAO monitors a high risk of regular payments but not enough is being done." Sen. Feinstein stated that "We have a part of the state that could well burn again" and that "We should have equal funding for here at home...bridges will collapse and we'll have wildfires here." She added, "I'll have a very hard voting for $108B" and that "The administration won't sit down and work it out and it's your way, or the highway." Sen. Dick Durbin D-IL statements were in line with the other committee members. He stated that he voted against this war, but then voted to fund it to end it. Now he concluded that "Sending a blank check will prolong the killing, prolong the deaths, and this isn't the way to handle it." And "There comes a point when it is no longer an emergency spending bill." He noted that rice has increased the price of rice has gone up 83% and that governments may fall because of it. He asked Nussle if the emergency food crisis is important. Mr. Nussle then began to brag about "America's generosity to the world." Durbin interrupted saying we are not doing enough to help those starving. Over and over and over Durbin asked for a yes or no from Nussle, but he continued to rant on. A yes of no was never given. Sen. Mary Landrieu D-LA held up the $108B request document and asked Nussle about missing items. She asked Nussle if he knew how much was spent for national infrastructure repair, which he didn't know. Her answer to him was "It's less than $5B." Sen. Landrieu also wanted to know why the cost-share for emergencies was changed from 75/25 to 35/65. Nussle was actually speechless. Landrieu told him to get the answer and get back to her. I'm sure Nussle knew why, but didn't want to say. She added that "The president drove the country into a war, and then never submitted a plan to pay for it." Further, Landrieu added that "The emergency supplement is either a bad sales job or a dirty cover-up, but it isn't a clean bill." Sen. Ben Nelson D-NE said he would have a hard time explaining what's happening to his grandchildren, about all the fraud, waste and abuse. He asked Nussle for explanations, which of course only resulted in more misdirection and non-answers from Nussle. The final committee member to briefly speak, Sen. Thad Cochran D-MS stated he supported the funding to continue to protect the troops and pay for contractors. He also labeled the war as "A battle against terrorism." Sen. Robert Byrd, chairman, reminded everyone about the president's veto threat. And that the bill doesn't leave any room to deal with a troubled economy. Byrd said "In the next few weeks the committee will mark up a supplemental version that meets the needs of the troops AND the people, and hopes the president will listen to the people." Frankly, I doubt it. The decider hasn't listened yet, and isn't likely to at any point in the future.

MARTIAL LAW WAS REPEALED AND BUSH CREATED HIS OWN VERSION

The repeal of the martial law provision took place when Bush got his defense budget with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, signed into law by President Bush on Jan 28, 2008. This was nothing more than a compromise. This may also be why two executive orders were signed by Bush recently. He declared that in the case of a national emergency, he alone will run the country instead of DHS.

Admiral William Fallon, The Resigning Commander Of CENTCOM
Bush Says Fallon Is Not A Team Player

Admiral Fallon Is Forced To Resign

Fallon's background
Fallon was born in East Orange, New Jersey, where he went to Camden Catholic High School, and graduated from Villanova University. He received his naval commission through the Navy ROTC Program, and was designated a Naval Flight Officer. Fallon is a graduate of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and the National War College in Washington, D.C. He holds a Master of Arts Degree in International Studies from Old Dominion University.1

Fallon's Naval Career
He flew the RA-5C Vigilante, and A-6, in a combat deployment to Vietnam. He has logged more than 1,300 carrier-arrested landings and 4,800 flight hours in tactical jet aircraft. Fallon commanded Attack Squadron 65 in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm. Next, he was a naval commander of a carrier group in the Balkans conflict. Nominated for his fourth star, he became the 31st Vice Chief of Naval Operations in October of 2000. He was then nominated and confirmed for assignment as the Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command and U.S. Atlantic Fleet from October 2003 to February 2005.

He Was A Carrier Pilot On The Saratoga
Fallon was a young US Naval Officer serving aboard the US Aircraft Carrier Saratoga in June, 1967, when Israel launched a surprise war against its Arab neighbors. He saw the valiant F-4 Phantom pilots rocket off the Saratoga to save the crew of the USS Liberty, only to return 15 minutes later. Heroic pilots getting out of their jets, smashed their helmets on the deck, and called Admiral McCain a treacherous bastard. Some of the USS Liberty's wounded were airlifted to the Saratoga.

US Soldiers Ambushed
He became irate over the numerous sophisticated ambushes of American troops.

Bush Sends Eight Carriers To Iraq
Bush ordered eight carriers to steam to Iraq, and Fallon smelled an attack.

The Sacrificial Lamb
After Bush requested the soon-to-be-retired, 46 year-old Kitty Hawk, to the Straights of Hormuz, Fallon had his fill. He, and fellow officers, were not going to be part of that crew dying like the sailors of the USS Liberty.

Document Shows Army Blocked Help for Soldiers - VA Document
Read a memo from the meeting where Army officials asked the VA to stop helping Fort Drum soldiers with their military disability paperwork.

Glossary of Abbreviations

ACAP — Army Career and Alumni Program
ADA — Americans with Disabilities Act
ARNG — Army National Guard
BDD — Bureau of Disability Determination
CBHOC — Community-Based Health Outpatient Clinic
COL — Colonel
C&P — Compensation and Pension
CPEP — Compensation and Pension Examination Program
DOD — Department of Defense
DODI — Department of Defense Instruction
EEO — Equal Employment Opportunity
FAAFP — Fellow, American Academy of Family Physicians
LTC — Lieutenant Colonel
MD — Medical Doctor
MEB — Medical Evaluation Board
MEDDAC — Medical Department Activity
MOPH — Military Order of the Purple Heart
NP — Nurse Practitioner
OIF/OEF — Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom
PA — Physician's Assistant
PEB — Physical Evaluation Board
RN — Registered Nurse
VA — Veterans Affairs
VACO — Veterans Affairs Central Office
VAMC — Veterans Affairs Medical Center
VARO — Veterans Affairs Regional Office
VASRD — Veterans Administration Schedule for Rating Disabilities
VBA — Veterans Benefits Administration
VHA — Veterans Health Administration
VISTA — Veterans Integrated System Technology Architecture

A document from the VA contradicts an assertion made by the Army surgeon general that his office did not tell VA officials to stop helping injured soldiers with their military disability paperwork at a New York Army post. The paperwork can help determine health care and disability benefits for wounded soldiers. Last week, NPR first described a meeting last March between an Army team from Washington and VA officials at Fort Drum Army base in upstate New York. NPR reported that Army representatives told the VA not to review the narrative summaries of soldiers' injuries, and that the VA complied with the Army's request. The day the NPR story aired, Army Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker denied parts of the report. Rep. John McHugh R-NY, who represents the Fort Drum area, told North Country Public Radio, that "The Surgeon General of the Army told me very flatly that it was not the Army that told the VA to stop this help." Now, NPR has obtained a four-page VA document that contradicts the surgeon general's statement to McHugh. It was written by one of the VA officials at Fort Drum on March 31, the day after the meeting. The document says Col. Becky Baker of the Army Surgeon General's office told the VA to discontinue counseling soldiers on the appropriateness of Defense Department ratings because "there exists a conflict of interest." When contacted by NPR, Baker referred an interview request to the Army Surgeon General's spokeswoman. The spokeswoman rejected requests for interviews with Baker and Schoomaker. The document says that before the Army team's visit, people from the Army Inspector General's office came to Fort Drum and told the VA it was providing a useful service to soldiers by reviewing their disability paperwork. According to the document, joining Baker on the Army team at the Fort Drum meeting was Dr. Alan Janusziewicz. He retired as deputy assistant surgeon general for the Army in Oct. "I was part of the team, and I was probably instrumental in the surgeon general denying that the Army had instructed the VA" to stop reviewing soldiers' Army medical documents, Janusziewicz told NPR in a phone interview. Janusziewicz says he has no memory of Baker telling the VA to stop helping soldiers with their military paperwork. In fact, he says, he thought the VA at Fort Drum was doing the best job of any base he visited. But he also says his recollection of the meeting is spotty, since it took place almost a year ago. "I believe that document is more likely to represent a miscommunication of intent between what Col. Baker was trying to get across and what folks on the receiving end of that communication likely heard," Janusziewicz said. The document describing the meeting at Fort Drum says the primary purpose for the visit was to "ensure that there are no other 'Walter Reed' situations at other Army installations." That's a reference to the scandal at Walter Reed Army hospital in Washington, which detailed reports of neglect of soldiers recovering from injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the document, Rosie Taylor, who recently retired as Fort Drum's Disability Program manager, described soldiers at the base in conditions of squalor and neglect. In an interview on Wednesday, Taylor described "soldiers crawling on their bellies to go to the bathroom, or soldiers who'd had surgery who couldn't go to chow because they had no way to get there." The document says one soldier was bedridden for three days without a change of clothes or meal. Taylor says nobody listened to her complaints until the Walter Reed scandal. "Every time I walked into a meeting before, it was like 'Oh my God, there goes $70,000.' And after Walter Reed hit the fan, it was like I was getting phone calls, 'Rosie we're doing over a building and we need your advice on access,'" Taylor says. Taylor says the accessibility problems have generally been solved. She doesn't remember whether the Army told the VA to stop helping soldiers with their disability paperwork. But she will say this about Fort Drum's VA workers: "They stand on their heads for soldiers. They put their jobs on the line for soldiers. They don't care if they're not supposed to do something; if a soldier needs something done, they do it anyway." Sen. Hillary Clinton D-NY has already asked the Army to investigate the situation at Fort Drum. She called the allegations in last week's report "deeply disturbing." Whether the situation at the Army base is a result of poor communication, poor memory or something else altogether, the result is the same: For the last year, hundreds of disabled soldiers at Fort Drum have received less help with their disability paperwork than the soldiers who came before them.

U.S. army, short of soldiers, sends troops with minor injuries to Iraq
79 injured soldiers were pressed into war duty last month as the U.S. Army struggled to fill its ranks, but most were assigned to light-duty jobs within limits set by doctors, two Army leaders said. The Denver Post, quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, reported that troops had been deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still receiving medical treatment for various conditions. Fort Carson's top general Maj. Gen. Mark Graham said most of the 79 soldiers remain in Iraq, while about a dozen are in Kuwait, the newspaper reported in Friday editions. A few returned to the U.S. because of inadequate rehabilitation available in theater, Graham said. Graham said he has asked Fort Carson's inspector general to investigate whether proper procedures were followed in sending the soldiers into war zones. Congressional investigators also are reviewing allegations that medically unfit soldiers have been deployed to Iraq & Afghanistan to shore up lagging troop numbers. "My personal opinion is, is that as the war goes on, you'll see more and more soldiers with limitations," Graham said. Master Sgt. Denny Nelson was sent overseas last month for a third tour in the Middle East though doctor's orders said he should not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds because of a serious foot injury, The Denver Post reported. Nelson was sent back to the U.S. after a doctor in Kuwait told Fort Carson officials he should never have left the U.S. Col. John Hort, commander of Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team, said the 79 soldiers were among 130 who had been judged temporarily unfit for war duty, The Gazette reported. The 79 were deemed able to perform limited duties such as straightening out paperwork at bases in Kuwait because their conditions, including sleep disorders and broken bones, could be treated by doctors in the Middle East as easily as in Colorado, he said. Hort needed the troops so he could send other soldiers into the streets of Baghdad's suburbs. "Those soldiers could perform limited duty that could allow healthy soldiers to perform more strenuous tasks," Hort told The Gazette from Iraq. No soldiers with diagnosed mental illnesses were sent, he said. Graham said commanders do not put any injured soldier in harm's way. Sending an unfit soldier back to war means "you are not mission capable, and the soldier becomes a risk to himself and others in the unit," said Rep. Mark Udall, D-CO. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which requested an investigation by the Government Accountability Office last summer. GAO investigators have identified other cases of unfit soldiers being deployed from Fort Drum in NY & Fort Stewart & Fort Benning, GA, said Brenda Farrell, director of defense capabilities and management investigations for the GAO, a nonpartisan congressional agency that audits federal programs. "We don't have any confirmation that commanders are under pressure to fill their units," Farrell said. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team deployed in Dec for the 3rd time. The unit has been under strength, partly because of the number of soldiers who are injured. "Almost a battalion of soldiers have had medical conditions that prevent them from coming back to Iraq with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team," Hort said.

Why Does Johnny Come Marching Homeless?

In Wake of Afghanistan and Iraq, a New Generation of Homeless Veterans Emerges
Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran. There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends. And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest. He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth."I don't know what to do anymore," his wife, Anna, told him one day. "You can't be here anymore." Peter Mohan never did find a steady job after he left Iraq. He lost his wife a judge granted their divorce this fall and he lost his friends and he lost his home, and now he is here, in a shelter. He is 28 years old. "People come back from war different," he offers by way of a summary. This is not a new story in America: A young veteran back from war whose struggle to rejoin society has failed, at least for the moment, fighting demons and left homeless. But it is happening to a new generation. As the war in Afghanistan plods on in its seventh year, and the war in Iraq in its fifth, a new cadre of homeless veterans is taking shape. And with it come the questions: How is it that a nation that became so familiar with the archetypal homeless, combat-addled Vietnam veteran is now watching as more homeless veterans turn up from new wars? What lessons have we not learned? Who is failing these people? Or is homelessness an unavoidable byproduct of war, of young men and women who devote themselves to serving their country and then see things no man or woman should? For as long as the United States has sent its young men and later its young women off to war, it has watched as a segment of them come home and lose the battle with their own memories, their own scars, and wind up without homes. The Civil War produced thousands of wandering veterans. Frequently addicted to morphine, they were known as "tramps," searching for jobs and, in many cases, literally still tending their wounds. More than a decade after the end of World War I, the "Bonus Army" descended on Washington demanding immediate payment on benefits that had been promised to them, but payable years later and were routed by the U.S. military. And, most publicly and perhaps most painfully, there was Vietnam: Tens of thousands of war-weary veterans, infamously rejected or forgotten by many of their own fellow citizens. Now it is happening again, in small but growing numbers. For now, about 1,500 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been identified by the Department of Veterans Affairs. About 400 of them have taken part in VA programs designed to target homelessness. The 1,500 are a small, young segment of an estimated 336,000 veterans in the United States who were homeless at some point in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Still, advocates for homeless veterans use words like "surge" and "onslaught" and even "tsunami" to describe what could happen in the coming years, as both wars continue and thousands of veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress. People who have studied postwar trauma say there is always a lengthy gap between coming home the time of parades and backslaps and "The Boys Are Back in Town" on the local FM station and the moments of utter darkness that leave some of them homeless. In that time, usually a period of years, some veterans focus on the horrors they saw on the battlefield, or the friends they lost, or why on earth they themselves deserved to come home at all. They self-medicate, develop addictions, spiral down. How or perhaps the better question is why is this happening again? "I really wish I could answer that question," says Anthony Belcher, an outreach supervisor at New Directions, which conducts monthly sweeps of Skid Row in Los Angeles, identifying homeless veterans and trying to help them get over addictions. "It's the same question I've been asking myself and everyone around me. I'm like, wait, wait, hold it, we did this before. I don't know how our society can allow this to happen again." Mental illness, financial troubles and difficulty in finding affordable housing are generally accepted as the three primary causes of homelessness among veterans, and in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the first has raised particular concern. Iraq veterans are less likely to have substance abuse problems but more likely to suffer mental illness, particularly post-traumatic stress, according to the Veterans Administration. And that stress by itself can trigger substance abuse. Some advocates say there are also some factors particular to the Iraq war, like multiple deployments and the proliferation of improvised explosive devices, that could be pulling an early trigger on stress disorders that can lead to homelessness. While many Vietnam veterans began showing manifestations of stress disorders roughly 10 years after returning from the front, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have shown the signs much earlier. That could also be because stress disorders are much better understood now than they were a generation ago, advocates say. "There's something about going back, and a third and a fourth time, that really aggravates that level of stress," said Michael Blecker, executive director of Swords to Plowshares," a San Francisco homeless-vet outreach program. "And being in a situation where you have these IEDs, everywhere's a combat zone. There's no really safe zone there. I think that all is just a stew for post-traumatic stress disorder." thers point to something more difficult to define, something about American culture that while celebrating and honoring troops in a very real way upon their homecoming ultimately forgets them. This is not necessarily due to deliberate negligence. Perhaps because of the lingering memory of Vietnam, when troops returned from an unpopular war to face open hostility, many Americans have taken care to express support for the troops even as they solidly disapprove of the war in Iraq. But it remains easy for veterans home from Iraq for several years, and teetering on the edge of losing a job or home, to slip into the shadows. And as their troubles mount, they often feel increasingly alienated from friends and family members. "War changes people," says John Driscoll, vice president for operations and programs at the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. "Your trust in people is strained. You've been separated from loved ones and friends. The camaraderie between troops is very extreme, and now you feel vulnerable." The VA spends about $265 million annually on programs targeting homeless veterans. And as Iraq and Afghanistan veterans face problems, the VA will not simply "wait for 10 years until they show up," Pete Dougherty, the VA's director of homeless programs, said when the new figures were released. "We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future," he said. These are all problems defined in broad strokes, but they cascade in very real and acute ways in the lives of individual veterans. Take Mike Lally. He thinks back now to the long stretches in the stifling Iraq heat, nothing to do but play Spades and count flies, and about the day insurgents killed the friendly shop owner who sold his battalion Pringles and candy bars. He thinks about crouching in the back of a Humvee watching bullets crash into fuel tanks during his first firefight, and about waiting back at base for the vodka his mother sent him, dyed blue and concealed in bottles of Scope mouthwash. It was a little maddening, he supposes, every piece of it, but Lally is fairly sure that what finally cracked him was the bodies. Unloading the dead from ambulances and loading them onto helicopters. That was his job. "I guess I loaded at least 20," he says. "Always a couple at a time. And you knew who it was. You always knew who it was." It was in 2004, when he came back from his second tour in Iraq with the Marine Corps, that his own bumpy ride down began. He would wake up at night, sweating and screaming, and during the days he imagined people in the shadows a state the professionals call hypervigilence and Mike Lally calls "being on high alert, all the time." His father-in-law tossed him a job installing vinyl siding, but the stress overcame him, and Lally began to drink. A little rum in his morning coffee at first, and before he knew it he was drunk on the job, and then had no job at all. And now Mike Lally, still only 26 years old, is here, booted out of his house by his wife, padding around in an old T-shirt and sweats at a Leeds shelter called Soldier On, trying to get sober and perhaps, on a day he can envision but not yet grasp, get his home and family and life back. "I was trying to live every day in a fog," he says, reflecting between spits of tobacco juice. "I'd think I was back in there, see people popping out of windows. Any loud noise would set me off. It still does." Soldier On is staffed entirely by homeless veterans. A handful who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, usually six or seven at a time, mix with dozens from Vietnam. Its president, Jack Downing, has spent nearly four decades working with addicts, the homeless and the mentally ill. Next spring, he plans to open a limited-equity cooperative in the western Massachusetts city of Pittsfield. Formerly homeless veterans will live there, with half their rents going into individual deposit accounts. Downing is convinced that ushering homeless veterans back into homeownership is the best way out of the pattern of homelessness that has repeated itself in an endless loop, war after war. "It's a disgrace," Downing says. "You have served your country, you get damaged, and you come back and we don't take care of you. And we make you prove that you need our services." "And how do you prove it?" he continues, voice rising in anger. "You prove it by regularly failing until you end up in a system where you're identified as a person in crisis. That has shocked me." Even as the nation gains a much better understanding of the types of post-traumatic stress disorders suffered by so many thousands of veterans even as it learns the lessons of Vietnam and tries to learn the lessons of Iraq it is probably impossible to foretell a day when young American men and women come home from wars unscarred.

At least as long as there are wars.
But Driscoll, at least, sees an opportunity to do much better. He notes that the VA now has more than 200 veteran adjustment centers to help ease the transition back into society, and the existence of more than 900 VA-connected community clinics nationwide. "We're hopeful that five years down the road, you're not going to see the same problems you saw after the Vietnam War," he says. "If we as a nation do the right thing by these guys."

Canada puts US on 'torture list'
The United States has been listed as a country where prisoners are at risk of torture in a training document produced by the Canadian foreign ministry. It also classifies some US interrogation techniques as torture. The manual - part of a training course on torture awareness for diplomats - also includes Israel, China, Iran and Afghanistan on its watch list. A government spokesman said the manual did not reflect the views of Canada, which is an ally of the US and Israel. "The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier. The manual lists US interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and the blindfolding of prisoners under "definition of torture". It also refers to the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held. Critics say it ridicules Ottawa's claims that Omar Khadr is not being mistreated. There was no immediate response from either the US or Israel. The document was provided to Amnesty International as part of a court case it is bringing against the Canadian government over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan. Canada has come under growing criticism following allegations that detainees were tortured in Afghanistan after its soldiers transferred suspects to Afghan security forces. Amnesty is calling for stopping all transfers of prisoners to the Afghan authorities. The torture awareness course was introduced after Ottawa was strongly criticized for its handling of the case of a Canadian who was deported from the US to Syria in 2002. Syrian-born Maher Arar - who was accused of being an al-Qaeda member - says he was tortured during his 10 months in a Damascus jail - a claim strongly denied by Syria. A Canadian government inquiry exonerated Mr Arar of any links with terrorist groups. It also showed that Canadian diplomats had not had any formal training on how to detect whether detainees had been abused.

CHALLENGES 2007-08: Wounded Vets Trade One Hell for Another
Last year, the United States woke up to the reality of hundreds of thousands of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and began to grapple with what to do about it. On Feb. 18, 2007, a headline titled "Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army's Top Medical Facility" splashed across the front page of one of the nation's premier newspapers, the Washington Post. The article, which described unsafe conditions and substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, began with the story of Army Specialist Jeremy Duncan, who was airlifted out of Iraq in February 2006 with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, "nearly dead from blood loss". "Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold," the article read. "When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses." The Post reported that patients inside Walter Reed, which lies just five miles from the White House, found it difficult to receive the care they were promised and felt they deserved. When the story broke, politicians from both parties expressed outrage and promised solutions. Walter Reed's commander, Major General George Weightman, was fired almost immediately. Following him out the door was the Secretary of the Army, Frances Harvey. On Mar 6, President George W. Bush announced the formation of a bipartisan independent commission lead by former Republican Senator Bob Dole and Donna Shalala, the secretary of Health & Human Services under the Bill Clinton administration. "It's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to you, it's unacceptable to our country, and it's not going to continue," Bush told the American Legion in a speech announcing the commission's formation. "My decisions have put our kids in harm's way. And I'm concerned about the fact that when they come back they don't get the full treatment they deserve." Three weeks later, Bush paid a visit to Walter Reed, and apologized again: "I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong," Bush told Walter Reed's staff after a tour of the facility. "It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care. I apologies for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem." But the allegations raised in the Washington Post were not actually new. In February 2005, the exact same conditions had been raised in a damning series in the on-line magazine Salon. Wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, reporter Mark Benjamin wrote, are "overmedicated, forced to talk about their mothers instead of Iraq, and have to fight for disability pay. Traumatized combat vets say the Army is failing them, and after a year following more than a dozen soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I believe them." Top Bush administration officials knew about Walter Reed's problems, but they had other priorities. Indeed, before the Washington Post put the facility's substandard conditions on its front page, President Bush's appointees at the Pentagon had strenuously lobbied Congress against funding military pensions, health insurance and benefits for widows of retirees. Their argument: that money spent caring for wounded soldiers and their families could be better spent on state-of-the-art military hardware or enticing new recruits to join the force. In January 2005, Bush's Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David Chu, the official in charge of such things, went so far as to tell the Wall Street Journal veterans' medical care and disability benefits "are hurtful" and "are taking away from the nation's ability to defend itself". Before the scandal at Walter Reed broke in the Washington Post, the Bush administration ran programmers for injured soldiers in much the same way it did the rest of the war -- primarily for the benefit of an elite group of private contractors. In 2005, with tens of thousands of casualties already reported, a Pentagon commission recommended closing Walter Reed by 2011. When the commission report became public, the Bush administration moved to privatize the facility for as long as it would remain open, turning management of the hospital over to IAP World Services, a politically well-connected firm with almost no experience in military medicine. In January 2006, the military awarded a five-year 120-million-dollar contract to Florida-based IAP, which had already faced scrutiny from Congress for unseemly profiteering after Hurricane Katrina. After the levees broke, FEMA ordered the company to deliver 211 million pounds of ice intended to cool food, medicine and sweltering victims of the storm. Instead, IAP had the ice trucked around the country in circles at taxpayers' expense, with much of it ending up in storage 2,500 kilometers away in Maine. The company's leadership had an even more extensive record of corruption. Before going to work at IAP, company CEO Al Neffgen was a top executive at Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root, where he was responsible for "all work performed by KBR for the U.S. government". That included being hauled before Congressional committees to testify about why the company (which had earlier been run by Vice President Dick Cheney) had overcharged U.S. taxpayers by hundreds of millions of dollars while providing support for U.S. troops in Iraq. Neffgren wasn't the only well-connected person at IAP. The company's president, the aptly named David Swindle, is also a former executive at Halliburton. One of its directors is Dan Quayle, Bush senior's vice president from 1989-1993. Employees started to leave Walter Reed before the deal was even finalized, figuring they would lose their jobs anyway. When news of the contract first surfaced in 2005, 300 federal employees provided facilities management services at Walter Reed. That figure had dropped to fewer than 60 by Feb. 3, 2007, the day before IAP took over facilities management. When IAP did take over, the company replaced the remaining 60 employees with 50 private workers. Inside Walter Reed, alarm bells were sounding. On Sep. 21, 2006, Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi wrote a letter to the base's commanding general saying privatization had put "patient care services at risk of mission failure". "We face the critical issues of retaining skilled personnel for the hospital and diverse professionals for the Garrison, while confronted with increased difficulty in hiring," he wrote. No one took notice then, and little has been done since to improve care or lessen bureaucracy at Walter Reed or at the Pentagon and the VA's network of hospitals and clinics nationwide. Military hospitals are still short-staffed. Injured soldiers are still left alone for hours, or even days. In September 2007, a Congressionally mandated report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office found the Pentagon and VA care for service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury was "inadequate" with "significant shortfalls" of doctors, nurses and other caregivers necessary to treat wounded soldiers. According to the GAO, "46% of the Army's returning service members who were eligible to be assigned to a (medical) unit had not been assigned due in part to staffing shortages." Over half of the military's special "Wounded Warrior Transition Units" had staffing shortfalls of more than 50%. Key bases like Ft Lewis in Washington and Fort Carson in Colorado were short massive amounts of doctors, nurses, and squad leaders. In short, the Bush administration was simply not hiring enough doctors and nurses to care for what had become a tidal wave of injured soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. In December, Congress put its solution forward -- folding a Wounded Warrior Bill designed to help disabled veterans into a massive 700-billion-dollar defense bill. But on Dec. 28, President Bush surprised many observers by vetoing the measure. Bush objected to a provision that would allow victims of Saddam Hussein's regime to seek compensation in court. Congressional Democrats are now checking to see if they have the votes to override Bush's veto. If they don't, they may send the bill back to President Bush with the offending sections removed. Either way, Veterans for Common Sense's Paul Sullivan says veterans are not likely to see major progress until 2009. "Some of the problems may be solved in the next year if Congress fights hard but I do believe that the anti-veteran Bush administration does indeed need to go away so that real reform can be brought to the Department of Veterans' Affairs," Sullivan told IPS.

120 War Vets Commit Suicide Each Week

The military refuses to come clean, insisting the high rates are due to "personal problems," not experience in combat.
Earlier this year, using the clout that only major broadcast networks seem capable of mustering, CBS News contacted the governments of all 50 states requesting their official records of death by suicide going back 12 years. They heard back from 45 of the 50. From the mountains of gathered information, they sifted out the suicides of those Americans who had served in the armed forces. What they discovered is that in 2005 alone -- and remember, this is just in 45 states -- there were at least 6,256 veteran suicides, 120 every week for a year and an average of 17 every day. As the widow of a Vietnam vet who killed himself after coming home, and as the author of a book for which I interviewed dozens of other women who had also lost husbands (or sons or fathers) to PTSD and suicide in the aftermath of the war in Vietnam, I am deeply grateful to CBS for undertaking this long overdue investigation. I am also heartbroken that the numbers are so astonishingly high and tentatively optimistic that perhaps now that there are hard numbers to attest to the magnitude of the problem, it will finally be taken seriously. I say tentatively because this is an administration that melts hard numbers on their tongues like communion wafers. Since these new wars began, and in spite of a continuous flood of alarming reports, the Department of Defense has managed to keep what has clearly become an epidemic of death beneath the radar of public awareness by systematically concealing statistics about soldier suicides. They have done everything from burying them on official casualty lists in a category they call "accidental noncombat deaths" to outright lying to the parents of dead soldiers. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has rubber-stamped their disinformation, continuing to insist that their studies indicate that soldiers are killing themselves, not because of their combat experiences, but because they have "personal problems." Active-duty soldiers, however, are only part of the story. One of the well-known characteristics of post-traumatic stress injuries is that the onset of symptoms is often delayed, sometimes for decades. Veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam are still taking their own lives because new PTSD symptoms have been triggered, or old ones retriggered, by stories and images from these new wars. Their deaths, like the deaths of more recent veterans, are written up in hometown newspapers; they are locally mourned, but officially ignored. The VA doesn't track or count them. It never has. Both the VA and the Pentagon deny that the problem exists and sanctimoniously point to a lack of evidence they have refused to gather. They have managed this smoke and mirrors trick for decades in large part because suicide makes people so uncomfortable. It has often been called "that most secret death" because no one wants to talk about it. Over time, in different parts of the world, attitudes have fluctuated between the belief that the act is a sin, a right, a crime, a romantic gesture, an act of consummate bravery or a symptom of mental illness. It has never, however, been an emotionally neutral issue. In the United States, the rationalism of our legal system has acknowledged for 300 years that the act is almost always symptomatic of a mental illness. For those same 300 years, organized religions have stubbornly maintained that it's a sin. In fact, the very worst sin. The one that is never forgiven because it's too late to say you're sorry. The contradiction between religious doctrine and secular law has left suicide in some kind of nether space in which the fundamentals of our systems of justice and belief are disrupted. A terrible crime has been committed, a murder, and yet there can be no restitution, no punishment. As sin or as mental illness, the origins of suicide live in the mind, illusive, invisible, associated with the mysterious, the secretive and the undisciplined, a kind of omnipresent Orange Alert. Beware the abnormal. Beware the Other. For years now, this administration has been blasting us with high-decibel, righteous posturing about suicide bombers, those subhuman dastards who do the unthinkable, using their own bodies as lethal weapons. "Those people, they aren't like us; they don't value life the way we do," runs the familiar xenophobic subtext: And sometimes the text isn't even sub-: "Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania," proclaimed W, glibly conflating Sept. 11, the invasion of Iraq, Islam, fanatic fundamentalism and human bombs. Bush has also expressed the opinion that suicide bombers are motivated by despair, neglect and poverty. The demographic statistics on suicide bombers suggest that this isn't the necessarily the case. Most of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from comfortable middle- to upper-middle-class families and were well-educated. Ironically, despair, neglect and poverty may be far more significant factors in the deaths of American soldiers and veterans who are taking their own lives. Consider the 25% of enlistees and the 50% of reservists who have come back from the war with serious mental health issues. Despair seems an entirely appropriate response to the realization that the nightmares and flashbacks may never go away, that your ability to function in society and to manage relationships, work schedules or crowds will never be reliable. How not to despair if your prognosis is: Suck it up, soldier. This may never stop! Neglect? The VA's current backlog is 800,000 cases. Aside from the appalling conditions in many VA hospitals, in 2004, the last year for which statistics are available, almost 6 million veterans and their families were without any healthcare at all. Most of them are working people -- too poor to afford private coverage, but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or means-tested VA care. Soldiers and veterans need help now, the help isn't there, and the conversations about what needs to be done are only just now beginning. Poverty? The symptoms of post-traumatic stress injuries or traumatic brain injuries often make getting and keeping a job an insurmountable challenge. The New York Times reported last week that though veterans make up only 11% of the adult population, they make up 26% of the homeless. If that doesn't translate into despair, neglect and poverty, well, I'm not sure the distinction is one worth quibbling about. There is a particularly terrible irony in the relationship between suicide bombers and the suicides of American soldiers and veterans. With the possible exception of some few sadists and psychopaths, Americans don't enlist in the military because they want to kill civilians. And they don't sign up with the expectation of killing themselves. How incredibly sad that so many end up dying of remorse for having performed acts that so disturb their sense of moral selfhood that they sentence themselves to death. There is something so smugly superior in the way we talk about suicide bombers and the cultures that produce them. But here is an unsettling thought. In 2005, 6,256 American veterans took their own lives. That same year, there were about 130 documented deaths of suicide bombers in Iraq.* Do the math. That's a ratio of 50-to-1. So who is it that is most effectively creating a culture of suicide and martyrdom? If George Bush is right, that it is despair, neglect and poverty that drive people to such acts, then isn't it worth pointing out that we are doing a far better job? *I say "about" because in the aftermath of a suicide bombing, it is often very difficult for observers to determine how many individual bodies have been blown to pieces.

A Day At The VA - Richard E. Buckner - Veterans United
His name is David, he is a military veteran like his father. His father was a POW in Viet Nam and his son is a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier in Iraq was wounded and a recipient of the Purple Heart. His day started when he left Van Buren, Indiana to visit the Marion VA facility in Marion, Indiana. He was instructed to pick up medicine by the VA. But when he visited the Pharmacy he was informed that the medicine he was instructed to pick up would not be released for another 5 day ? Frustrated David asked the Pharmacist to contact his Doctor at the VA facility there in Marion and clarify the problem. He was informed that they could not do that and he would have to go up several stories and talk with the doctor himself. David explained that he had an injured foot but the Pharmacist insisted he could not help him. When David asked if there was a Patient Advocate he was informed there was not. This is when I entered the picture. Knowing that there is required by law for a Patient Advocate to be assigned to each facility I informed him that this was not the truth. I explained to him that the position was vacant for nearly 8 months and the position was manned in a rotational order. I told him to check at the front administration desk and that the Advocate if he or she was in was across from the administration desk. David thanked me and proceeded to go to the desk. I waited several more minutes and my name was called and I picked up my medicine. My wife and I then proceeded to leave the facility when we came upon David standing next to the advocate's cubby hole area across from the Administration Office. I asked him if he was being helped and he informed me that he was waiting for someone to assist him. Not being in any particular hurry I decided to wait with him. As we were standing there talking with David an elderly veteran accidentally spilled a large cup of Orange Soda. We then informed the VA employee working at the desk that there was a spill in front of their window and that perhaps it should be cleaned up to prevent an accidental from someone slipping on it. After 2 more attempts to have someone clean up the mess my wife decided that since 10 minutes had gone by perhaps it would be just as easy to clean it up herself. The VA Administrative Workers action to this was not even a thank you. All this time David, myself and another VA employee was discussing David's problem. The VA employee Chad was extremely polite and helpful and departed to make arrangements for David to get his medicine. While he was away David and I spoke about other problems he had lately at the facility. Several weeks earlier David asked about the Means Test and how much it was for veterans in his area. The Means Test is a Financial Chart that shows exactly how much to the dollar a veteran can make without going over a mandated amount to receive free or Co-Pay assistance for medical services and medicine. This particular VA employee who David had spoke with informed him that according to an order given her by her supervisor that this information was not to be given out. I found this puzzling since that information did not even require a Freedom of Information Request since it was posting in VA Booklets and Manuals and was on the Internet. I asked David if he asked her why she was not able to give out the information. His answer floored me. It seems she was informed by her supervisor that and I quote "Veterans are thieves and are crooked and conniving" and that they would use the information to circumvent the paying for services. David requested to speak with her supervisor and was directed to another VA Supervisor who asked David in a sarcastic tone "What do you want a Cash Settlement ? That's what you want cash, right?" David was completely aghast and asked to speak with her supervisor. The next meeting was between David and a VA Employee when David happened to mention that his father had been a POW and his son was an Army Special Forces soldier who had received a Purple Heart after being blown out of a tank and receiving injuries. The comment made by this supervisor was completely unbelievable. "His comment was "Yes, business is good" I then left David and remembered that I needed to make an appointment with my VA Health Care Physician. My wife and I went back up several floors and patiently waited for over 10 minutes while the VA Representative behind the counter talked with her bank regarding her mobile home. It seems she was not clear about some papers she signed and wanted clarification. From the conversation it sounded like she was in a hurry to get it cleared up. When she finally got off the phone I asked her to see when I could make an appointment as I had received a Reminder Card from the VA to make an appointment. She informed me that I had to go next door to the next office. My wife and I then left her counter and walked to the next office only to find it locked and vacant. It appears that the VA Supervisors are out of touch with reality much like their political leaders who make the policies. The names of most of the VA employees have been omitted but are on file and will be release to any governmental agency or official upon subpoena.

Iraq: Over 3,900 have been killed - 26,350 wounded from 2001-2007
Pentagon Understates War Casualties, Says Veterans Group

Why are we being lied to ?
The Pentagon is intentionally underreporting US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a recent report by veterans' advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense. The Pentagon's most recent public reports, which can be found in the media, say that 3,587 US troops have been killed and 26,350 have been wounded in Iraq. In Afghanistan, says the Pentagon, 403 US troops have been killed since 2001, and 1,342 have been wounded. Thus, the Pentagon's public accounting gives the impression that there have been less than 32,000 casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. But documents obtained by Veterans for Common Sense through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal the number of casualties to be much higher. According to these documents, as of June 30, 2007, US casualties in Afghanistan totaled closer to 7,500 (killed, wounded, injured, and medically evacuated). In Iraq, the total is almost 58,000. Altogether, the report shows that US casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, between 2001 and June 30, 2007, total 65,278. There is a difference between the Pentagon's publicized casualty reports and reality of almost 34,000. In the month of June alone, despite a surge ordered by President Bush last January to crack down on the civil war in Iraq, total US casualties mounted to over 1,660 killed, wounded, and medically evacuated. Veterans for Common Sense attributes the discrepancy to the Pentagon's refusal to include medically evacuated troops for injuries and illnesses in its "wounded" reports. The purpose of this new distinction is to lower the numbers in Pentagon casualties reports in order to give the impression that "progress" in the war is being made and that harm to US forces inflicted in the war zone is far lower than reality, states Veterans for Common Sense. These revelations come on the heels of another recent Veterans for Common Sense report indicating that about 180,000 war veterans have filed disability claims with the Department of Veterans' Affairs since 2001.

VA BENEFITS ARE NOT ALL THE SAME

Let's assume you are at the VA picking up your prescription. You and another veteran in line in front of you are prescribed the exact same identical prescription of 30 pills. Both supplies carry a co-pay of $8. Right? But, your prescription requires that you split your supply. You now have a two month supply (15 pills 1/2 pill per day). This $8 supply now increases in co-pay cost to $16, for the exact pill medication and supply that costs $8. But let's kick it up a notch, assume that veteran in front of you, having still the same prescription, his supply for a 30-day supply is instead 90 pills. Co-pay remains at $8 for this 30-day 90 pill supply. Hope this explains, how the veteran is overcharged by the VA, and just got shafted again (3/13/07) by the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA). What veterans have known as fact, is that veterans continue to lose benefits. This is just another example.

Criteria & Analysis by the Board of Veterans Appeals.

“. ...The appellant contends that the standard co-payment is excessive in light of the pill splitting.” No where in my claim did I mention the word ‘standard.’ To determine what then is the standard $8, 30 day supply, one must compare 2 supplies. The VA apparently has two (2) standard supplies. A 30 day supply of 30-60-90 pills. Co-payment cost $8. Then a second standard 30 day supply of 15 pills, $8 co-pay. Two distinct and different standards. A standard in cost, but no standard in supply. One does not have to read any further to see the unfairness of the BVA decision. The BVA cites my argument, 38 U.S.C.A. Sec. 1722a “Copayment for medications. Paragraph (2) The Secretary may not require a veteran to pay an amount in excess of the cost to the Secretary for medication as described in paragraph (1).” As just described above. Paragraph "(a)(1) Subject to paragraph (2), The Secretary shall require a veteran to pay the United States $8 for each 30-day supply of medication furnished such veteran under this chapter on an outpatient treatment of a non-service connected disability or condition. If the amount supplied is less than a 30-day supply, the amount of the charge may not be reduced." If the 'standard', mentioned first by the BVA describing, "The appellant contends that the standard co-payment is excessive.." and according to paragraph 1, is $8 for 30-day supplies of 30,60, or 90 pills, why are veterans charged $16 for a 2 month supply of 30 pills? "In addition, the Board notes that the references to the cost of medication contained in 38 USC 1722a clearly pertains to VA's cost in dispensing the medication, not the cost to the appellant." That statement is incorrect. Co-payment For Medication, 1722a, (listed above) clearly, makes no mention the VA's cost of dispensing medication. It mentions only the veterans' co-payment obligation. A reference is made to the VA cost in the Federal Register, however, the "cost in dispensing the medication" is not the argument. It is the cost in overcharges to the veteran. To you, and me it is quite simple. “The Secretary may not require a veteran to pay amount in excess of the cost to the Secretary for medication as described in paragraph (1).” If one supply can be a standard 60, or 90 pill 30 day supply with a copay of $8, how then can a 30 day supply, limited to only 15 pills, for medication administered during treatment lasting several months, at a co-pay of $8, each 30 day period be standard supply? "...As described in paragraph (1)". Therefore, an "excess of the cost" does indeed exist. If given to an 8 grade grammar school class this arithmetic problem of the two supplies to find the excess of the cost, what would be their answer? They too, would find that an excess of the cost does exist, “..for medication as described in paragraph (1)” This is a bad sign. Indicating exactly how veterans with disabilities claims, going before the BVA, and Veterans' Law Judge, John E. Ormand, Jr., are adjudicated. “(b) The Secretary, pursuant to regulations which the Secretary shall prescribe may-...(1) increase the co-payment amount in effect under subsection (a);..” "Pursuant to regulations" means according to the law as written. The BVA, has decided the VA Secretary can make law to fit, rather than prescribe the law, or regulations as written. Citing..Under 38 C.F.R. Sec. 17.110 Co-payments for medications. (b) Co-payments. (1) Unless exempted under paragraph (c) of this section, a veteran is obligated to pay VA a co-payment for each 30-day or less supply of medication provided by the VA on an outpatient basis (other than medication administered during treatment)." If ‘administered during treatment’ meant hospitalization, that’s not what it says, or should have been worded. But it did not. It is not ambiguous in the context in which it is presented. Citing, ‘on an outpatient basis, other than medication administered during treatment’ The meaning is quite clear. A patient receiving 60, or 90 day outpatient supply is clearly a treatment of a condition, such as a heart condition, diabetes, etc. BVA mentions, “Thus, it is clear that the VA’s cost of filling the appellant’s 30-day prescription exceeds the $8 co-payment under 38 C.F.R. Sec. 17.110.” Again the argument clearly is not the VA cost as noted in the Federal Register 12/6/2001. When determining the medication copay cost, VA factored in everything, except the cost of the medication. The BVA’s inadequacy, and mindset shown here, is for all to see. BVA denial in part, "...adherence in the face of overwhelming evidence in support of the result in a particular case: such adherence would result in unnecessarily imposing additional burdens on the VA with no benefit flowing to the claimant." Never mind the burden of overcharges, or the benefit flowing to well over 1.1 million veterans whose prescriptions call for pill splitting. It is clear, the BVA came up with this denial of overcharges claim due to national budget concerns due to the involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows were else. Veterans did not cause that. But men and women went to military service because of it. This is how they get rewarded by a grateful nation. There are many things in life we do not like, but ignoring a veterans' cause, or the law is not an option. Who lost? Having sat in the lobby of my VA hospital and observed those that passed by, it's not hard to see, there are many who could use any help they can get, as well those returning from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Walter Reed. The filing process for an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has begun.

Gulf War Casualties
During the Gulf War between 1990 and 1991 the United States military incurred:

467 individuals wounded in action
148 killed in battle - 145 killed in other than battle (i.e. accidents).

Therefore, the total number of US Gulf War casualties was 760 at the time of redeployment. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs' Veterans Benefit Administration Office of Performance Analysis and Integrity Data and Information Services Gulf War Veterans Information System report that was just published (May 2002) states that as of May 2002: 696,778 individuals had served during the Gulf War with 572,833 individuals now eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs benefits to include lifetime medical care, financial compensation, and a lifetime pension. The difference of 123,945 individuals includes Desert Storm veterans who are still on active duty, who already received a disability rating directly from the military, and those who are ineligible for benefits for various reasons. As of May 2002, 206,861 veterans had filed claims for benefits based on service-connected injuries and illnesses caused by Gulf War combat related duties. Department of Veterans Affairs officials have processed 183,249 claims for medical care, compensation, and pension, determining that for 159,238 veterans their injuries and illnesses are service connected, caused by Gulf War exposures and injuries. Consequently they have been awarded lifetime medical care, compensation, and pensions based on the extent of their medical problems. The VA still has claims from 23,612 individuals pending while they have denied benefits to 24,011. SINCE THE CESSATION OF GULF WAR HOSTILITIES IN 1991; AN ADDITIONAL 8013 VETERANS HAVE DIED FROM SERVICE CONNECTED INJURIES AND EXPOSURES INCURRED DURING OPERATION DESERT SHIELD AND OPERATION DESERT STORM. The implications of this official report are staggering! As of May 2002, the Gulf War casualties include 8306 veterans dead and 159705 veterans injured or ill as a consequence of wartime service to our nation. The official May 2002 Department of Veteran Affairs report classifies 168011 individuals as "disabled veterans". That reflects a staggering casualty rate of 29.3% for combat related duties between 1990 and 1991. We still know that many sick veterans have not submitted claims. We also know that some veterans have received disability benefits directly from the military. Thus the actual casualty rate from combat during 1990-1991 is probably higher than the 29.3% rate the new VA report verifies. However, combat activities did not stop in 1991. Therefore, since August 1991 a cumulative total of 1,127,458 individuals have been deployed to the Gulf with 851480 veterans now eligible for veterans benefits. Consequently the VA officially recognizes in the May 2002 report that a total of 262,586 individuals are "disabled veterans" due to duty in the Gulf and that 10,617 veterans have died of combat related injuries or illnesses since the initiation of the Gulf War during August 1990. That gives us a verified casualty rate of 30.8%. If we are to initiate Gulf War III we had better be ready for the possible casualties

"Clearly, what U.S. forces are currently doing in Iraq is not working well enough or fast enough," memo to Bush from outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Nov. 6, 2006

3 days after his protégé had assured us that the Iraq plan was "full speed ahead" and 3 days before the president sent Rumsfeld packing.

Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command
I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards a civil war."

40% of recent war vets file for disability, study says
A newly released report finds 42% of recently discharged combat veterans are filing service-connected disability claims, a trend that could overwhelm the Department of Veterans’ Affairs budget and claims process. The July 20 report, based on data obtained by the National Security Archive through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that more than 104,000 disability claims from veterans of the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan have been approved, with all but about 18,000 involving the granting of monthly disability pay and automatic eligibility for lifetime care of the service-connected injury or illness. National Security Archive, a non-partisan research group, made the report available on its Web site. “What this really shows is the long-term cost of war,” said a House VA Committee aide who asked not to be identified because the report is still being studied. Aides believe the number of claims and the fact that so many been filed and processed while combat operations in Iraq & Afghanistan continue are a signal of several trends that are good for veterans but could to long-term funding problems for the VA. Everyone being separated from service is receiving a complete postwar physical that makes it possible for them to immediately file disability claims for minor problems that might in the past has escaped immediate notice or might not have been worth the trouble for a separating service member to pursue, aides said. The VA also is providing 2 years of medical care, no questions asked, for all veterans of the current wars. For treatment to continue beyond 2 years, an OIF or OEF veteran must have a proven service-connected disability. The cutoff date is well known to separating service members. “There is a real incentive for them to get a disability rating approved so they can keep getting VA care,” said the House committee aide. Another factor is that improvements in armored protection and combat medicine have resulted in more service members surviving what would have been fatal injuries in past conflicts. The flood of claims comes at a time when VA officials have been losing ground as they try to eliminate a backlog of claims for disabilities and other benefits. With no near-term reductions planned in U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and no end to the violence there in sight, congressional aides said the VA has to be prepared to spend more money on claims and on hiring personnel to process claims.

About 1.3 million people have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since the wars began, with about 567,000 now discharged.

As of July 20, some 152,669 of the discharged combat vets had filed VA claims.

The VA had processed 118,264 of those claims, granting 108,819 and denying 13,445, with 34,405 still pending.

654,965: Death toll in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 according to a research paper produced by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

601,027: The number of those deaths that were due to violent causes.

560: Average deaths each day in Iraq, according to the report

7,254: Iraqi Ministry of Health's recorded deaths between 01/05 to 01/06.

27 million: Population of Iraq.

43,850: The estimated minimum figure of Iraqi civilian deaths because of military intervention according to Iraq Body Count, a British-based research group.

2,985: Coalition forces casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003.