America must keep faith with its military veterans. We owe the greatest debt to those who risked their lives to keep us free.
But the promises America has made to the women and men who have served in uniform are due for a review. The budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs has grown at a dramatic pace since 9/11 — from roughly $45 billion in 2001 to more than $300 billion this year.
None of these steps would be politically easy. Proposing and voting for new benefits for veterans have long been among the few policy areas that both Democrats and Republicans support. We also know that the array of benefits offered by the VA plays an important role in attracting and retaining the all-volunteer force — especially in an era of low unemployment and rising wages in the civilian sector.
But the moral responsibility Americans have to those who fought for the country is of diminished value if it does not align with the fiscal responsibility Americans have to keep their financial house safe and sound.
I haven’t been enraged reading a news article in a long, long time. Why am I enraged? Because of these Ivy League, snot-nosed fucks at the Washington Post.
That’s the publically available editorial staff’s information about the board who wrote one of the most disrespectful articles I have ever seen about veterans. There are so many awful opinions in this opinion piece that it’s difficult to break down each and every one. I’ll lead with some words from the VFW, ya know, the VFW that helps in leading the charge against bullshit like this. The VFW that was a huge driver in getting the PACT act passed.
It is laughable that the employees of one of the richest individuals in the world have the audacity to suggest disabled veterans should be the persons responsible for balancing the federal budget – instead of their wealthy billionaire benefactors who notoriously skirt their tax liabilities.
You would think with all the collective Ivy League degrees held by The Washington Post Editorial Board they would understand basic economics. Instead, they recommend that veterans be subjected to means tests or outright forfeit their earned benefits if they manage to constructively cope with these life-altering disabilities.
If you don’t remember, the PACT Act was established to secure health care and entitlements for thousands of veterans who are being diagnosed with various cancers, lung diseases, and much much more. Health care was also improved for dozens of other causes and ailments.
We have been making great strides in helping or honoring those who served in the longest fucking war in American history. We went to a place where we could have been blown up at any moment. We went to a place where we had to watch someone point a gun at us before we were allowed to return fire. We fought in places where we had to put our battle buddies on choppers in body bags and watch them head back home to their families without breath or a heartbeat.
Vast numbers of us have terrible back problems, difficulty breathing at times, PTSD, Traumatic brain injuries, and on and on and on. These are things that we did for our country and we only ask for what was promised which is payment for the sacrifices to our bodies and minds that no reasonable government or dumb-ass editorial board could ever imagine stripping away with a means test.
Just like the VA’s motto until a few weeks ago, the terminology is what is outdated, not the benefits. Over the years, entitlement has become a bad word that implies laziness or the wanton use of funds by the government. The VA is the opposite of that. The VA provides entitlements based on the injuries you sustained while serving. Those injuries do not go away simply because you got a job. Veterans are entitled to these payments in the purest sense of the word.
Those injuries do not go away simply because the fiscal state of the United States is in dire shape. The injuries remain and will remain for the rest of our natural lives. Injuries like the aforementioned are something those entitled- the bad version now- people who have cushy jobs writing nonsense about some of the hardest working people in this country.
People that while they were typing or doing some kind of financial news stories, we were in sands above 100 degrees for months at time with packs that weighed over 60lbs on the regular. People who while the WP Board was polishing their Pultizers were calling family members on satellite phones from the rooftop where another person was standing watch with a machine gun ready to protect you while you talked to your kids.
People that had no problem walking near and over IEDs so that we could locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver while you were at the latest James Beard award-winning restaurant. While they were in their posh environments, many of us were marching to the sounds of the guns.
The injuries sustained by veterans and active duty members should be one of the last wells that we fill our buckets with simply because the well is closer and easier to draw water from. Walk to the next village over and look in that well of governmental waste. While I type this blog, my hands shake. My hands aren’t shaking because I am mad, which I am, my hands shake because I sustained an injury to my fucking brain when I was blown up by an IED. Does that change because I have a good job? No.
Does the veteran with PTSD lose it when she works in an accounting job now? No.
While I dont think this type of idea has or ever will get any legs, it’s beyond insulting when a huge newspaper like the Washington Post writes an opinion piece that can mislead and manipulate readers with a lesser understanding of the inner workings of both the VA and the veteran service organizations.
There are plenty of ways to improve the VA, the costs associated with the care of veterans, and the budget without ripping away the entitlements veterans are owed.
It is not only insulting but it also is completely untenable. Homes would go into foreclosure, cars would be repossessed, and families would struggle even more to put food on the table, a concern I’d imagine those Harvard, Yale, and Cornell graduates have never felt in their entire fucking lives.