Motley Moose – Archive

From Jim Wright at Stonekettle Station:

The simple truth of the matter is that if America actually cared about its veterans, cared enough to do more than slap a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of their SUVs and feign outrage on command, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?

From Jim Wright, USN retired (h/t Smartypants):

This is nothing new.

This kind of bureaucratic flimflam when it comes to taking care of veterans? It’s been going on for years, for decades, from one war to the next and all the timeless space in between. And it’s not confined to the Veterans Administration.

It’s been happening in Phoenix and San Diego and New York City and New Orleans and Biloxi and Anchorage and Washington D.C. and from sea to shining sea.

This latest thing? The appalling revelation that the Phoenix VA was cooking the books in order to meet impossible deadlines and levels of throughput? That administrators were hiding unacceptable delays in service and care in order to get themselves monetary bonuses and to pad their resumes? The fact that veterans died waiting for the care they faithfully earned and rightfully deserve? Yeah. That’s not outrage you see on our faces, and it sure isn’t surprise, it’s amused resignation.

We’re used to it.

We’re used to being disposable assets.

We’re used to being left to die by bureaucrats and politicians and the American public.

We’re used to being forgotten when the nation doesn’t need us anymore.

Oh, please, don’t bother. I’m not looking for sympathy or any more feigned outrage, I’ve had plenty.

There’s more …

Now after more than a decade of war, after many decades of endless lines and endless bean-counters and endless delays and endless waits and endless lost records and the endlessly misplaced paperwork and the endless institutionalized incompetence and the endless excuses and the endless unending VA shuffle, now you’re upset?

After five years of an intransigent, deadlocked, do-nothing Congress who’d rather chase hysterical manufactured conspiracies and beat their fleshy chests in faux-patriotic fever, who’ll enthusiastically fork over hundreds of billions for fancy new jets and ships and tanks so long as that hardware is manufactured in their own districts, who drive past homeless needy vets every single day, and gleefully refuse to pass a veterans jobs bill or to fully fund veterans services in their own districts or any other, after five years of this capering self-serving congressional bullshit, now you’re pissed off?

Now you want blood?

Now you want an accounting?

Now?

By all means, go ahead, America, knock yourself out. That’s great, it really is.

Forgive me though if I don’t hold my breath.

Here’s the thing: speaking from personal experience, the truly ironic part here is that the VA of today, the VA under Eric Shinseki and Barack Obama, is orders of magnitude better than it has ever been.

Ever. Under any administration.

Over the last five years, things have steadily improved. They’re a long way from perfect but they’re a long long way from what they were when this war began thirteen years ago. Most of the peeling paint and the mildew and the banal uninterested bureaucracy is gone, not all but most of it.  

Congressional “action”?

the House and Senate will puff up like big warty toads, they’ll bloviate and pontificate and croak out self-righteous indignation. Ribbit, ribbit. They’ll wax fat and fecund and shed salty crocodile tears for our poor poor American heroes. They’ll pound their mighty chests and wave the flag and rage on about patriotism – and then they’ll go back to their offices, bad mouth Lieutenant Colonel Tammy Duckworth under their collective breath, and vote yet again to cut funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans’ healthcare and mental health programs, veterans’ jobs programs, and homeless veteran initiatives right along with active duty military pay and benefits.  The war is over and they don’t need us anymore.

And once they manage to kick Eric Shinseki out of office, they’ll spend months dragging their feet and blocking the President’s nominee for a new secretary in order to score a few political points with their base. Then they’ll grin at each other and cash the lobbyists’ checks and act like they’ve actually done something to improve things.

Click on the link for the rest.

This might be the Congress that the American people deserve because of their failure to vote in every single election. But it is NOT the Congress our veterans deserve.