Dereliction of Duty McCain’s record on veterans’ issues

Dereliction of Duty
McCain’s record on veterans’ issues is shocking and awful
By Cliff Schecter
Features > September 1, 2008
Dereliction of Duty
McCain’s record on veterans’ issues is shocking and awful
By Cliff Schecter
Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) talks to World War II veteran George Dusdenbury on Jan. 18, in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
McCain's record on veterans' issues paints a picture of a man who has been willfully negligent when it comes to providing for his former brothers and sisters in arms.

At a town hall meeting in Denver in early July, a Vietnam veteran asked presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) why he had opposed increasing healthcare for veterans whenever Congress had taken up the issue over the past six years. McCain virtually ignored the man’s question, dissembling his opposition to an updated GI Bill for veterans. After the questioner challenged McCain’s response, the senator reacted as he usually does when queried beyond his comfort level: He got visibly angry.

Because McCain is running for president almost solely on his biography as a war hero, he can’t — and won’t — allow the slightest doubt to linger about his dedication to soldiers both past and present. It didn’t matter that the vet simply wanted to know how McCain — himself a former soldier and prisoner of war — could oppose important healthcare legislation for veterans. In fact, he didn’t even ask McCain about the GI Bill that he opposed, which had been supported by a bipartisan group of 75 senators, including Republican veterans Chuck Hagel (Neb.) and John Warner (Va.).

Most notably, McCain also testily responded to his inquisitor that he had “received every award from every vets organization.”

The problem is, not only is that assertion not true, but McCain’s record on veterans’ issues paints a picture of a man who has been willfully negligent when it comes to providing for his former brothers and sisters in arms.

As Iraq War veteran and former Democratic congressional candidate Paul Hackett says, “Here is a guy who touts himself as a friend of veterans, but his history shows just the opposite. How can someone who cares about our men and women in the armed services vote against the GI Bill or veterans’ healthcare?”
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What makes all of this worse is the fact McCain enjoys the very thing he does not want all other veterans to have. Doesn't matter to him at all as long as he gets his "share" and all he feels he earned. After all, he was a POW and the rest, well they did not suffer as much as he did, so they should be on their own. This is proven when he says he wants the non-combat veterans treated by civilain doctors with "health care cards" instead of the VA.

For all the veterans still supporting him just because "he's one of them" they need to understand that he is far from one of them when he uses them instead of fights for them.