Can we bind up the wounds of those who served the nation?

by
Chaplain Kathie

Gettysburg_Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.


But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Yet after this, Lincoln was not done addressing the people who were willing to die for the sake of the nation and what they believed in. This is from the second inagural address he gave. The rest of his speech was wonderful but this came at the end.

Lincoln Second Inagural Address

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Since the day brother raised arms against brother, men and women from every state in the union have been serving together. North, south, east and west, people of every race, religion, social class, political affiliation and education have joined together to serve this one nation. They come from the Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy, from the Coast Guard to the National Guards and Reservists, they are ready to defend this nation and ready to come to the aid of its citizens. Men and women leaving the military once again put on the uniform of service as police officers and firefighters, of emergency responders and entering into service organizations.

What are the rest of us doing for them? We know where they are when we need them but why do they have to wonder where the nation's heart is when they need us?

We hear about the backlog of claims in the VA but do we raise our voices about this? It is our money that sends them into battle and our money the government uses to take care of the wounded warriors. We have a vital interest in how they use it. Why do we allow this to continue? Does it ever occur to us that a claim tied up or denied erroneously is a veteran waiting for the care he or she was assured would be there if they needed it? It is a veteran, usually along with a family, forced to fight to have their wounds bound as their bills pile up and the notion of a grateful nation slips into the abyss.

When the wound can be seen with our eyes, this cannot be allow to stand, but when it is wounds we cannot see with our eyes but within their own eyes, it has far more ramifications on the families and the communities they return to. We have no excuse for allowing any of this to go un- addressed.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was a wound in the time of George Washington leading the charge against the British forces, but while the name was different, the wound was still the same. It wounded again when Lincoln addressed those standing at Gettysburg and again at his second inauguration. Each and every president that followed lead a wounded nation unable to uphold the claim of leading a grateful nation. Truman was the last friend of veterans. His budget reflected this.

Stunning statement of devaluing
Truman (1946-52)Veterans Benefits 9.6%
Eisenhower (1953-60)Veterans Benefits 4.7%
Kennedy (1961-63)Veterans Benefits 3.6%
Johnson (1964-68)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Nixon (1969-74)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Ford (1975-76)Veterans Benefits 2.9%
Carter (1977-80)Veterans Benefits 2.4%
Reagan (1981-88)Veterans Benefits 1.9%
G.H. Bush (1989-92)Veterans Benefits 1.6%
Clinton (1993-2000)Veterans Benefits 1.6%
George W. Bush (2001-08)Veterans Benefits 1.6%

1.6% with two active occupations, veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, Bosnia, Somalia, all needing help to bind their wounds yet not enough money to begin to do it.

PTSD and TBI wounds are real. Just as real as a limb gone from a bomb blast or skin healing from a bullet or burn wound, but PTSD can keep killing long after the uniforms have been packed away. It can kill many months and many years later along with health problems from chemical exposures.

Agent Orange was followed by depleted uranium and white phosphorous. Burn pits across Iraq and Afghanistan bring lung cancer and other illnesses. Contaminated water brings disease. All of this will cause the ranks of the wounded needing the VA to swell far beyond what the doors can hold.

Over and over again men and women return to their communities as members of the National Guards and Reserves only to find time has passed them by and they return to a home town they do not feel they still belong in. They find they cannot get the help they need to bind their wounds or find an understanding ear. Even when they do manage to get to the VA, usually too far away to travel to on a regular basis, they are forced to fight for the benefits their wounds caused by service inflicted upon them.

Our voices do not speak eloquently as Washington or Lincoln did regarding the need to care for them. Our voices are too busy squeaking about our own needs. We are an ungrateful bunch. They suffer in this bad economy the same as we do but there is a huge difference. While we were seeking our own support and our own desires being met, they were thinking of us. While we were complaining about the price of food and gas, so were their families but they couldn't do anything about it from Iraq and Afghanistan. While we lost our jobs, they were busy doing their's and then came home to see their own civilian job vanished while they were away.

What would it cost you to do something to take care of them and begin to live up to what we all claim? Would it cost you the time it takes to make a phone call? Send an email? That's all it really would cost you to change their lives. It's not as if you can solve their problems on your own but you can be an answer to their prayers and the wishes of all the generations that came before them. Our elected have a responsibility to do what it takes to take care of all of them. We need to make them live up to their end of the responsibility chain for a change. We have a much better chance of this now than we did over the last eight years.

GAO says VA still underestimating costs
By Hope Yen - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Jan 23, 2009 13:10:41 EST

WASHINGTON — Two years after a politically embarrassing $1 billion shortfall that imperiled veterans health care, the Veterans Affairs Department is still lowballing budget estimates to Congress to keep its spending down, government investigators say.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, set to be released later Friday, highlights the Bush administration’s problems in planning for the treatment of veterans that President Barack Obama has pledged to fix. It found the VA’s long-term budget plan for the rehabilitation of veterans in nursing homes, hospices and community centers to be flawed, failing to account for tens of thousands of patients and understating costs by millions of dollars.

In its strategic plan covering 2007 to 2013, the VA inflated the number of veterans it would treat at hospices and community centers based on a questionably low budget, the investigators concluded. At the same time, they said, the VA didn’t account for roughly 25,000 — or nearly three-quarters — of its patients who receive treatment at nursing homes operated by the VA and state governments each year.

“VA’s use, without explanation, of cost assumptions and a workload projection that appear unrealistic raises questions about both the reliability of VA’s spending estimates and the extent to which VA is closing previously identified gaps in noninstitutional long-term care services,” according to the 34-page draft report obtained by The Associated Press.

Lawmakers expressed anger, saying they will be watching for new VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to provide a more honest accounting.

“The problems at the VA have been caused by years of mismanagement and putting the bottom line above the needs of our veterans,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “While we won’t fix everything overnight, Secretary Shinseki has pledged honesty and accurate accounting which are key to realistic budgets and providing the services our veterans have earned.”

According to latest GAO report, the VA is believed to have:

• Undercut its 2009 budget estimate for nursing home care by roughly $112 million. It noted the VA planned for $4 billion in spending, up $108 million from the previous year, based largely on a projected 2.5 percent increase in costs. But previously, the VA had seen an annual cost increase of 5.5 percent.

• Underestimated costs of care in noninstitutional settings such as hospices by up to $144 million. The VA assumed costs would not increase in 2009, even though in recent years the cost of providing a day of noninstitutional care increased by 19 percent.

• Overstated the amount of noninstitutional care. The VA projected a 38 percent increase in patient workload in 2009, partly in response to previous GAO and inspector general reports that found widespread gaps in services and urged greater use of the facilities. But for unknown reasons, veterans served in recent years actually decreased slightly, and the VA offered no explanation as to how it planned to get higher enrollment. click link for the rest of this.

With President Obama saying his heart is with the veterans and the Democratic Party leading the committees they used to complain about how they were failing the veterans, it's time to get all of them to prove it. Contact your elected and tell them Lincoln sent you!