Navy vets seek Agent Orange compensation

Navy vets seek Agent Orange compensation
Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg,FL,USA
By William R. Levesque, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, June 9, 2009


A bill in Congress provides a seemingly straightforward answer to a question that has vexed tens of thousands of Americans who served in the U.S. military.

Who is a Vietnam veteran?

The answer is vitally important to Navy personnel who served in Vietnam's territorial waters. For now, the Department of Veterans Affairs' definition of a Vietnam veteran does not include these men and women.

Legislation introduced in the House would change that, clearing the way for Navy veterans to get disability payments and free health care for ailments linked to the herbicide Agent Orange, from type II diabetes to a variety of cancers.

At stake: $3 billion in benefits.

The VA says the pool of veterans who would become eligible for benefits under the bill is 800,000, a number critics accuse the VA of exaggerating to inflate costs that may scare Congress. click link for more

Woe,,,,wait a second here,,,,did I just read what I think I read? The VA has been accused of trying to scare congress with the numbers of veterans this could add to the system? Did this really happen? Is is possible? If it is then that would explain WHY THE HELL THERE ARE SO MANY PROBLEMS IN THE VA! The VA is not a free ride. It was paid for the day Marines, soldiers, sailors an airmen stopped serving and became veterans. What part of this exactly didn't they understand? They already paid the price and it was not their responsibility to make sure that the congress at the time of funding the services they provided did not include any compensation and medical care that was produced as an outcome of the wars they funded and the means they paid for to fight it.

VIETNAM WAR STATISTICS IN UNIFORM AND IN COUNTRY
Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation.
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the war (Aug 5, 1964 - March 28, 1973).
3,403,100 (Including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China Sea waters).
2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1, 1965 - March 28, 1973)
Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
Of the 2.6 million, between 1 - 1.6 million (40 - 60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.
7,484 women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.
Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1968)

If they did not plan for the wounded bodies coming back, not plan for the wounded by PTSD or plan for the illnesses they would in turn cause from vaccines and chemicals they deployed with them, then they shouldn't have sent them at all. These are after all the same people able to think about spending money for bullets and bombs and then finding the funding to buy more bullets and bombs to use. They found the way to get draftees and enlistments clothed and fed. They found a way for everything they wanted except for what they just didn't want to face. The wounded and the veterans they would have to take care of and provide for. This, this very obligation they owed to them is now seen as some kind of threat to them?

The congressmen come and go, political parties take control and lose control, but just as they still have a duty to do because they chose to seek the office, this obligation of their's is still their's and the rest of the nation no matter how many years pass. When they dishonor the services of any branch they sent, they dishonor all of them. Congress paid for Agent Orange and congress has to pay for the results Agent Orange caused for all the veterans injured by it.