Former VA head and Georgia senator Max Cleland helps local veterans

Former VA head and Georgia senator Max Cleland helps local veterans
By Stephen Hudak, ORLANDO SENTINEL
July 9, 2010
TAVARES — Max Cleland, a former U.S. senator permanently disabled in the Vietnam War, on Friday helped troubleshoot complaints of veterans frustrated by red tape binding their medical and pension benefits.

Cleland, 67, who lost both legs and his right forearm in combat in 1968, accompanied U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D- Orlando, to forums for Central Florida veterans in Tavares and Winter Garden.

"The nation has a built-in obligation, a moral obligation, that if we send people to war…to take care of them when they come home," said Cleland, who served as Veteran Affairs administrator under President Jimmy Carter, a fellow Georgian. "Wars are not over [for soldiers] when the shooting stops."

In Tavares, veterans griped about a wide range of issues — from shoddy medical care, VA bureaucracy and proposed taxes on prosthetic limbs to their inability to find jobs or win relief from a home foreclosure.
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Max Cleland helps local veterans