15,000 who would have died on the battlefield, lived

When I hear a politician say that they need to cut what we do for veterans, you may think in these times, everyone has to make some sacrifices. If you do then you are not thinking these men and women paid in advance for what they need from us in return for their service, sacrifice, wounds and spending the rest of their lives as veterans everyday and not just today.

If you need to have a bit more information think of this. As we count the number of men and women laid to rest, there are the obvious numbers the Department of Defense releases all the time. Then there are the numbers they were forced to release. Military suicides. So while we talk about what we owe them, taking care of them must be a part of the conversation. The fact that 15,000 more would have been added to the price of war, we should thank God they are still here and not betray that gratefulness with budget cuts instead of doing what it takes to keep them alive as well as possible.

Eric Shinseki, VA Chief, Charts Solid Gains For Veterans
Huffington Post
David Wood
Posted: 11/11/2012

WASHINGTON -- After Eric Shinseki took over a sleepy Department of Veterans Affairs four years ago, he decided some change was due. For one thing, those 154,000 homeless veterans living as beggars on the streets.

After some study, Shinseki, a decorated Vietnam veteran wounded twice in battle, ordered that the VA would not just reduce veteran homelessness -- it would end it. And end it by 2015.

The bureaucrats of the VA, a sprawling $140 billion empire that operates the nation's largest integrated health care system, sends veterans to college, insures their lives, guarantees their home mortgages and manages their burials, weren’t used to having someone over their heads barking orders. They certainly weren’t used to publicly announced deadlines.

This new generation is posing an additional challenge for the VA: the 50,000 wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. Along with those bearing the common wounds of war are the more severely injured, including roughly 15,000 who would have died on the battlefield in past wars, who are now being saved because of advanced and speedy medical intervention. Many of them are double or triple amputees or severely burned patients who will require intensive and lifelong care.

The younger generation of vets is also more diverse: The proportion of women veterans will double from about 6 percent of veterans in 2000 to 14.5 percent by 2035, the VA projects, requiring new expertise in dealing with women's health and sexual trauma issues.

More than 2.5 million young Americans have served in the past decade of wars, and apart from the normal flow of troops retiring from active duty into the veteran population, the military ranks will be thinned by about 88,000 additional military personnel because of projected budget cuts over the next decade. All this will put new demands on the VA.
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