President Washington would be ashamed

President Washington would be ashamed
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
February 18, 2013

Today is Presidents' Day selected in honor of our first president, George Washington's birthday. While most Americans have the day off, a group of Americans are still working. They are standing watch over this nation, deployed all over the earth and risking their lives in Afghanistan while too many Americans have forgotten all about them. They return to their hometowns as veterans but again, forgotten about by the other Americans enjoying their freedoms because of their efforts.

President Washington was the first president and knew what it was like to fight for this nation and be ready to pay any price asked to defend these shores. He also knew what it was like to be a veteran.

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."
President George Washington

He was not alone among Presidents with the dual title of President and Veteran.

Chester A. Arthur
James Buchanan
George H. W. Bush
George W. Bush
Jimmy Carter
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Millard Fillmore
Gerald Ford
James A. Garfield
Ulysses S. Grant
Benjamin Harrison
William H. Harrison
Rutherford B. Hayes
Andrew Jackson
Thomas Jefferson
Andrew Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
John F. Kennedy
Abraham Lincoln
Did not experience combat but served during Black Hawk War burying the dead shortly after battles ended.
James Madison
William McKinley
James Monroe
Richard Nixon
Franklin Pierce
James K. Polk
Ronald Reagan
Theodore Roosevelt
Zachary Taylor
Harry S. Truman
John Tyler

We have never really lived up to George Washington's dream of treating veterans right but now with Congress has been playing political "chicken" with the budget causing sequestration cuts to hit almost everything, it will be hitting the troops and their families hard in a time when they need more than they have been getting. Families are on the front lines standing watch over the troops. If they are not supported then we cannot say we support the troops when we cannot support their families.

"Funding for soldier and family programs such as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention Program, Soldier Family Assistant Centers and the Army Substance Abuse Program will be reduced," the Army memo stated.

But that is not all. Military suicides at an all time high and this is what is coming.

Odierno warned that even programs to boost the number of counselors and therapists to combat military suicides – one of the Army's top priorities – would be at risk under sequester.

"We will not be able to afford the number of counselors we have today," Odierno said.

Army Planning Cuts on Family Programs
Feb 18, 2013
Military.com
by Richard Sisk

The Pentagon has begun a "deep dive" review of more than 170 military family and recreation programs on bases worldwide to identify redundancies and efficiencies -- all the while insisting that the effort is not aimed at scrapping facilities in the new era of tight budgets.

Pentagon officials said that Army daycare programs, the focus of an ongoing investigation over the hiring of more than 30 workers with criminal backgrounds Fort Meyer, Va., were also included in the 120-day task force review.

"We're going to be peeling these back, looking for redundancies," said Charles Milam, the acting deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy, about the programs targeted for the data-driven review that he leads.
read more here