69.11: Veterans

Honoring and Supporting Our Veterans

Other Information:

Honoring and Supporting Our Veterans: A Sacred Obligation -- America has a sacred trust with our veterans, and we are committed to providing them and their families with care and dignity. This is particularly true because our nation’s warriors are volunteers, who served from a sense of duty. The work of the Department of Veterans Affairs – with a staff of 300,000 – is essential to meet our obligations to them: providing health, education, disability, survivor, and home loan benefit services and arranging memorial services upon death. All its branches in those various fields must be made more responsive, moving from an adversarial to an advocacy relationship with veterans. To that end we will consider a fundamental change in structure to make the regional directors of the Department presidential appointees rather than careerists. Our wounded warriors, whether still in service or discharged, deserve the best medical care our country can provide. The nature of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has resulted in an unprecedented incidence of traumatic brain injury, loss of limbs, and post-traumatic stress disorder which calls for a new commitment of resources and personnel for its treatment and care to promote recovery. We must make military and veterans’ medicine the gold standard for mental health care, advances in prosthetics, and treatment of trauma and eye injuries. We must heed Abraham Lincoln’s command “to care for him who bore the battle.” To care, as well, for the families of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, who must be assured of meaningful financial assistance, remains our solemn duty. Because the conditions of warfare have changed dramatically since the war on terror began, today’s veterans face new challenges. Asymmetrical or non-traditional warfare results in a high incidence of severe conditions that must receive high priority and call for continued research into prevention and treatment. We are committed to ending homelessness for our veterans. One key is to assist their reentry into the job market as soon as possible after military service ends. A job for a veteran is more than a source of income. It is a new mission, with a new status, and the transition can be difficult. It is a national scandal that veterans are one of the groups with the highest unemployment rates. We urge the private sector to make hiring vets a company policy and commend the many organizations that have specific programs to accomplish this. But the federal government must take the lead by simplifying the paper work required for a tax break for hiring a veteran and by giving vets their assured place at the head of the training and employment line. Every State has an office dealing with veterans. The federal Department needs to consider these as partners in assisting vets, recognizing that those closest to the individual can best diagnose a problem and apply a remedy. This is especially important with regard to the determination of veterans’ disability claims. If private insurance companies can deal with car wrecks and hurricanes within weeks or months, it is inexplicable that the federal government takes, on average, a year to process a veteran’s claim. We urge immediate action to review the automatic denial of gun ownership to returning members of our Armed Forces who have had representatives appointed to manage their financial affairs.

Stakeholder(s):

• Veterans

Indicator(s):

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