Monuments to war dead usually are neat, even beautiful and often display the tools of war but not the carnage of war. Clean, cool marble and shiny cannon, rifles or swords, there are no blood, shattered bodies or stray limbs for our war monuments. Nor should there be, but by the same token, few combat veterans want monuments to our war dead to serve as recruiting tools. That is the beauty of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. No pomp, just simple walls of names raising out of the soil in the heart of our nation's capital. Every name represents a soldier who gave their all for our nation. They represent loss. Loss for families, for friends, for husbands, wives and significant others, for children and probably, as important as any other loss, loss for our communities' future. Besides the personal pain and anguish, these dead represent aborted futures and lost contributions. However, while the public supports our fallen, the community's feelings for the wounded and injured among us are much more complex and nowhere as strong.
Seldom if ever does a soldier return home from war the same person that left for war. We sent them off to war. We asked that they literally place their very lives on the line. A right wing veterans' organization lobbyist related the tale of a very conservative congressman who said that he would not be in his position now if his father had not used the GI Bill following WWII and went to an Ivy League college. The lobbyist said that means you will support a new GI Bill? The congressman said no, it is far too expensive; we cannot afford it. Could our parents and grandparents afford it after WWII? Yet, possessing far less, they guaranteed returning veterans were treated fairly and thanked them for serving their country. They understood that asking a citizen to take up arms to serve the needs of a nation was serious and those who accepted, volunteer or not, paid a high price.
For some reason, we have become a government and nation of deadbeats skipping out on our moral and very real obligations. Celebrating Veterans Day and the coming holiday season, The Department of the Army Headquarters, U.S. Medical Activity at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, notified numerous Washington, D.C. area retired military members 65 and older, and their spouses, that they will no longer have a healthcare provider at DeWitt Army Community Hospital. At the same time these notifications went out, Medicare will tell them that their medical bills will increase and their doctors are not available to them. The BEST part? Last week, the Army Medical Command broke ground on a new hospital at Ft. Belvoir, a hospital that will then have to beg retirees to come back into its system in order to be anything more that a glorified clinic. And this fumbling is a precursor of DOD's rhetoric of a "world class medical system " in the National Capital Area?
The Department of Defense and the Army are attempting to do two things here. First, they are trying to shift medical costs and clinics by eliminating promised medical care for retirees and their families. Second, they are trying to dismantle the entire Department of Defense medical system, noted worldwide for excellence in research, training and performance -- the ONLY undisputed area of excellence in the entire Iraq War. Why? Costs. To maintain a medical institution of the highest professional and technical caliber requires money and lots of it. The military healthcare system developed from the needs of the service literally over more than 150 years. Those retirees that DOD just threw into the Medicare system were very much part of maintaining a world class medical teaching and research institution. You see, when the military was developing their medical system they realized that they had unique requirements. They had to provide medical care in the field when the nation went to war. They had to maintain a capability of reacting to natural disasters worldwide and the nation needed to maintain a peacetime military. A very real part of that system is medical care to retired military, regular military and their families. Why is that? Well, to maintain a combat- ready medical force, you need trained medical staff. This is a problem. You see, the military is primarily composed of young physically fit individuals. There are not enough medical needs to keep a medical corp trained and capable. The military medical system needed patients and retirees provided an additional and challenging patient load. Unless the nation really wants to waste the military healthcare system that directly saved an enormous number of battlefield causalities, it should not be turned into an HMO. That is what is happening now. Happy Veteran's Day!