After nearly a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, over 2 million Americans have served, a trillion dollars have been spent and yet only 3 percent of Americans have war on their radar this election.
And where's Congress? Spinning on the campaign trail, scrambling for last-minute endorsements and as Tom Brokaw rightly noted in The New York Times this week, still doing nothing to wake up the country about the surge of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2009, Congress came out swinging for vets. They pushed several major legislative victories to the President's desk. They passed Advanced Appropriations, mandatory mental health screenings for every returning servicemember, and landmark legislation for caregivers and female veterans.
Then everything went downhill in 2010.
This year, veterans' calls for VA disability reform, new GI Bill upgrades, and veteran employment initiatives all fell on deaf ears. After months of making promises, Congress suddenly stopped paying attention, skipped out on votes and dropped out.
On November 2nd, Americans will head to the polls and every voter should ask themselves: did my members of Congress show they have the backs of new veterans?
With the launch of IAVA Action Fund's 2010 Congressional Report Card, it's easy for voters to find out in just a few clicks.
The nonpartisan Report Card grades every Senator and Representative on his or her voting record and leadership on key issues for new veterans. Across political parties, exceptional leaders on veterans' issues were few and far between. This year, only 20 legislators out of 535 earned an A+ on veterans' issues--an 87 percent decline from 2008 when 150 Members made the top grade. More alarmingly, nearly a third of our elected officials on Capitol Hill failed to take any real action for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, earning Ds or Fs.
If Americans really want to have the backs of our nation's veterans, they should do their homework on the Report Card and Tweet their Representatives about their voting records.
Unlike Congress, our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have the luxury of quitting before their mission is complete. They can't cut out early when lives are on the line. For a country in the midst of two wars, Washington's recent commitment to ensuring these men and women have the tools to successfully transition home has been half-hearted.
Back in their districts, Members of Congress might spend the next week spinning tales of a "banner year" on veterans' legislation. But Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families deserve real leadership and action on Capitol Hill, not empty promises and cheap rhetoric. Each day that passes without a break in the gridlock in Washington, veteran unemployment will continue to outpace the national average, the VA disability backlog will continue to climb and suicide rates will continue to skyrocket.
If Congress considers this an acceptable future for our nation's veterans, they definitely don't make the grade.
To download IAVA Action Fund's full report card, click here.
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Paul Rieckhoff: VOW to Hire our Heroes
Barbara Van Dahlen, Ph.D.: PBS 'This Emotional Life': Addressing the Psychological Impact of Combat
However, Brokaw’s call for the wars to become present in campaign speech is only the tip of the iceberg. The consequences of 9 years of U.S. military conflict deserves much more than a seasonal call for thought among our political representatives. It demands consistent thinking from us all, and more importantly, it calls for a deeper understanding of the current crisis within the veteran community.
The human consequences of war do not end with the breath of the men who die in combat, or with the wounded. The war comes home with us and we remember things. This can be seen on the faces of the 18 young veterans who commit suicide everyday, or it can be heard in the voices of the ten thousand men and woman who place calls to the VA’s suicide prevention hotline every month.
When the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, General Shinseki, posed the question to himself, “Why do we know so much about suicides but still know so little about how to prevent them?” He replied, “Simple question but we continue to be challenged.” Read more at whatfits.org
A personal high point of my presentation came when I addressed the audience and stated plainly: Muslims are just like us! Another came when I held up a large picture of an MQ-1 Predator drone aircraft and explained what it was. I also blasted the Democratic--Republican duopoly as engaging in divide-and-conquer tactics.
A lot of credit should be given Professor Kent Price and the CSUB Political Science Department for being forward-thinking enough to let me, and independent (and a write-in candidate, no less) participate in the forum.
The forum gave my campaign a much-appreciated boost -- but newspapers and television stations are mostly ignoring the campaign. I hope voters in the Bakersfield area opposed to the war will take a look at my website www.john-uebersax.com .
The public is not involved because they have been asked to sacrifice nothing! They are detached - they do not see the body bags, hear nightly of the battles, the losses, the hardships - no the public is busy complaining about how they've been "Taxed Enough Already". Give me a break!
Want to have a war? PAY FOR IT! Raise EVERYONE'S taxes. Have all Americans shoulder the burden! Pass a law that ALL wars must be financed by increased taxes, specifically called a WAR TAX! Include full benefits for returning veterans in all financing! Then, see how quickly we give up fighting wars of choice!
On the bright side, these young people will have a leg up for all the contractor openings necessitated by the World War that all our economists say we need to get out of this depression like we did the last one.
Now over 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead.
That's the equivalent of 1m dead Americans, or a 9/11 every day for over 11 months.
Think about that for a minute.
How about some consideration for the Iraqi lives we destroyed?
I'd worry about that if I were a US citizen.
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”
“What have you wrought ... A Republic if you can keep it.” Ben Franklin
“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” Thomas Jefferson
“Democracy is the road to socialism.” Karl Marx
“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” Thomas Jefferson
The reason common people have their HANDS OUT is that underpaid Americans for decades have built up the infrastructure, created products in your home & everywhere else and today 40% are in low-paying service oriented jobs that society cannot function without.
Now the republicans want to get rid of the minimum wage so they can pay desperate people a dollar a day again and go back to 1930 ?
This is the land of opportunity. The low-paying workers can improve their lot by educating themselves and working harder. Entry level jobs were never meant to be life long careers.