June 7, 2012

Soldiers Are Coming Home Injured and Addicted -- Will We Pay Our Debt to Our Vets?

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Soldiers come home from the two wars with a staggering rate of brain injuries and the addictions paired with them, but to treat them could cost $1 trillion.


http://www.alternet.org/drugs/155635/soldiers_are_coming_home_injured_and_addicted_--_will_we_pay_our_debt_to_our_vets/?page=entire

Soldiers Are Coming Home Injured and Addicted -- Will We Pay Our Debt to Our Vets?
The Fix / By Katie Drummond
May 29, 2012

Robert LeHeup will be the first to admit that he's an alcoholic. “I drink so that I don't go to shit,” says LeHeup, a 30-year-old bartender living in Columbus, South Carolina. “I drink because I have to.”

LeHeup is a former Marine sergeant, who served two grueling tours in Afghanistan during the US invasion and early occupation. He drinks to dull memories of the everyday chaos and carnage. He drinks to tolerate his disgust at the raucous bar-goers who have no idea how easy life is in America, compared to the casual violence and grinding poverty of Afghanistan. He drinks because, in the Marines, that is just what everybody does.

LeHeup, in his ongoing struggle with alcoholism, is anything but an outlier among this generation of military service-members. In fact, more than a decade after the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an unprecedented number of men and women in the US military are currently in the throes of addiction.

~snip~

America claims to be committed to taking care of ailing veterans for their entire lives if need be. For the generation of veterans of the war in Vietnam, which ended in 1975, the peak in healthcare costs and disability payments has not yet been reached. For the new generation of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the peak is not due for another 40 or 50 years. By one estimate, the total price tag for this care will be $1 trillion. Yet budget hawks in Congress, especially among the Republicans, have already proposed cutting funds for veteran affairs.

June 6, 2012

Does Lindsey Graham Think Before He Opens His Mouth?

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9600-does-lindsey-graham-think-before-he-opens-his-mouth?

Does Lindsey Graham Think Before He Opens His Mouth?
Tuesday, 05 June 2012 12:28
By James Kwak, The Baseline Scenario | Op-Ed

[center]"The debate on the debt is an opportunity to send the world a signal that we are going to remain the strongest military force in the world. We're saying, 'We're going to keep it, and we're going to make it the No. 1 priority of a broke nation.' "[/center]

That's Lindsey Graham, as reported in the Times today (emphasis added).

Graham is trying to make the case that we should undo the automatic reductions in defense spending mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (last summer's the debt ceiling compromise). But as a conservative Republican, he is also wedded to the notion that the United States is "broke." (Which, of course, is nonsense. If you're not sure why, see chapter 5 of White House Burning.) Graham has also signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, meaning that the federal government can only solve its fiscal problems by cutting spending, not increasing tax revenues.

To make this balancing act work, Graham makes the claim that a country that is "broke" (again, his word) should continue to make military spending its top priority—including military intervention in both Syria and Iran. Does he really think that, under that assumption, we should continue slashing domestic spending so we can continue paying for expensive overseas adventures? Yet this is the unavoidable, nonsensical conclusion of today's Republican orthodoxy.




And this gem showed up at military.com this morning: http://militarytimes.com/blogs/battle-rattle/2012/06/05/senator-stirs-pot-by-suggesting-closure-of-marine-corps-recruit-depot-possible/

June 6, 2012

Another $418 Million Down The Tubes

The Air Force is investigating a ground incident last week involving an F-22.


http://www.newsherald.com/articles/tyndall-103215-mishap-probes.html

Military probes F-22 mishap at Tyndall Air Force Base
RANDAL YAKEY / News Herald Writer
June 05, 2012 08:04:55 PM

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE — The Air Force is not calling a “ground incident” involving an F-22 Raptor last week a “crash.”

The F-22 was in a “touch-and-go” practice session at about 5 p.m. Thursday when it was put out of commission. The “ground incident” put the plane on the sidelines and benched the pilot, officials said.

“Everything around this is in freeze frame right now,” said Herman Bell, chief of Tyndall’s 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs.

Base officials would not comment on how the plane made contact with the ground, nor would base officials give any indication of whether the “incident” was mechanical or pilot error. The pilot was not injured in the incident.



unhappycamper comment: A touch-and-go accident is not considered a crash? Was it the "touch" part or the "go" part? Or do we just call it a mishap and keep on trucking?

June 6, 2012

The Clusterfuck That Is Afghanistan

Taliban bomb makers and leaders caught red-handed trying to kill American troops in Afghanistan have been freed without trial after paying off corrupt local officials, officers complain.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/9293245/Taliban-leaders-quietly-freed-without-trial-after-paying-off-officials.html

Taliban leaders quietly freed without trial after paying off officials
By Ben Farmer, Ghazni
8:00PM BST 04 Jun 2012

American officers in Ghazni province say in several cases they have been powerless to prevent the release of insurgent figures despite strong evidence they were attacking coalition forces.

The men were released not as part of the judicial process, or as part of a formal reconciliation deal, but after corrupt officials had taken bribes worth the equivalent of thousands of pounds.

A former Afghan intelligence chief from the eastern province confirmed to the Daily Telegraph that the practice had been rife for some time.

Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division have been sent to southern Ghazni this summer with just months to try and stabilise security and bolster the Afghan forces, before they pull out.

June 6, 2012

Inflation

Want to get a first-hand look at the ever soaring cost of military hardware?



Smoke rises from a dry dock as fire crews respond Wednesday, May 23, 2012 to a fire on the USS Miami SSN 755 submarine at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on an island in Kittery.


http://www.kjonline.com/news/USS-Miami-will-cost-about-400-million-to-repair.html
By Edward D. Murphy emurphy@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer
Yesterday at 11:50 AM

It will cost about $400 million to repair damage to the USS Miami, an attack submarine that caught fire while at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery on May 23, Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said.

Pingree said $400 million – nearly half of the $900 million it cost to build the Miami – is a preliminary estimate from Navy officials. She toured the sub yesterday.

Navy officials have said they want to repair the Miami and keep it in service because the size of the fleet has been decreasing.

Navy officials have not yet said what caused the fire, which burned for hours and required help from a score of local fire companies to extinguish. The fire damaged the sub's control room, the torpedo room and crew quarters in the front of the ship. The sub was in Kittery for what was scheduled to be a 20-month overhaul.



unhappycamper comment: Want to know why the DoD is going to spend $400 million dollars to fix this 24 year-old boat?

Answer: It's replacement, a new Virgina-class sub costs somewhere between $5 and $7 billion dollars.

June 6, 2012

Praying at the Church of St Drone

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NF07Df01.html
Praying at the Church of St Drone
By Tom Engelhardt
Jun 7, 2012

Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren't just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief. The last two presidents may not have been emperors or kings, but they - and the vast national-security structure that continues to be built-up and institutionalized around the presidential self - are certainly one of the nightmares the founding fathers of this country warned us against. They are one of the reasons those founders put significant war powers in the hands of congress, which they knew would be a slow, recalcitrant, deliberative body.

Thanks to a long New York Times piece by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, "Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will", we now know that the president has spent startling amounts of time overseeing the "nomination" of terrorist suspects for assassination via the remotely piloted drone program he inherited from President George W Bush and which he has expanded exponentially.

~snip~

The language of the piece about our warrior president was generally sympathetic, even in places soaring. It focused on the moral dilemmas of a man who - we now know - has personally approved and overseen the growth of a remarkably robust assassination program in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan based on a "kill list." Moreover, he's regularly done so target by target, name by name. (The Times did not mention a recent US drone strike in the Philippines that killed 15.) According to Becker and Shane, President Obama has also been involved in the use of a fraudulent method of counting drone kills, one that unrealistically de-emphasizes civilian deaths.

~snip~

It's not, however, that American presidents have never had anything to do with or been in any way involved in assassination programs. The state as assassin is hardly unknown in our history. How could President John F Kennedy, for example, not know about CIA-inspired or -backed assassination plots against Cuba's Fidel Castro, the Congo's Patrice Lumumba, and South Vietnamese autocrat (and ostensible ally) Ngo Dinh Diem? (Lumumba and Diem were successfully murdered.) Similarly, during Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the CIA carried out a massive assassination campaign in Vietnam, Operation Phoenix. It proved to be a staggeringly profligate program for killing tens of thousands of Vietnamese, both actual enemies and those simply swept up in the process.

June 5, 2012

The Navy Thinks This New $7 Billion Ship Is The Answer To All Its Chinese Concerns

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-uss-zumwalt-ddg-1000-a-silver-bullet-of-stealth-2012-06

The Navy Thinks This New $7 Billion Ship Is The Answer To All Its Chinese Concerns
Robert Johnson | Jun. 4, 2012, 6:56 AM

Looking a bit like an old Civil War Ironclad, the $7 billion DDG 1000 USS Zumwalt will focus on land attacks, relying heavily on its advanced stealth technology to slip in close to shore before unleashing its massive onboard arsenal.

A new take on the Zumwalt was published today by the Eric Talmadge at the Associated Press who points out that in addition to the ship's wide array of conventional weapons the Zumwalt will eventually carry the Navy's much anticipated "railgun".

The railgun is an electrically powered artillery weapon that launches massive projectiles at high speeds without the use of gunpowder or explosives. Instead, an electric current is run through the artillery shell, the current interacts with the magnetic fields in the rails and pounds the shell from the barrel.

~snip~

The Zumwalt was originally estimated to cost about $3.8 billion, but so much technology crammed on board that its cost has nearly doubled, and after the first three are built, production will stop. Including the exhaustive research and development required by each vessel to total cost jumps to $7 billion apiece.

May 28, 2012

Veterans and the Veterans Administration: Part 1

I'm a veteran; a veteran of the foolish Vietnam war. I was in country when Tet of 68 started and I was in the invasion of Cambodia in April 1970. I have two Bronze Stars from my two tours of Vietnam as an REMF. For those of you who don't know what an REMF is, it stands for Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. I was in the 'rear', whatever that means. I got shot at, mortared, rocketed and had the shit scared out of me more times than I care to remember. I fixed radios, mine detectors, starlight scopes and pretty much anything that had electronics in it.

As near as I can tell I received my Bronze Stars for not fucking up too bad. How twisted is that? I get free automobile license plates from the state of Massachusetts for not fucking up too bad.

As many of you know, I try to read the military rags on a regular basis. Apparently the Veterans Administration (even with Shinseki in command) has been able to make little progress taking care of our latest batch of war veterans. A little side note here: I admire the women and men of the Veterans Administration - they are some of the most dedicated and selfless people when it comes to taking are of veterans. And taking care of veterans is honoring the promise that the United States made to soldiers when they enlisted. And the Veterans Administration does its best trying to take care of our veterans.

Things at the Veterans Administration are not going all that well. The Veterans Administration set some benchmarks for themselves and are having a hard time meeting the goals they set for themselves. More on that later.

This Raw Story article kicked my juices into high gear:





http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/27/record-45-of-iraq-and-afghanistan-vets-have-filed-for-disability/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
Record 45% of Iraq and Afghanistan vets have filed for disability
By Muriel Kane
Sunday, May 27, 2012 20:11 EDT

According to a new report from the Associated Press, a record 45% of the 1.6 million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are seeking compensation for service-related injuries.

This is more than double the rate for Gulf War veterans. For all the publicity given to “Gulf War syndrome,” only an estimated 21% of the veterans of that conflict have filed disability claims.

The recent applicants are also citing a much larger number of ailments than veterans of previous wars — an average of eight or nine per person, which has shot up over the past year to 11 to 14. This compares to less than four for Vietnam War veterans who are currently receiving compensation, and just two for veterans of World War II and Korea.

The causes of the increase, and to what extent it simply reflects the poor economy, are not clear. “Government officials and some veterans’ advocates say that veterans who might have been able to work with certain disabilities may be more inclined to seek benefits now because they lost jobs or can’t find any,” the AP explains.



PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) are the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures. Not amputations, not genital mutilations, not disfigurements, not heart/lung diseases, not electrocutions; PTSD and TBI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptsd
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury



Which leads us back to the Veterans Administration. Eric Shinseki made a speech to the American Legion on March 22, 2011 stating his charge:

http://www.va.gov/opa/bios/secretary.asp

he Honorable Eric K. Shinseki
The American Legion Mid-Winter Conference
Washington, DC
March 22, 2011

National Commander Foster—Thank you for that kind introduction, and for the invitation to join you today.

Let me also acknowledge your Vice Commanders: Russell Henry, Midwest Region; Gene Pytka, Northeast Region; Bill Schrier, Western Region; John Mella, Central Region; and Carlos Orria-Medina, Southeast Region.

Peter Gaytan, your Executive Director, and Dan Wheeler, your Adjutant.
Dan Dellinger, National Legislative Chairman.
Carlene Ashworth, Auxiliary President
National Commander, David Dew, Sons of The American Legion.

Let me congratulate your honorees, Congressman Jason Altmire and Senator Daniel Akaka. Each has been a tremendous supporter and tireless worker on behalf of Veterans and their families, and survivors. They are most deserving of your recognition. Congratulations to them, once again.

Members of the Legion.
Fellow Veterans.
Other distinguished guests, including assistant secretary Ray Jefferson.
Ladies and gentlemen.

I salute the Legion’s longstanding devotion to our Nation’s Veterans.

Last week, I attended the funeral of Frank Buckles, who enlisted in the Army at age 16—the last known American Veteran of the War to End All Wars. When asked, in his later years, why he lied about his age to serve in World War I, he said: “If your country needs you, you should be right there; that is the way I felt when I was young, and that’s the way I feel today.”

On the eve of battle during World War II, Marine Lieutenant Anthony Turtora, wrote his family: “Always pray, not that I shall come back, but that I will have the courage to do my duty.” Killed in the battle at Guadalcanal, Lieutenant Turtora joined, what is today, the more than one million Americans who have, throughout the nearly 235-year history of our republic, placed their most precious gifts on the altar of freedom.

With your help and support, 2010 was a good year for Veterans. For two years now, we have been teaching three fundamental behaviors and three key priorities—six simple rules of thumb.

The three behaviors: First, people-centric. We serve Veterans, and people count. They must be properly trained, properly motivated, with the right attitudes, and enjoy inspiring leadership.

Next, results oriented. We must be able to measure return on any investments we make. If we can’t measure, we won’t invest.

Finally, forward-looking. We look out five years to envision the VA we will need—in terms of training, equipment, and leadership, if we are to better serve Veterans—and decide how to get there.

These three key behaviors are focused on the three key priorities we have been emphasizing for the past two years now: Increase Veteran access to VA benefits and services now; reduce and, ultimately, eliminate the backlog in disability claims in 2014; and finally, end Veterans homelessness by 2015.

Three fundamental behaviors—people-centric, results oriented, forward-looking. And three key priorities—access, backlog, homelessness. We have momentum in each of these initiatives and expect to see major deliverables over the next two years.

On 14 February, President Obama submitted his 2012 budget and 2013 advance appropriations requests, and in doing so, kept his promise to care for those who have safeguarded this Nation. His budget requests $132.2 billion in 2012—$61.9 billion in discretionary funding and $70.3 billion in mandatory funding. Our discretionary budget request represents an increase of $5.9 billion, or 10.6 percent, over the 2010 enacted budget.

While each document—budget request and advance appropriations request—is important enough on its own, taken together, they are powerful in terms of energy, opportunity, and continuity thanks to Congress’ granting the advance appropriations authority on which you worked so hard. So, while VBA, benefits, and NCA, cemeteries, like other departments and agencies all across government, are dealing with a continuing resolution, VHA is fully funded to deliver healthcare to Veterans throughout 2011.

It’s often noted that less than 1 percent of Americans serve in our military. Those who do allow the rest of us to do what Americans do best—and that’s out-think, out-create, out-work, and out-produce the rest of the world. They help unleash our powerful economic engine, enabling us to do what we’ve historically done—and that’s win.

I know the economy has lost a bit of sparkle for the moment, but I trust the instincts, the energy, the creativity, and the intellect of the American people to get us back on course. President Obama has challenged us to win the future by out-innovating, out-educating, and out-building our competition, and this budget helps Veterans and VA do our part.
Today, our military remains operationally deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan—conflicts that have been underway for most of the past decade. The burden on our magnificent all-volunteer force and its families to accomplish every mission—without failure, fanfare, or complaint—has been enormous.

And as they redeploy home, and return to their communities, the Nation must find ways to offer them the opportunity to add their substantial skills, knowledge, and attributes to that powerful economic engine.

VA’s mission is crucial to their transition home. As President Lincoln reminded us 146 years ago, we “care for [those] who have borne the battle and [their spouses] and orphan[s].”

Those requirements and responsibilities have grown as we addressed longstanding issues from past wars—Agent Orange, Gulf War Illness, combat PTSD—and watched the injuries and illnesses from the current conflicts grow significantly. These numbers will continue to rise for many years, perhaps decades, after the last American combatant departs Iraq and Afghanistan. You understand this reality. You have lived it, and we must ensure that the lessons of that history are not forgotten.

VA is a large organization with a correspondingly large budget and diverse and complex mission. We provide healthcare, disability benefits, pensions, home loans, life insurance, and educational assistance, and run the Nation’s largest cemetery system, which has outperformed every other enterprise in this country for the past decade—public or private, profit or non-profit.

Some ask, why is the VA enterprise so large and complex? Why is the federal government doing so many things for Veterans? Simple. Because in times past, those who wore our Nation’s uniforms were often unable to either acquire, or afford, these services on their own. No one would provide them. And so, VA has been missioned to deliver the promises of presidents and meet the obligations of the American people.

At present, about 8.4 million Veterans receive VA medical care and benefits. But another 14.3 million Veterans and 35 million spouses and adult children, who do not receive such care and benefits, still see themselves as Veterans or parts of Veterans’ families, whether or not they ever visit our medical centers or apply for disability. They expect us to get things right for the Veterans we do serve.

Over the next two years, we intend to produce the following deliverables:

Homelessness. President Obama strongly supports ending Veteran homelessness by 2015. Two years ago, there were approximately 131,000 homeless Veterans on any given night. Today, we estimate there are about 76,000 homeless Veterans. We intend to take this below 60,000 by June of next year, and end Veteran homelessness by 2015.

The 2012 budget includes $939 million to prevent and reduce homelessness among Veterans, an increase of 17.5 percent, or $140 million over 2011.

A comprehensive review is underway to use VA’s inventory of vacant or under-utilized buildings to house homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. VA has identified 94 sites which will potentially add another 6,300 units of housing through public/private ventures using VA’s enhanced-use lease authority. This EUL authority is scheduled to lapse at the end of calendar year 2011, and its re-authorization by Congress is needed to continue increasing housing for homeless Veterans and their families. We are asking Congress to help us here.

The most flexible and responsive housing option remains the HUD-VASH voucher, on which we work closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both Secretary Donovan and I endorse the importance of this joint effort. HUD-VASH vouchers are our only option, at the moment, for housing Veterans with families.

The claims backlog. In 2009, we produced 977,000 claims decisions, but took in one million claims in return. In 2010, for the first time, we produced a million claims decisions, but took in 1.2 million claims. We expect 1.45 million claims to be submitted this year and know that we will produce another record in claims decisions—but still fall short. This growth is tied, in part, to the economic downturn. The numbers are so large that merely hiring more claims processors won’t allow us to dominate the growth. We must automate, and quickly. The 2012 budget request for VBA is $2 billion, an increase of $330 million, or 19.5 percent, over the 2010 budget.

These funds are needed to get us out of paper and into electronic processing, something that should have happened two decades ago. Automation alone is not enough, we must also increase accuracy—today 84 percent, 2015—98 percent. We have a host of promising options being piloted today. We expect them to begin paying off next year as we begin moving to fully automate the disability claims process. The president’s budget request for VBA provides $148 million to complete pilot testing and fielding of our paperless Veterans Benefits Management System.

The GI Bill. The budget request supports expanded eligibility for Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits by including non-college degree programs, such as on-the-job training, flight training, and correspondence courses. It also funds full automation of the payment process by the end of this calendar year, speeding tuition and housing payments to eligible Veterans. Through October 2010, VA issued over $7 billion in tuition, housing, and stipends to more than 423,000 student-Veterans and eligible family members. When all educational initiatives are rolled together, enrollments grow to over 800,000 Veterans and family members in college. This program is working thanks to Congress’ generosity.

Mental health. This budget request seeks nearly $51 billion for medical care, including $6.2 billion for critically required mental health programs—$68 million directly to our suicide prevention initiatives alone. Our focus is on treatment for post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, and other psychological and cognitive health requirements, as well as greater collaboration between the Departments of Defense and VA to seamlessly provide mental healthcare.

In addition to these major initiatives, the new budget recognizes the tremendous responsibilities and financial burdens assumed by Veterans’ caregivers, and provides funding for specialized training, stipends, healthcare, and mental health services. It is hard to overstate the tremendous sacrifices they make every day to help all Veterans. They are VA’s historic and mission-critical partners, deserving of our continued support, assistance, and gratitude.

The new budget also invests in the healthcare needs of women Veterans, wherever they seek care. It provides operations and maintenance funding to NCA to establish a new standard for providing nearly 90 percent of the Veteran population a burial site within 75 miles of their homes. Finally, the 2012 budget request continues robust funding for the rural health initiatives we funded in 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Let me close with a reminder about why VA must look beyond today and position itself for its responsibilities over the coming decade. On 26 march 2010, Marine Corporal Todd Nicely, walking point for his squad near Lakari, Afghanistan, tripped a 40-pound, pressure-detonated IED [improvised explosive device], ripping off his body armor and helmet, tearing off his right leg and left hand, and ultimately costing him his left leg and right arm as well.

Amazingly resilient through innumerable surgeries, Todd Nicely is one of our Nation’s three surviving quadruple amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Washington Post recently told his incredible story of survival, adjustment, love, and support—but at its core, it described a Marine with the heart of a lion. What shines through are Todd’s resilience, humility, strength of character, and an incredibly positive attitude from somewhere deep within.

“I remember screaming once or twice. You know, those bloodcurdling screams they do in the movies,” he recounted of the moments immediately after the IED went off, “and I remember thinking to myself, ‘don’t do that again, because this is the last image that these boys are going to have of you in their heads. So stay strong.’ After that, I just shut up.”

At their reunion at Bethesda, his 24-year-old wife, Crystal—a wonderful woman every bit as tough as her husband—asked him if he knew his legs were missing. He said he did. She then asked him if he knew that his hands were also missing. He said “No.” He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Did anybody else get hurt?” Crystal said “No.” His response was one word—“Good.”

During an awards ceremony at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, with members of his unit present, Lieutenant Colonel McDonough, Todd’s battalion commander, said that he hoped that his own children might one day have the courage of Corporal Nicely. When it was his turn to speak, Todd said simply, “I’d just like to thank everybody. I’d like to thank my platoon for getting me back. If it wasn’t for you guys, I don’t think I’d be alive today. Other than that, I really don’t have much more to say. I love you guys.”

Todd Nicely’s toughness, his courage, concern for squad mates—even when his own life hung in the balance—and his quiet humility are hallmarks we have witnessed time and again amongst this generation of warriors, and warriors of previous generations. Whatever Service we come from, all of us can see in Todd Nicely and his actions the essence of the Marine Corps—Semper Fidelis, “Always Faithful.”

I am told “polytrauma” was not a word until this conflict. Todd Nicely, and others like him, is going to need VA for a long time. We must posture VA for the future we can already see today. We must remain “always faithful” to the men and women who have gone into harm’s way on our behalf.

We have come a long ways over the past 26 months, but we have a lot more work to do. My report to you today underscores the fact that this administration, VA itself, and our partners like The American Legion, will spare no effort in serving the generations of men and women whose love of freedom, and dedication to democracy, have raised America up to greatness.

I look forward to working with you in our mutual calling. May God bless all who serve and have served in uniform. And may God continue to bless this wonderful country of ours. Thank you.



On May 23, 2012, the Army Times posted an article:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/05/military-waits-get-longer-for-disability-benefits-052312w/

Wait gets longer for VA disability benefits
By Patricia Kime - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 23, 2012 17:34:55 EDT

Ill or injured service members now wait an average of 394 days to move through the military’s disability evaluation process, an increase of more than 10 percent since 2010 and well off the goal of 295 days, according to the Government Accountability Office.


If you were to read that article, you would find out:

* Fort Belvoir soldiers wait an average processing time of 537 days to get a determination of their military disability.
* Guardsmen at Fort Carson wait an average processing time of 651 days to get a determination of their military disability.
* IDES (Integrated Disability Evaluation System) was designed/implemented in 2008 to address the issue of long wait times at the Veterans Administration.

So what happened? Unfortunately:


http://www.stripes.com/news/gao-military-s-disability-evaluation-system-has-gotten-steadily-slower-1.178115

GAO: Military's disability evaluation system has gotten steadily slower
By Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 23, 2012

According to the Government Accountability Office, in 2011 those cases averaged 394 days for wounded active-duty troops and 420 days for wounded reservists, both more than 100 days longer than officials’ stated goals and months longer than they took in 2009.



Veterans and their families are left out in the cold. The veteran has seen the elephant and is not the same person who went to war and the United States has not been fulfilling to promise made to them when they enlisted.


My generation's war was Vietnam. We had fucked up veterans for years after 1975: homeless veterans, drug-addled veterans, alcoholic veterans, incarcerated veterans, veterans who have turned to peace and veterans who think we should have nuked Vietnam.

Afghanistan is a lost cause as was Vietnam. We hear reports of 'progress' and military commanders are 'optimistic'. And yet one fact remains: the last person to conquer Afghanistan was Genghis Khan in 1219. I doubt we can drone our way into the record books.

Let me leave you with the picture by Lady Jane Butler. Her haunting painting, “The Retreat from Kabul, ” shows the sole survivor of a British army of 16,500, Dr. William Brydon, struggling out of Afghanistan in January, 1842. All the rest were killed by Afghan tribesmen after a futile attempt to garrison Kabul.




http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/eric-margolis/43429/facing-the-writing-on-the-wall-in-kabul

Facing the Writing on the Wall in Kabul
by Eric Margolis | May 27, 2012 - 10:33am

One of my favorite artists was the superb Victorian painter Lady Jane Butler who captured in oil the triumphs and tragedies of the British Empire.

Her haunting painting, “The Retreat from Kabul, ” shows the sole survivor of a British army of 16,500, Dr. William Brydon, struggling out of Afghanistan in January, 1842. All the rest were killed by Afghan tribesmen after a futile attempt to garrison Kabul.

This gripping painting should have hung over the NATO summit meeting last week in Chicago to remind the US and its allies that Afghanistan remains “the graveyard of empires.”

The latest empire to try to conquer Afghanistan has failed, and is now sounding the retreat.



If you're interested in reading more about the first British invasion of Afghanistan, I recommend you read:




And lastly I ask: Why are we there?

May 27, 2012

The slow-motion Tet of 2012 continues

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/afghanistan-roads-idUSL4E8GQ03120120526

Afghan road lifelines blocked by graft, kickbacks
By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL | Sat May 26, 2012 5:53am EDT

May 26 (Reuters) - When the Afghan government unveiled plans for a road linking his small village to larger centres elsewhere, Rahmanullah was so enthusiastic he offered a section of his farm for the route, thinking it would help move his produce to larger markets.

~snip~

But two years on and Rahmanullah's farming land has gone and the road has largely disintegrated, along with the hopes of local people for a less hardscrabble life in a province where the insurgency offers much-needed money for fighters.

~snip~

"I gave my farming field for free to the builders to give us a road and this is the result," Rahmanullah said, glumly pointing to a cratered and crumbling surface snaking from his village.

~snip~

More than $57 billion has been spent on Afghanistan's reconstruction since the toppling of the former Taliban government in 2001, but critics says millions of dollars have been misspent as donor aid is parachuted on to an opaque maze of local and international contractors.

May 26, 2012

U.S. sailor is 3,000th Afghanistan war death

Petty Officer 1st Class Ryan J. Wilson, 26, is the 1,974th U.S. death in the war.

http://us.cnn.com/2012/05/25/us/afghanistan-war-deaths/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
U.S. sailor is 3,000th Afghanistan war death
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 5:32 PM EDT, Fri May 25, 2012

CNN) -- A U.S. sailor who died last week of medical complications was the 3,000th death among coalition forces in the Afghanistan war, according to CNN's count based on information provided by the U.S. Defense Department and the International Security Assistance Force.

Petty Officer 1st Class Ryan J. Wilson, 26, of Shasta, California, died May 20 in Manama, Bahrain, the Defense Department reported in an e-mail Friday.

Wilson, assigned to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain, was supporting the Afghanistan mission, the e-mail said.

He was the 1,974th U.S. death in the war that started October 7, 2001, and the 3,000th overall death from the U.S.-led international coalition engaged in Operation Enduring Freedom.



unhappycamper comment: Our Nobel Peace Prize President is responsible for at least 1,337 of the total number of American deaths in Afghanistan since February 2009 --> http://icasualties.org/OEF/ByMonth.aspx

I'm puzzled with the "Stay the course" message. Staying the course while the slow-motion Tet of 2012 continues in Afghanistan seems somewhat westmorelandish to me - remember when the US Army proudly declared that the town of Marjah was finally pacified in 2005/2006? Moving forward to 2012, Afghanistan sure looks like the Vietnam I experienced -->
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-anderson/transition-to-what-our-ro_b_1471269.html
http://www.stripes.com/news/afghan-market-flourishing-with-coalition-goods-1.178460

I'm also puzzled with President Obama's military budget as well as his stance on drones to kill people around the world. Granted $160,000 isn't all that much for a Hellfire missile but I do not think it's appropriate to kill people because we don't 'like' them.