To borrow from Condi Rice, history will judge the warmakers' neglect of the troops who fight their wars as a drawn-out Katrina-like phenomenon in the Bush administration, revealing an unforgivable abandonment and incompetence.
The troubled solider coming home from war only to face an indifferent-to-hostile government has become an American cultural icon and silent hero.
No one likes the snotty VA bureaucrats and rightwing chicken hawks disrespecting military service by placing the blame for veteran injury on the veteran himself.
Despite massive lip service paid to veterans by the administration, the Katrina treatment is clear for all to see.
Five years into this bullshit Iraq war, Bush was forced to acknowledge the impenetrable barriers that prevented even the most tenacious of veterans from obtaining the care and benefits that befit their service.
From today's NYT:
By JIM RUTENBERG and DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, July 25 — A presidential panel on military and veterans health care released a report Wednesday concluding that the system was insufficient for the demands of two modern wars and called for improvements, including far-reaching changes in the way the government determines the disability status and benefits of injured soldiers and veterans.
The bipartisan commission made 35 recommendations that included expanded and improved treatment of traumatic brain injuries and the type of post-traumatic stress disorders that overwhelmed public mental health facilities during the Vietnam era but remain stigmatized to this day.
President Bush told reporters at the White House late Wednesday that he had directed Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary, and Jim Nicholson, secretary of veterans affairs, “to take them seriously, and to implement them, so that we can say with certainty that any soldier who has been hurt will get the best possible care and treatment that this government can offer.”
The commission said fully carrying out its recommendations would cost $500 million a year for the time being, and $1 billion annually years from now as the current crop of fresh veterans and active military members ages and new personnel is in place.
The report was spurred by a series of embarrassing news reports about the substandard treatment returning soldiers received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which for years had been held up by politicians, including the president, as providing unparalleled care to American troops.
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