Shafting Vets Makes the News

Not news among veterans’ advocates, but three pieces paint a sordid picture of what our country intentionally inflicts upon our veterans when it makes war.

War tends to produce results dysfunctional to future war-making so veterans and serving military personnel who point to any evidence of this truism risk a hostile government machinery.

Consider what happens when death gives a veteran a problem and the VA can’t make a fraud charge stick when a solider is diagnosed with the resulting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), here’s an alternative tactic: Ruin a soilder’s career while he’s still in the service and take away as many benefits as possible.

See Army General Improperly Kicks Out Iraq War Soldier Diagnosed with PTSD (Veterans for Common Sense).

And this: Veterans Sue Government For Mental Health Benefits

Five soldiers filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government this week claiming they were illegally denied disability benefits despite being diagnosed with severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, that should qualify them for lifetime free care.
(Injury Board.com)

Shafting and inflicting harm onto vets is no new phenomenon. It’s business as usual. See Veterans Sue CIA Over Past Chemical Tests on Soldiers.

Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Vietnam Veterans of America and six former soldiers sued the Central Intelligence Agency claiming the U.S. failed to provide care for human subjects in once- secret tests of chemical and biological weapons and drugs.
The veterans say they and others were treated like guinea pigs in tests involving nerve gas, hallucinogenic drugs and mind-control experiments that left civilians and military people who unwittingly volunteered for the program with permanent disabilities. The tests, codenamed MKULTRA, began in the 1940s at a Maryland Army base and continued to about 1976, they said. (Bloomberg, referenced by Military and Politics: Politics for the Deserving)

All these people are asking for is respect and truth from our government. That's too much for too many people in our govenrment.

Veterans are hoping for a better shake with the Obama administration.