For Veterans, and anyone interested, you can now visit this link for the Archived 'About Face' programs from the Phoenix AZ VFP Chapter which is taped and aired on Saturday at 6PM EST. They have nine programs on their list including the one with Ilona and Guests on PTSD.
Now on Sunday you can catch the Live airing of 'About Face' at the Phoenix local Air America Affiliate at 1PM EST, which if memory serves is Not a three hour differance for the West Coast, only a two hour for the Phoenix or AZ time. They don't have the server yet to Archive past shows.
More than 73,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have been diagnosed with possible mental health conditions. Sharyn Alfonsi tells the story of one Marine who didn't get the help he needed.
The 2005 report, obtained this week by the Observer, found doctors and nurses at the Hefner VA Medical Center in Salisbury were poorly trained, cut corners on treatment, manipulated records and didn't talk enough with patients and families.
Oh really John, you find this 'APPALLING', where were those sentiments when the report first came out, or how about All the other reports, recently Finally coming to light concerning the DoD and VA treatment of the returning Military Personal at a time of a Destructive Foreign Policy of Occupation that you Support! After all the last few years, one can just visit the Congressional Records, shows you all didn't work very often for your paychecks, like those vacations didn't you!
Watt's office expressed surprise Friday that the 2005 report had not been brought to his attention earlier through government channels.
Lets see John, you belong to the political party some still call the Republican Party, though those who lead that party, you're one of them, and those who still use that name Stopped following the ideologies of long ago! Not only as to Military Personal and Veterans, over these last twelve or so years, you all had control of Oversite, but to Huge Numbers of Domestic and Foreign Policies, that you All ignored or blocked the opposition from holding Congressional Investigations and Hearings let alone demanded yourselves, as Employees of the People!
How many 'Reports' were Blocked from the Oppositions Eyes?
Donald Moore, director of the hospital in 2005 and now head of a VA facility in Phoenix, did not return calls Thursday and Friday.
Hmmm, is this another political appointee, following in the footsteps of the overwelming numbers of Political Incompitant Appointees that keep coming to light in this Administration? Did such a great job in Salisbury VA they gave him an even more plum position. Phoenix Veterans may want to look at the VA Hospital reports/books to see how that facility is being run! How about you guys, fellow VFP Members, over at 'About Face' { Streaming }, would make for an interesting show on your Phoenix Radio Program.
"I hope it's an isolated case," McCain said. "... That information is incredibly disturbing."
Gee John you're Right, now that it's seeing the light of day, Real Disturbing Isn't It, and you first heard about it When!!!!
Now can someone please tell me what has been Accomplished, in the positive, in any area of Domestic and Foreign Policy over the last 12yrs. prior to the last election Should be easy because the list is extremely short!
Pentagon will likely extend deployments, send others earlier than planned
Now one must ask, "Where are the Yellow Elephant War Cheerleaders, and Why are they not Enlisting?", wouldn't one!!
The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades Those who take some sort of relief in the "We are fighting them over there so we won't be fighting them here!", Better Rethink their Future, or rather their Childrens Future!!
WASHINGTON - Military leaders are struggling to choose Army units to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan longer or go there earlier than planned, but five years of war have made fresh troops harder to find. Faced with a military buildup in Iraq that could drag into next year, Pentagon officials are trying to identify enough units to keep up to 20 brigade combat teams in Iraq. A brigade usually has about 3,500 troops. The likely result will be extending the deployments of brigades scheduled to come home at the end of the summer, and sending others earlier than scheduled. Final decisions — which have not yet been made — would come as Congress is considering ways to force President Bush to wind down the war, despite his vow that he would veto such legislation. In the freshest indication of the relentless demands for troops in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, commander of coalition forces in the north, told reporters Friday that his troops have picked up the pace of their attacks on the enemy in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. “Could I use more forces? No question about it,” Mixon said, adding that he had asked for more. Petraeus: Sustained buildup needed The top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, said a day earlier that it was likely that additional U.S. forces will be shifted to areas outside the capital where militants are regrouping, including Diyala. The region has become an increasingly important staging ground for militant groups, including al-Qaida in Iraq. “There have been about 30 percent more offensive actions and attacks. Many of those are initiated by us; some are initiated by them,” Petraeus said from a military base outside of Tikrit. “I am cautiously optimistic that in the next 30 to 60 days that we’re going to see some significant differences in the security situation in Diyala.” If not, he said, he’ll go back and ask for still more support. Petraeus said Thursday that the U.S. buildup in Iraq would need to be sustained “for some time well beyond the summer” to garner the needed results. Juggling schedules Maintaining increased troop levels, said military officials, will require troops to return for what could be their second or third tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, and force military leaders to juggle the schedules to give soldiers a full 12 months at home before returning to battle. The officials would speak only on condition of anonymity, because no final decisions have been made and no formal requests for the forces have come from commanders in Iraq. But they said it is beginning to appear likely that Petraeus will ask to maintain much of the buildup at least through the end of the year, and possibly into 2008. One official said planners are scrambling to figure out what combination of units and schedules can be fashioned that could give Petraeus what he wants and have the least negative impact on the troops. The complex scheduling must identify which units would have been home for 12 months and be trained and ready to go, plus whether the needed equipment would be available and what impact a schedule change has on other plans for the equipment or troops months down the road. Combat troops adapt Combat troops, meanwhile, are coming to realize that the Pentagon can’t fulfill its commitment to give soldiers two years at home for every year they spend deployed. At Fort Drum, N.Y., the 1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division is already training for a return to Iraq this summer. The brigade, which spent a year in Iraq and got home last summer, is not yet on any official list of units scheduled to deploy, but it’s likely to go in late summer. “It’s prudent planning for us to be prepared to go back in a year,” said Fort Drum spokesman Ben Abel. Military officials also acknowledge that units scheduled to come home later this summer — such as the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division — could be forced to extend their tours by up to 120 days to maintain the Baghdad security buildup. Initially, the Bush plan called for sending 21,500 extra U.S. combat troops to Iraq — mainly to Baghdad — with the last of five brigades arriving by June. So far two of the brigades have arrived in Iraq. The latest estimates indicate that up 7,000 support troops may also be needed, including more than 2,000 military police.
The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!
Those who take some sort of relief in the "We are fighting them over there so we won't be fighting them here!", Better Rethink their Future, or rather their Childrens Future!!
"Those were the words that inspired me to challenge Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in a Senate hearing a few weeks ago. Those were the words that echoed so loudly in my mind I couldn't - no, I wouldn't stay silent."
By Tina Richards t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor
Monday 26 February 2007
Demoralizing the troops ...
Those were the words that inspired me to challenge Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in a Senate hearing a few weeks ago. Those were the words that echoed so loudly in my mind I couldn't - no, I wouldn't stay silent.
Demoralizing the troops ...
Today I had to drop off Polly, a friend who flew out to help me this last week in DC with my occupation project (details at website Grassroots America 4 Us ), at the Baltimore airport. When we arrived, the majority of customers waiting in line were soldiers. All were in desert cami's. Instantly, I thought of the days when I saw my son off to war dressed in those same cami's and tears came to my eyes. I think the second-to-worst event for a mother is seeing her son off to war, unknowing if he'll return. The worst is when he doesn't return.
But these troops were smiling, relaxed and relieved. Sitting down for a cup of coffee before Polly's flight took off, we were mixed in a sea of beige and brown. A conversation started about returning to family and where home is for each. One soldier was from Springfield, Missouri. "Missouri? Well, I'm from Salem," I said. The soldier's family was from Salem, Missouri, and we quickly struck up a conversation. "Is the water tower still standing?" he asked. "Yes, right next to the high school," I said.
He told me of his time in Afghanistan and how honored he was to be on Nancy Pelosi's guard duty when she was there a couple of months ago. "She so small," he said, "but a great lady." You could see the grin on his face as he recalled stories about her. Proud to be on guard for the speaker of the House.
When I told him why I was in DC and not Missouri, he hung his head low and shook it back and forth. He told me of the year before when he was in Iraq. He told me about a buddy who was injured in an explosion. His friend was from Michigan and had dreamed his whole life of being a policeman, like his dad. Just before his dad had died of cancer, he had left him a knife. Not an expensive knife, but one with great sentimental value. As his fellow soldier was being evacuated, he asked him to hold onto the knife. "You never know what's going to happen." He wanted it safe. He promised to return it to his brother-in-arms.
He kept his promise. When they met up, his friend couldn't move his arm from the battle injury. He couldn't become a cop either. "Now he's a security guard, making $10 an hour and has to pay for his own car and gas." The VA only gave him 10 percent disability, $200 a month. "What kind of life is that?" the soldier asked me.
Demoralized? You bet. Not from photos in the Washington Post or Democrats and Republicans arguing about what direction to take. But from one soldier seeing how a fellow brother-in-arms is being treated by their own government after they honorably serve, risking life and limb, doing everything asked of them. Promises broken.
As Polly and I left, I told the soldiers we would keep fighting to ensure their brothers and sisters-in-arms would be taken care of, and work to make sure they get the time off to spend with their families. They smiled and thanked us. We welcomed them home.
You see, this morning I was disappointed because I was hoping to see my son on spring break. But he had decided to go on the Veterans for Peace Bus leaving Fayetteville, North Carolina, on March 17, heading down to New Orleans to help with reconstruction. I was feeling pretty useless and wasn't sure if anyone wanted to hear from me. I'm just one voice.
Tina Richards's son Cloy is a corporal in the United States Marine Corps who has served two tours in Iraq. For more information go to: Grassroots America 4 Us.
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There is a video of Tina, her Marine son Cloy, and her daughter speaking at the sitelink.
The BBCrecently asked28,000 people around the world to rate a dozen countries plus the EU in terms of whether they have a positive or negative influence on world affairs.
The country that most people believe has a negative affect on the world? Israel. Followed by Iran. Third is the United States and fourth is North Korea. Five years after President Bush named Iran and North Korea to the"axis of evil", we find ourselves rated as dangerous as both by the world community. Awesome.
A proposal to keep seriously wounded vets from falling through the cracks of the bureaucracy was shelved in 2005 when Jim Nicholson took over as the secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, according to the former VA employee who was responsible for tracking war casualties.
VA's Nicholson Abandoned Program to Help Returning Troops
Congress held hearings Wednesday on military health care spending after recent media reports of sub-standard medical care for military service members created an uproar. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., discuss Congress' next steps.
Morning Edition, March 7, 2007 · Reports of poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center also underline obstacles veterans face in obtaining adequate care. Navigating the health-care system can be a nightmare. Paul Sullivan, former project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs, describes some of the problems.
All Things Considered, March 5, 2007 · Eddie Ryan, a Marine wounded in the Iraq war, spent four months in a Veterans Affairs hospital, where his father says conditions were so terrible that he worked hard to get him out. Chris Ryan says he'll never send his son to a VA facility again.
Morning Edition, March 7, 2007 · Extended deployments for National Guard and Reserve units mean trouble for the 6-percent of Guard members who own their own businesses. Managing a business while at war is nearly impossible.
Very happy to see that Mark Benjamin of Salon.com is getting credit for his body of work documenting problems encountered in a number of military medical facilities, including Walter Reed. Benjamin's 2005 piece, Behind the Walls of Ward 54, last year's Losing Their Minds and Iraq Sticker Shock are the articles I most remember.
Medical Care for Wounded Soldiers An update on recent reports of substandard care for some outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the wider inquiry into problems faced by wounded soldiers and veterans around the country. Guests Anne Hull, reporter, "The Washington Post" Dana Priest, intelligence correspondent for "The Washington Post" and author of "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military" David Gorman, Disabled American Veterans Linda Bilmes, professor of public finance, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University co-author of "The Economic Cost of the Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After the Beginning of the Conflict Real Audio Windows Media
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Reporters Who Broke Story on Conditions at Walter Reed Talk of the Nation, March 6, 2007 · After a series of articles in The Washington Post, Walter Reed Army Medical Center has been exposed as a facility that left veterans of war stranded in dilapidated housing and bureaucratic red tape. The two Washington Post reporters who broke the story discuss the latest developments. Guests: Anne Hull, Washington Post national enterprise reporter Dana Priest, Washington Post national security reporter Listen To Report Here
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Military Mental Health Care Under Scrutiny by Daniel Zwerdling All Things Considered, March 6, 2007 · Army generals are scrambling to apologize for the scandal over poor medical care and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. But the evidence shows that the problems extend beyond the Army's flagship hospital. Listen To Report Here {Rest of report transcript at site}
Join Veterans For Peace as we rally in Fayetteville, NC. 10AM: Pre-Rally Show at Health Dept. Parking Lot at227 Fountainhead Lane Noon: The March! ( 3/4-mile route -- map --up Hay Street to Rowan Park) 1PM-4PM: The Rally!
Featuring Holly Near, Fruit of Labor, Dan Speller, Dave Lippman, Speakers, Kids Program, Peace Fair & More! Speakers include Ann Wright, Michael McPhearson, Ricky Clousing, Rev. Cureton Johnson, and Khodr Zaarour.
As we wrap up the events in Fayetteville, NC, we will be traveling to Pascagoula, MS. Along the way, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans For Peace, and many individual signers of the Appeal for Redress, will stop in six military towns in the southeastern US. In each town, we will hold an event for active duty military personnel and their families.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE Monday, March 19 (Fort Bragg) Fayetteville, NC Tuesday, March 20 (Fort Jackson) Columbia, South Carolina Wednesday, March 21 (Fort Stewart) Hinesville/Savannah, Georgia Thursday, March 22 (Mayport/Jacksonville Naval Stations) Florida Friday, March 23 (Fort Benning) Columbus, Georgia Saturday, March 24 (Maxwell-Gunter AFB) Montgomery, Alabama
Operation TLC Volunteer Center was launched in September 2006. They are a community outreach program that not only houses volunteers, but also facilitates community projects and provides a safe place for the community to gather and obtain information. Located in the Pascagoula Recreation Center - a neat old high school gymnasium, our facility include bunks (on the basketball court), men's and women's hot showers, toilets, wireless Internet, recreational opportunities. We're a mile or so from the beach. Bring your rollerblades or walking/running shoes for sunrise or sunset frolics. [ DONATE | LEARN MORE | SIGN UP FOR UPDATES ]
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An Open Letter to the Congressional Leadership
March 1, 2007
Dear Senate Majority Leader Reid, Speaker Pelosi and the Leadership of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Our organizations represent military and Gold Star families; Veterans of the Iraq War; current servicemen and women including Active Duty, National Guard, Reserves and Individual Ready Reserves; Vietnam Veterans and Veterans of other eras. Our members have all been impacted by this war, some of us directly, and some because of what we know from combat in other wars. We all believe that the U.S. military occupation of Iraq must be brought to an immediate end. The people of the United States voted for a change in Congressional leadership last November, due in large part to the desire to see the disaster in Iraq come to an end. Congress now has the opportunity to end this unjust war and bring our troops home. But as we write this letter, it appears that this is an opportunity you are prepared to squander. In the next several weeks, Congress will vote on President Bush's 2007 Supplemental Appropriations request that will, if passed, provide the funds to continue the war in Iraq . Legislative hearings, increased oversight and funding restrictions will not end the war. The President has defied the voice of the American people as expressed in November's vote, and ordered over 21,000 more combat troops into harm's way. He has made it clear he will not bring our troops home. Congress can and must use its Constitutional "power of the purse" to de-fund the war and bring it to an end. As leaders in Congress, none of you has advocated for de-funding the Iraq war. As organizations representing thousands of people with family, loved ones and friends in harms way, we need to know why. Why won't you take the most direct path to bringing this war to an end?
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Right now, it seems that you cannot see the political upside of doing what we and the majority of people in this country are calling on you to do. It is important that you understand the political downside of allowing this war to continue. If you provide further funding for the war in Iraq , it will no longer be President Bush's war. You will be co-owners. You will share responsibility for the continued chaos and loss of life in Iraq . You will have lost the opportunity to provide leadership when it is sorely needed. You will have given license to more years of a failed policy and countless deaths. We ask you now: support our troops, de-fund the war, and bring them home now. We look forward to your response.
VETERANS WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE. Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105, 314-725-6005 Veterans For Peace
"Twenty-five years ago, March 14, 1981 Jim Hopkins, Marine veteran of Vietnam, born on the Marine Corps birthday of November 10, drove his army Jeep through the glass doors and into the lobby of the multi-million dollar, showcase edifice of Wadsworth VA hospital, at Los Angeles, California."
There is a basic right owed to the men and women who serve to protect the integrity of this nation’s democratic promise. As said by the only great Republican: “… to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Abraham Lincoln, second inaugural address, March 4, 1865
Twenty-five years ago, March 14, 1981 Jim Hopkins, Marine veteran of Vietnam, born on the Marine Corps birthday of November 10, drove his army Jeep through the glass doors and into the lobby of the multi-million dollar, showcase edifice of Wadsworth VA hospital, at Los Angeles, California. He did so to protest the gross, willfully negligent treatment given US veterans within the VA system. In specific, those veterans of the US war in South East Asia, aka, the Vietnam War.
He fired rounds from his AR 14 into the official pictures of then Republican President Ronald Reagan and Ex-President Jimmy Carter. For emphasis he then fired his .45 caliber handgun and a shotgun screaming that he was not receiving the medical attention needed. Hauled from the hospital by law enforcement, he screamed into the cameras that his brain was “being destroyed by Agent Orange.” That sent both a shock wave and a wake up call through the US and became a clarion call to thousands of veterans who felt the very same as did Hopkins.
Ron Bitzer, director and founder of the LA based Center for Veteran’s Rights and I took up his case. My specialty was vets suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) who had come into conflict with law enforcement due to their illness.
Hopkins’ case gave national voice to three major issues for vets: 1- The failure of Reagan’s administration to investigate the damage caused by Dow Chemical’s dioxin based defoliants spread all over Southeast Asia known as Agent Orange, Blue and other quaint names. And its refusal to treat vets and their families for its damaging effect on both, (especially the obvious appearance of birth defects of children born to the vets.)
2- The refusal to acknowledge the illness of PTSD and to investigate its damage on vets and to provide appropriate treatment.
3- The callous and insulting disrespect shown the vets by Reagan and his efforts to cut both the benefits of the vets and to close their outpatient treatment centers.
After being released from in-hospital treatment from the VA hospital where we had him transferred from the LA County Jail Hopkins went on a speaking tour to vets. Despite our best efforts to help him Hopkins died of mysterious causes on May 17.
The news of his death, now a hero to Vietnam veterans, spread across the country sparking a sit-in the same lobby by veterans. As Reagan alternately ignored and then ridiculed the veterans, as the VA proclaimed its innocence of neglect, the protest grew until it became a hunger strike led by highly decorated Vietnam combat veterans. The hunger strike drew mass coverage by the US and world news. In the face of the aroused public, Reagan ignored calls for investigation, but held off forced eviction. When we rejected the government’s poor faith negotiations, Reagan called in the Federal forces. But we were prepared and within days were camped out in front of the White House and had forced meetings with various congressional Veteran’s committees. Fearing that any moment one of the vets would die and would trigger an armed response by the many outraged veterans across the country, Congress finally agreed to negotiate a compromise:
The veteran’s strike would end after fifty-three days and Congress would over-ride Reagan so that the Vet Centers would remain funded and open; there would be scientific and medical investigations into both the effects of the dioxin defoliants and into the illness of PTSD.
However that the US government’s military and VA hospitals were death suites for veterans was not news. Five years before Hopkins’ protest, Ron Kovic’s BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY was published in 1976. Therein a true American hero and two-time combat veteran of Vietnam, permanently paraplegic as a result, characterized, in graphic literary style, the mistreatment of vets in both hospital systems. But nothing changed.
In 1989 Oliver Stone made Kovic’s book into a movie starring a remarkable Oscar winning performance with Tom Cruise playing Kovic. But neither the Congress nor the Presidency changed the continuing ill treatment given veterans. Then under Reagan’s pet Republican successor George Herbert Walker Bush, the US launched Operation Desert Storm and its use of depleted uranium nuclear weapons. Vets came home from that US victory complaining of various kinds of poisoning, both from the depleted uranium and the suspected effects of chemical warfare allegedly used by Sadam Hussein’s forces. Its called Gulf War Syndrome and the military and the VA immediately began denying any causal relationship to the vet’s complaints and those weapons. Thus, little changed.
When we look at the scandal of Bldg 18 where the Washington Post reported that “part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses…” we know that nothing has changed.
Today it is undeniable that those who mastermind those callous, destructive wars against the poor people of the world have the very same callous disregard for the health and welfare our working and poor people sent to fight their wars. In a nation where profit rules over healthcare how can one avoid the reality that this government cares not for it people but only the power of profit? It no longer can: The war against the people of South East Asia was a war based on a President’s lie: an attack on the US in the Gulf of Tonkin that never occurred. It is in that way akin to that of the current President; based on the lies of an obviously mentally incompetent madman far more concerned with the false righteousness of his crusader’s mission and as it suits his petroleum industry masters than concern for the American people.
As the great anti-war movies All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Johnny Got His Gun, Coming Home, and Born On The Fourth of July has proved time and time again: governments use poor and working people as their cannon fodder, discarding those that survive as they do their junk military weaponry, while the manufacturing engines of war, profit and outlive war.
For over 4 years news stories have addressed the Bush-Republican cuts in the VA budget. Simultaneously, the dollar amount spent by Bush-Republicans has risen to an extinct beyond any war ever fought, including WWII. At the same time the profits of the military-industrial-media complex have grown exponentially with the war budget increases. Simultaneously the number of injured veterans has outgrown the VA’s negligently conceived plan of treatment and as a result. This is in keeping with the malevolent attitude of Bush-Cheney…the two are married in purpose.
The calls for the impeachment of Bush-Cheney, et al, because of their malfeasance in office, deliberate lies and miss use of government services in pursuing their war of petroleum profit, (control of the Middle East resources,) their acts of war crimes, have done little to move either the cowardly congress or to drive the American people into the streets in revolt. However, nothing has been as clear as the total and systemic neglect for the well being of the average American citizen than the outrage that continues within the military medical system and that of the VA. Why have these systems not been fixed as the politicians clamber for reform time after time? It is more than just the excrement of denial! There is a far more profound question to be asked about this systemic maltreatment:
Why would a Congress, which functions as the chief lobbyists of a “for profit healthcare system,” appropriately see to the delivery of the best example of socialized medicine? Why is it that every time the harbingers of economic doom speak of reform they talk of cutting the social welfare programs of Medicare and Social Security? Because the system is geared to fail; its failures hidden under the flag of patriot zeal until there is disclosure of its gross human casualty.
The truth is that Reagan Republican administration, the chief proponents of “for profit” Trickle Down Economics and its quisling Congress did not move until faced with the threat of a popular uprising led by Vietnam vets.
The conditions at Walter Reed are but symbolic of an entire system of malfeasance and mistreatment as rotten and antihuman as when we took on and defeated Reagan 25 years ago; as fetid and of ill purpose as the wars that produce them.
In virtually every appearance by any and every elected politician that speaks of the current war publicly calls out to “support for our troops” yet refuses to address that which is killing them? The war itself. And roused by these hucksters the pathetically deluded, self-injuring American public adorns their cars with “Support Our Troops” stickers while refusing to understand that they are in fact supporting our troops with lip service as their own government is killing them slowly.
With more war in the planning as I write this, let me suggest that ruling power, especially the reactionary power of Bush-Cheney, will never relent unless it faces overthrow by democratic, yet undefeatable force. That time has come again. Or again, nothing will change except this time matters will worsen.
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Michael O’McCarthy is a published poet, writer of prose, artist and novelist. He is a progressive activist.
The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!
* Robert Fisk on Osama bin Laden at 50, Iraqi Death Squads and Why the Middle East is More Dangerous Now Than in Past 30 Years *
Robert Fisk is a veteran war correspondent and one of the world"s most experienced journalists covering the Middle East. He has reported from across the Arab world for the past thirty years. His latest book is "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East." He joins us in our Firehouse studio.
By Anne Hull and Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, March 5, 2007; A01
Ray Oliva went into the spare bedroom in his home in Kelseyville, Calif., to wrestle with his feelings. He didn't know a single soldier at Walter Reed, but he felt he knew them all. He worried about the wounded who were entering the world of military health care, which he knew all too well. His own VA hospital in Livermore was a mess. The gown he wore was torn. The wheelchairs were old and broken.
"It is just not Walter Reed," Oliva slowly tapped out on his keyboard at 4:23 in the afternoon on Friday. "The VA hospitals are not good either except for the staff who work so hard. It brings tears to my eyes when I see my brothers and sisters having to deal with these conditions. I am 70 years old, some say older than dirt but when I am with my brothers and sisters we become one and are made whole again."
Oliva is but one quaking voice in a vast outpouring of accounts filled with emotion and anger about the mistreatment of wounded outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system. They describe depressing living conditions for outpatients at other military bases around the country, from Fort Lewis in Washington state to Fort Dix in New Jersey. They tell stories -- their own versions, not verified -- of callous responses to combat stress and a system ill equipped to handle another generation of psychologically scarred vets.
The official reaction to the revelations at Walter Reed has been swift, and it has exposed the potential political costs of ignoring Oliva's 24.3 million comrades -- America's veterans -- many of whom are among the last standing supporters of the Iraq war. In just two weeks, the Army secretary has been fired, a two-star general relieved of command and two special commissions appointed; congressional subcommittees are lining up for hearings, the first today at Walter Reed; and the president, in his weekly radio address, redoubled promises to do right by the all-volunteer force, 1.5 million of whom have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But much deeper has been the reaction outside Washington, including from many of the 600,000 new veterans who left the service after Iraq and Afghanistan. Wrenching questions have dominated blogs, talk shows, editorial cartoons, VFW spaghetti suppers and the solitary late nights of soldiers and former soldiers who fire off e-mails to reporters, members of Congress and the White House -- looking, finally, for attention and solutions.
Several forces converged to create this intense reaction. A new Democratic majority in Congress is willing to criticize the administration. Senior retired officers pounded the Pentagon with sharp questions about what was going on. Up to 40 percent of the troops fighting in Iraq are National Guard members and reservists -- "our neighbors," said Ron Glasser, a physician and author of a book about the wounded. "It all adds up and reaches a kind of tipping point," he said. On top of all that, America had believed the government's assurances that the wounded were being taken care of. "The country is embarrassed" to know otherwise, Glasser said.
The scandal has reverberated through generations of veterans. "It's been a potent reminder of past indignities and past traumas," said Thomas A. Mellman, a professor of psychiatry at Howard University who specializes in post-traumatic stress and has worked in Veterans Affairs hospitals. "The fact that it's been responded to so quickly has created mixed feelings -- gratification, but obvious regret and anger that such attention wasn't given before, especially for Vietnam veterans."
Across the country, some military quarters for wounded outpatients are in bad shape, according to interviews, Government Accountability Office reports and transcripts of congressional testimony. The mold, mice and rot of Walter Reed's Building 18 compose a familiar scenario for many soldiers back from Iraq or Afghanistan who were shipped to their home posts for treatment. Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray similar to Walter Reed's: indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations.
Sandy Karen was horrified when her 21-year-old son was discharged from the Naval Medical Center in San Diego a few months ago and told to report to the outpatient barracks, only to find the room swarming with fruit flies, trash overflowing and a syringe on the table. "The staff sergeant says, 'Here are your linens' to my son, who can't even stand up," said Karen, of Brookeville, Md. "This kid has an open wound, and I'm going to put him in a room with fruit flies?" She took her son to a hotel instead.
"My concern is for the others, who don't have a parent or someone to fight for them," Karen said. "These are just kids. Who would have ever looked in on my son?"
Capt. Leslie Haines was sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for treatment in 2004 after being flown out of Iraq. "The living conditions were the worst I'd ever seen for soldiers," he said. "Paint peeling, mold, windows that didn't work. I went to the hospital chaplain to get them to issue blankets and linens. There were no nurses. You had wounded and injured leading the troops."
Hundreds of soldiers contacted The Washington Post through telephone calls and e-mails, many of them describing their bleak existence in Medhold.
From Fort Campbell in Kentucky: "There were yellow signs on the door stating our barracks had asbestos."
From Fort Bragg in North Carolina: "They are on my [expletive] like a diaper. . . . there are people getting chewed up everyday."
From Fort Dix in New Jersey: "Scare tactics are used against soldiers who will write sworn statement to assist fellow soldiers for their medical needs."
From Fort Irwin in California: "Most of us have had to sign waivers where we understand that the housing we were in failed to meet minimal government standards."
Soldiers back from Iraq worry that their psychological problems are only beginning to surface. "The hammer is just coming down, I can feel it," said retired Maj. Anthony DeStefano of New Jersey, describing his descent into post-traumatic stress and the Army's propensity to medicate rather than talk. When he returned home, Army doctors put him on the antipsychotic drug Seroquel. "That way, you can screw their lights out and they won't feel a thing," he said of patients like himself. "By the time they understand what is going on, they are through the Board and stuck with an unfavorable percentage of disability" benefits.
Nearly 64,000 of the more than 184,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have sought VA health care have been diagnosed with potential symptoms of post-traumatic stress, drug abuse or other mental disorders as of the end of June, according to the latest report by the Veterans Health Administration. Of those, nearly 30,000 have possible post-traumatic stress disorder, the report said.
VA hospitals are also receiving a surge of new patients after more than five years of combat. At the sprawling James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, N.Y., Spec. Roberto Reyes Jr. lies nearly immobile and unable to talk. Once a strapping member of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Reyes got too close to an improvised explosive device in Iraq and was sent to Walter Reed, where doctors did all they could before shipping him to the VA for the remainder of his life. A cloudy bag of urine hangs from his wheelchair. His mother and his aunt are constant bedside companions; Reyes, 25, likes for them to get two inches from his face, so he can pull on their noses with the few fingers he can still control.
Maria Mendez, his aunt, complained about the hospital staff. "They fight over who's going to have to give him a bath -- in front of him!" she said. Reyes suffered third-degree burns on his leg when a nurse left him in a shower unattended. He was unable to move himself away from the scalding water. His aunt found out only later, when she saw the burns.
Among the most aggrieved are veterans who have lived with the open secret of substandard, underfunded care in the 154 VA hospitals and hundreds of community health centers around the country. They vented their fury in thousands of e-mails and phone calls and in chat rooms.
"I have been trying to get someone, ANYBODY, to look into my allegations" at the Dayton VA, pleaded Darrell Hampton.
"I'm calling from Summerville, South Carolina, and I have a story to tell," began Horace Williams, 62. "I'm a Marine from the Vietnam era, and it took me 20 years to get the benefits I was entitled to."
The VA has a backlog of 400,000 benefit claims, including many concerning mental health. Vietnam vets whose post-traumatic stress has been triggered by images of war in Iraq are flooding the system for help and are being turned away.
For years, politicians have received letters from veterans complaining of bad care across the country. Last week, Walter Reed was besieged by members of Congress who toured the hospital and Building 18 to gain first-hand knowledge of the conditions. Many of them have been visiting patients in the hospital for years, but now they are issuing news releases decrying the mistreatment of the wounded.
Sgt. William A. Jones had recently written to his Arizona senators complaining about abuse at the VA hospital in Phoenix. He had written to the president before that. "Not one person has taken the time to respond in any manner," Jones said in an e-mail.
From Ray Oliva, the distraught 70-year-old vet from Kelseyville, Calif., came this: "I wrote a letter to Senators Feinstein and Boxer a few years ago asking why I had to wear Hospital gowns that had holes in them and torn and why some of the Vets had to ask for beds that had good mattress instead of broken and old. Wheel chairs old and tired and the list goes on and on. I never did get a response."
Oliva lives in a house on a tranquil lake. His hearing is shot from working on fighter jets on the flight line. "Gun plumbers," as they called themselves, didn't get earplugs in the late 1950s, when Oliva served with the Air Force. His hands had been burned from touching the skin of the aircraft. All is minor compared with what he later saw at the VA hospital where he received care.
"I sat with guys who'd served in 'Nam," Oliva said. "We had terrible problems with the VA. But we were all so powerless to do anything about them. Just like Walter Reed."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Music video for upcoming film Some Day Fire. Shot at the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. The University is located at the top of Mt. Rasur, a sacred indigenous hill. It was chosen because of a prophecy that suggests a civilization of peace will spread from Mt. Rasur to the entire world. "Rasur" is the name of the indigenous god, a being of light who appeared to village children and told them to look after the earth so that "peace can reign over the land."
, which went to print this week and will be onsale May 1st. I've read it, as I was honored to receive a galley copy, it's a referance book that All Should Read!
