Back to Bataan
The fact that U.S. soldiers are eligible for food stamps is a scandal. We tell prospective soldiers to join the army and be all that they can be. That they’ll receive training, even college degrees. We don’t tell them that while they’re in the army, their pay will be so low that they won’t be able to pay for basic necessities. If private enterprise advertised as deceptively as that, the outcry would very quickly compel adequate compensation.
Remember reading about the “Bataan Death March” of World War II? It was a long time ago but there are still some survivors. I understand that the Veterans’ Administration has instructed its doctors to deny benefits to those survivors on grounds that the privations that aged them twenty years prematurely have nothing to do with their current health problems. Any reputable doctor can explain to you how starvation and extraordinary physical and mental stress will cause or contribute to illness. These survivors of enemy action, even torture, deserve everything that we can do for them now. They emphatically have earned everything that the VA can do for them.
Walter Reed Army Hospital has been found guilty of practicing substandard medicine on our troops wounded in the current war. A new state of the art facility is to be built to replace it. Fine, I applaud the new facility. But the physical plant is not the primary cause of the problem. Neglect is the cause. The present administration has sent clear signals to the military leaders that soldiers wounded too badly to be returned to battle are no longer useful and money is to be spent on the prosecution of the war. To keep sufficient “boots on the ground” to meet the goals of the administration.
The very concept of boots on the ground is demeaning to our soldiers. We must not forget that these men and women are American citizens, with hopes, dreams, families, and lives to live. To call them out of their humanity, to reduce them to “boots,” is disrespectful and despicable. Life is precious, no less so because one is a private soldier than because one is a draft-dodging civilian.
Remember reading about the “Bataan Death March” of World War II? It was a long time ago but there are still some survivors. I understand that the Veterans’ Administration has instructed its doctors to deny benefits to those survivors on grounds that the privations that aged them twenty years prematurely have nothing to do with their current health problems. Any reputable doctor can explain to you how starvation and extraordinary physical and mental stress will cause or contribute to illness. These survivors of enemy action, even torture, deserve everything that we can do for them now. They emphatically have earned everything that the VA can do for them.
Walter Reed Army Hospital has been found guilty of practicing substandard medicine on our troops wounded in the current war. A new state of the art facility is to be built to replace it. Fine, I applaud the new facility. But the physical plant is not the primary cause of the problem. Neglect is the cause. The present administration has sent clear signals to the military leaders that soldiers wounded too badly to be returned to battle are no longer useful and money is to be spent on the prosecution of the war. To keep sufficient “boots on the ground” to meet the goals of the administration.
The very concept of boots on the ground is demeaning to our soldiers. We must not forget that these men and women are American citizens, with hopes, dreams, families, and lives to live. To call them out of their humanity, to reduce them to “boots,” is disrespectful and despicable. Life is precious, no less so because one is a private soldier than because one is a draft-dodging civilian.
posted by Barbara J. Olexer @ 5:40 AM
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