Back in th U.S.A.

Soon we will be done
Trouble of the world
How soon we will be done
--Trouble of the World,
Mahalia Jackson

Poor souls that live within the past
where sorrow plays all parts,
for a living death is all that's left
for men with broken hearts
--Men With Broken Hearts,
Hank Williams, Jr.
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What happens to seriously wounded soldiers after the Department of Defense (DoD) dumps them on the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) doorstep, like so many newly-orphaned Nebraskan children?

Due to better medical technology, veterans are surviving more serious injuries. "In 2007, the Dole-Shalala Commission said there were 3,000 service members so severely injured that they required full-time clinical- and care-management services" (Veterans Families Seek Aid for Caregiver Role.)

While the DVA provides home health care for 100% disabled veterans, the health care contractors on the government-provided lists can be "awful" according to Tracy Keil, whose husband, Staff Sgt. Matt Keil, was rendered a quadriplegic after being shot in the neck while on patrol in Ramadi. Mrs. Keil quit her $58,000 accounting job to care full-time for her husband. Like many others who have shifted into full-time health care providers for family members, Keil is asking for government remuneration for her services.

It is not that nobody in the chain of command or the DVA cares or that they are callous, but rather the system is just overwhelmed. Vets are just another problem needing to be solved, in a world of problems. The vets most in need are the ones least able to argue for their own care needs.

They are helpless in a world of phony yellow ribbons and little flag lapel pins. Many are not fortunate enough to have family members to whom they may return, and who may or may not be able to take over their care needs.

When Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake said Bob Dole's mother "quit everything she was doing and came to take care of him at the hospital, no questions asked. That’s not the case anymore" -- just so. The care of these severely disabled vets is a governmental, not a family, responsibility.

These vets walk a tightrope of despair as do their families, while we as a nation continue to revel in the distractions of the moment. The issue is money, and if the DVA would compensate contractor care, then they should compensate family members who become de facto caregivers in their stead.

"In the last session of Congress, families and veterans groups persuaded lawmakers to introduce legislation that, among other things, would allow families of soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI) to be paid for their caretaking after training and certification by the VA." The VA, however, opposes the legislation it claims due to liability issues.

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), thinks the families of veterans "are kind of being taken advantage of” because the government knows they will do the work anyway.

DVA respite care (24-hour institutional care) costs $857 a day, or about $25,700 a month. This is $308,400 per patient per year. If 3,000 wounded veterans need full-time care, the total is $925,200,000. $925 million -- almost one billion dollars for the annual care of 3,000 profoundly wounded service members.

These men will live on for many years. That is a guaranteed yearly tab -- where is that cost factored in to the expense of having national warriors?

Who is talking about this "collateral" cost of war? When is the last time anyone out there visited a DVA long-term care facility and actually talked to a vet? How many politicians talk to vets any time other than when they are posturing for votes?

This country has a moral, legal and financial responsibility to wounded veterans. The tab's coming due.