A Slow Song

Jim, Lisa, Pappy (2006)

Passion has helped us, but can do so no more.
It will in the future be our enemy.
Reason -- sold,  calculating, unimpassioned reason -- 
must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense
--Abraham Lincoln

Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song
--Killing Me Softly, Roberta Flack

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose
--To An Athlete Dying Young, A. E. Housman
______________

There are times when sadness overpowers me, and my center aches and rolls in anguish. Such was the evening of 11/06, when the past interested with the present.

My old friend called, a man that fought in three wars as a combat Infantryman, fought blistering sun, freezing temperatures seemingly beyond human endurance and faced and escaped death on hundreds of occasions. His business was dealing death from a rifle, and it was my pleasure to serve with him both overseas and stateside. He taught me more about soldiering than did any Army school, this man who was the very definition of a soldier.

During his tour in the Republic of Vietnam he earned the Distinguished Service Cross while with the 101st Airborne Division. While there, he was exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange, and his cancer was presumed to be acquired in the service to his country and the Army.

About six years ago he underwent several operations to treat complications from his abdominal wounds received in the Korean War, the result of shrapnel inflicted by North Korean tanks. Later, his prostate cancer was treated by the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Memphis, where he underwent a radioactive seeding procedure.

Three months ago he was operated on by a specialist outside of the DVA system who told him the cancer had spread to his bladder, and the the pellets had "burned" his intestines. His bladder is now history, and his condition less-than optimal.

The news is currently full of the killings at Ft. Hood, but it is a fact that my friend is every bit the victim as are any of those shooting victims. However, his story will never make it to any news report. He is being slowly killed by a system that discards soldiers after they cease to be useful.

Would any President, Vice President or congressman suffer similar indignities to their bodies without an ensuing hue and cry of "injustice!" My friend did everything and more that was ever asked of him, and this is his thanks. My sorrow is not for the poor treatment alone, but for a nation that allows such indignities to be inflicted upon them.

When Ranger hears his old friend struggling for breath over a telephone connection, it becomes evident that the parade has passed him by. It will be one of the hardest things I've done in my life to visit this man knowing that his passing will take a part of me with him.

Ranger is bitter and filled with tears that cannot flow, and if he were to walk away from these facts, then he would be less than the man who once walked with heroes. I do not believe in an afterlife, but men like this one must go somewhere better than where we are now.

Nuts

I hang onto my prejudices,
they are the testicles of my mind
--Eric Hoffer

NUTS!
--General McAuliffe,
on German request for surrender

If your testicles are crushed, or your male member missing,
you must never enter a sanctuary of the Lord
--Deuteronomy 23:1
_______________

So, Ranger could properly quote the Bible if he ever needed to get out of church duty.

In yet another We Support the Troops initiative (Not) comes Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David Chu's rejiggering of the standards for Combat-Related injuries, which disqualifies thousands of disabled veterans from receiving certain benefits, like Combat-Related Special Compensation.

His decision will also require many disabled service members to "repay their military disability severance pay before they could receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs." (Pentagon Narrows Combat-Related Definition.) Unsurprisingly, the Department of Defense has adopted Mr. Chu's reconfiguring of the Congressional mandate as it will result in a reduced disability compensation load form the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"Contrary to the 2088 Defense Authorization Act, in which Congress defined disability as combat-related if it resulted from service in a combat zone or performance of duty in combat-realted operations, Chu argued that the DoD 'endorsed the premise that the benefit for those hurt in combat should be more robust than for members with disabilities incurred in other situations (e.g. simulation of war, instrumentality of war or participation in hazards not related to combat).'"

According to Chu, if a disability results not "as a disease or injury incurred in the line of duty as a direct result of armed combat," such affected service members will be remunerated at a considerably "less robust" rate.

The DAV claims Chu has "(D)isregarded the broader intent of Congress," through eliminated disability resulting from hazardous service, duty under conditions simulating war or disability incurred through an instrumentality or war incurred outside of a combat zone as "combat-related" injuries. As a result, these disabled veterans are no longer eligible for their CRSC as mandated by Congress.

This issue affects Ranger, who has been riding the merry-go-round for years with Officer in Charge Fred Sissons of the Army's CRSC determination board. Only after pursuing congressional channels was Ranger able to receive his CRSC.

The administrative battle was distasteful and contrary to the spirit and intent of the law. Congress honored combat-related disabled vets by awarding CRSC, but then the Army creates a jungle-like maze one must wade through in order to receive the special compensation.

The other services have different interpretations of the regulations, resulting in application and qualifying procedures which are more liberal than those of the Army. DoD lacks a comprehensive approach to qualification for these funds, as each branch controls its own program. For instance, Chu's new guidelines for the Army disqualify combat-related training injuries from CRSC application, yet more servicemen are training-injured than combat-wounded.

In Ranger's case, he was injured in the Republic of Vietnam in a STABO rig accident. He suffered a crushed testicular artery and left testicle practicing jungle combat extractions in a 1970 field exercise. This was a practice exercise, in country, and Ranger was Infantry, Special Forces and drawing combat pay. The injury was surgically treated in the 24th evac hospital. But today's CRSC reps say this service-connected disability is not combat-related.

The problem in applying for the CRSC is a Catch-22: CRSC requires "combat-relatedness," however, this term does not exist in the pantheon of DVA terminology. The VA uses only the term "service-connected," as required by law.

38 years ago Ranger lacked the presence of mind and forethought to ask the doctor to put in the medical record, "combat-related." The Army didn't care how Ranger was injured, they simply operated to alleviate the problem. Today, my left nut is service-connected but not combat-related.

Now that's really nuts.

Cadmean Victory

Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets.
So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine
--Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (1992)

"Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog.
Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh!
There's so little hope for advancement."
--Snoopy
________________

The White House threatens to veto the current Iraq funding bill, saying the "add-ons for veterans and the unemployed were unacceptable." Compassionate conservatism at work for you.

In a budget proposal of $195 billion, $162.5 billion was allocated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to keep them funded into 2009.

Our own North Florida Representative Allen Boyd (D), Vietnam vet and Combat Infantry Badge-holder, is a leader of the "Blue Dog coalition," a group of conservative House democrats objecting to --

"the creation of a program that would guarantee veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan a year of in-state college tuition for each year served in the war zones. The Blue Dogs said the House had not found any additional money, through spending cuts or tax increases, to pay for the program, a violation of pay-as-you-go rules imposed by House Democrats in early 2007 ("Blue Dog Democrats Join GOP in Opposing War Bill.")

So these Blue Dog Democrats, Republican in all but name alone, cannot see fit to fund a meager proposal like 1 year war zone service = 1 year college? If four years in a combat zone is what it takes to earn a college degree, Ranger wouldn't want to go to school that badly.

The Blue Dogs have qualms about extending education benefits due to lack of funds, but they have no such qualms about financing the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) in Iraq and Afghanistan with deficit spending.

The message is loud and clear: deficit spending and emergency funding for phony, feel-good elective wars is automatically enacted, while anything favoring veterans once repatriated is hard-fought and hard-won, if won at all.

Why must veterans issues be so politicized? Have the veterans not earned their place at the federal feed trough? Ranger believes they have. Moreover, their needs should take priority over those of Iraq and Afghanistan.

If we want a better, more competitive society, we need a better-educated citizenry. That was the great success at home following WWII -- the veterans who availed themselves of the GI Bill upon their return, contributing to their society rather than proving a burden upon it. We need that same vision today.

Spend our deficit dollars on veterans; we know they are faithful and true Americans. The Afghanis and Iraqis have done nothing to earn our respect or our dollars.

For shame Allen Boyd and any other veteran legislator who denies education benefits in favor of continuance of these wasteful hostilities.

The Blue Dogs may tout their fiscal responsibility, but they are morally bankrupt.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

___________

George W. Bush is Little Nemo, and like Flip's hat says -- "Wake up."

To all the ooorah patriots who would accuse a dissenting voice of not being patriotic, scan some recent articles in your own fraternal organizations' magazines. There is an unusual groundswell of protest afoot.

In the November/December Purple Heart Magazine, a sturdy protest from Dr. Thomas Dimitry against inadequate funding for the medical needs of returning troops. Following is an excerpt:

"For the men and women who have sacrificed so much, more must be given. A nation that has accepted one's service must not neglect those disabled in that service. Every veteran receiving VA compensation at the 100% rating (total and permanent) should receive at least $5,000 per month in compensation, with yearly increases equal to the inflation rate plus one or two percentage points. Perhaps a more equitable payment would be one-half of the salary paid to members of Congress. After all, they are the ones that vote for war and conflict and Veterans benefits.

"Dreams are shattered, lives broken, fear and anxiety rule. Veterans, spouses, children, parents and families pay a horrendous price for the pain and suffering from disease and physical and mental trauma that does not go away and increases with age."

"The issue is not money, because money is available to continue a conflict and to maintain and build weapons systems. The cost of one B-1 Lancer bomber is over $280 million or about the cost of some war games that would pay for 20 years of benefits for the 100% disabled veterans. Billions of dollars are found for foreign aid, and a fraction of the money would provide for a lifetime of benefits."

". . .Freedom is not free. The cost of war is long-term and must never be incurred if those few, those very few, that sacrifice so much for so many are not cared for physically, mentally and financially.

"Freedom would then be but words in the wind."

We are not the only ones. If you feel like critical review is heresy, don't look to your formerly blindly patriotic rags for confirmation. Protest is in the wind there, too.

Unctious Piosity

If you are interested in a brief and well-done etiology of the mess that is the current Veterans Administration, please see this must-read by Aaron Glantz (frequent reporter from the Iraq war), "Letting Our Veteran's Down." [This piece ran at Truthdig; Glantz runs the website War Comes Home www.warcomeshome.org]

In it, he discusses the Bush administration's politicization of the VA, and the appointments of such toadies as Undersecretary Daniel Cooper.

"(T)he head of the Veterans Benefits Administration, Undersecretary Daniel Cooper—the main point-person in charge of processing those claims—made his priorities clear in a fund-raising video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, in which he proclaimed that Bible study was “more important than doing my job."

To the wounded and suffering returning veterans who wait for their claims to be dealt with, Cooper's shamelessly blatant piosity doesn't amount to a hill of beans.