“War hero” McCain voted against healthcare funding for veterans in 2003, ‘04, ‘05, ‘06 and ‘07. Now veterans are confronting him on his record.

When retired Army First Sergeant Wes Davey arrived, in uniform, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul to deliver a letter to fellow veteran John McCain, it didn’t take long for him to be turned away. “They wouldn’t even meet me,” he said later, standing on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol, on what was to be day one of the Republican National Convention. Instead, the 28-year veteran of the Army Reserve and former St. Paul police officer was escorted off the premises.

Davey had come to the site of the RNC along with 60 fellow members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who marched in formation, chanting cadences and leading hundreds of peaceful fellow protesters, including members of Veterans for Peace, Gold Star Families for Peace, and others who came to stand in solidarity with the veterans. Unlike IVAW’s action in Denver a few days earlier, in which they scored a conversation with Obama’s national veterans liaison, Phil Carter, who promised to try to set up a meeting with the campaign to discuss their goals of immediate withdrawal, benefits for veterans, and reparations for the Iraqi people, IVAW’s objectives when it came to McCain were slightly more modest. “We actually chose not to pressure him on the issue of withdrawal,” T.J. Buonomo, one of IVAW’s Philadelphia-based organizers said. “There’s nothing that’s very controversial about the things we were asking. There’s nothing that’s very controversial in asking that people get the discharge they deserve, that people with PTSD not have it held against them.”

More at Alternet

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

By Eli Tate, Kansas delegate (Via FoxNews)

After finishing 10 years of active service in the Air Force last May, I was hungry for change in the level of integrity and ethics in our political leadership. I flew over 250 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’ve seen the results first-hand of the Bush administrations mismanagement of our military forces, their families, and our nation’s resources. Like many veterans, I initially considered John McCain to provide that leadership and honesty. I respect Sen. McCain, his service, and his early political career. But then I looked at his voting record on veterans and military family’s issues. He voted against veterans’ health care in favor of continuing tax breaks for the wealthy. He voted against more funding to allow better health care for the National Guard and Reserves and their families. He recently voted against increasing the GI Bill to ensure combat veterans and their families can obtain competitive education after serving their country. That bill was sponsored by Barack Obama. And it passed despite a Bush veto and McCain’s lack of support.

So I want to ask all veterans to take a hard look at which candidate will do more for veterans, their families, and all active, reserve, and guard forces. And I ask all veterans to consider supporting Barack Obama for President in November. Here are some of the reasons I do.

Read more »

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

His Mama named him right……

Vice President Cheney’s invitation to address wounded combat veterans next month has been yanked because the group felt his security demands were Draconian and unreasonable.

The veep had planned to speak to the Disabled American Veterans at 8:30 a.m. at its August convention in Las Vegas.

His staff insisted the sick vets be sequestered for two hours before Cheney’s arrival and couldn’t leave until he’d finished talking, officials confirmed.

“Word got back to us … that this would be a prerequisite,” said the veterans executive director, David Gorman, who noted the meeting hall doesn’t have any rest rooms. “We told them it just wasn’t acceptable.”

When Cheney spoke to the group in 2004, his handlers imposed the same stringent security lockdown, upsetting members, officials said.

Many of the vets are elderly and left pieces of themselves on foreign battlefields since World War II, and others were crippled by recent service in Iraq and Afghanistan. For health reasons, many can’t be stuck in a room for hours.

“It was a huge imposition on our delegates,” added David Autry, another Disabled American Veterans official.

More here

9 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

From the Sun Sentinel:

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

First he opposes the GI Bill. Now it seems McWarHero (just ask him, he’ll tell ya) doesn’t care much for any veteran who hasn’t seen combat duty.
From the Army Times:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s call to “concentrate” veterans’ health care on those with combat injuries is raising questions about the Arizona senator’s commitment to funding the ailing VA system.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., said a system that treats combat veterans and non-combat veterans differently is inherently unfair. “We can care for both combat veterans and non-combat veterans if we just decide it is an important thing to do,” Filner said Thursday, one day after McCain talked at a Dover, N.H., town hall meeting about the need to concentrate veterans’ health care on people with injuries that “are a direct result of combat.”

“Right now, there are people who drive a long way and they stand in line to stand in line to get an appointment to get an appointment,” McCain said.

Filner agreed veterans are being ill-served by the Veterans Affairs Department, but he disagreed with the idea that only combat veterans deserved attention. “We are not providing adequate health care for combat veterans. We are not providing adequate care for veterans who never saw combat,” Filner said.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, said McCain “appears to want to significantly narrow the number of veterans who can use VA, and that would alarm many veterans.”

9 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

 From SeattlePI:

One former soldier recounted an interrogation of an Iraqi by his fellow combatants so brutal he likened it to “a frat house gang rape.”

Another was still troubled not by his close brushes with death, but by the times he nearly shot innocent Iraqi civilians.

And a third was exasperated and puzzled by being asked to fulfill what he called “ridiculous” orders to harass Iraqi residents and was discouraged to help those in distress. He called the war “immoral and absurd.”

All came together Saturday afternoon at Seattle’s Town Hall to share their troubling and sometimes graphic war stories in the hopes that they will inspire and motivate a largely silent public to call for an end to the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a counterpoint to calls to continue the occupation, nearly a dozen U.S. soldiers, a military wife, the mother of a soldier and a doctor treating veterans with psychiatric problems told their anti-war stories to a respectful audience that filled the hall.

Former Army Sgt. Joshua Simpson served in Mosul with an intelligence team trying to get information about insurgent forces attacking Americans.

“Ninety-five percent of the people we arrested had nothing to do with the insurgency, but we were still told to interrogate them,” Simpson told the crowd.

He’d scream and yell at the prisoners, sometimes reducing them to tears or self abuse such as hitting their heads repeatedly against the wall. He saw prisoners horribly bruised and bloodied by Iraqi interrogators. He wants the war to end.

“We need to support the troops who refuse to fight,” Simpson said.

Read more »

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

Crossposted from Blue Bloggin(an awesome blog):
by Bosskitty

Veterans Administration Bars Voter Registration Drives for Wounded Soldiers

On April 25, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued Directive 2008-023, “Voting Assistance for VA Patients,” allowing voter registration drives in VA hospitals, only to reverse itself on May 5 with Directive 2008-025. Without registration drives, it appears that each veteran will have to request support individually, placing the burden on veterans who are staying in hospitals, long-term care facilities, or nursing homes. Litigation on the issue is pending.

VA Has Opposed Voter Registration Drives for Months

The VA’s latest rejection of voter registration drives follows months of determined opposition by the VA in response to calls for the agency to help veterans vote. Kerry and Feinstein had earlier requested that the VA be designated a “voter registration agency” under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) - also known as the “Motor Voter Act.” The Act requires states to offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance, services to the disabled, and motor vehicle registration services.

Read more »

3 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

When will this madness end?

Aren’t things supposed to be going better in Iraq? Actually, I haven’t heard a whole lot about the war in recent weeks. The Clinton / Obama duke-out has pretty much been given top billing by the media.

AP IMPACT: Number of disabled veterans rising

WASHINGTON (AP) — Increasing numbers of U.S. troops have left the military with damaged bodies and minds, an ever-larger pool of disabled veterans that will cost the nation billions for decades to come - even as the total population of America’s vets shrinks.

1 CommentEmail Post Toggle Meta

Our troops deserve better than this! For all his talk, you would think McCain would know better. This is so tragic.

I really thought John McCain was a better man than this. But he’s no different than your typical republican scum. These men will continue to suffer… to do without… in the name of shitty republican politics. These people make me so sick.

GI bill sparks Senate war

From Annapolis to Vietnam and back to the Pentagon, John McCain and Jim Webb trod the same paths before coming to the Senate. Iraq divides them today, but there’s also the new kinship of being anxious fathers watching their sons come and go with Marine units in the war.

So what does it say about Washington that two such men, with so much in common, are locked in an increasingly intense debate over a shared value: education benefits for veterans? [...]

“There are fundamental differences,” McCain told Politico. “He creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven-t been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate.”

“He’s so full of it,” Webb said in response. “I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this.”

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

Bush and his friends could learn something from these guys. Kudos to these veterans.

. - Bullets whizzed past as “Sarah” translated for U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Shrapnel from a roadside blast hit her protective vest. In her off hours, she worried about retribution for helping the Americans. A sign reading “traitor” was posted on her family’s door.

“I survived by chance,” she said.

Now, she is in the United States under a visa program for Iraqis who have aided the U.S. military, and she is being helped by a network of Iraq veterans who try to make sure those new immigrants make a soft landing in this country.

Mathew Tully, an Albany-area lawyer who served in Iraq as a National Guard major, volunteered along with his wife to take in Sarah until she gets settled in a new culture and carves out a new life.

He didn’t know Sarah in Iraq, but he feels a sense of duty.

“There’s nobody else out there to help Sarah,” Tully said. “When you’re confronted with the fact that there’s somebody a half a world away who has no place to go when they get off the plane at JFK, I don’t know how as a good American, as a good Christian, I could turn her away.”

More at Yahoo

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

In 1971, a courageous group of veterans exposed the criminal nature of the Vietnam War in an event called Winter Soldier. Once again, we will demand that the voices of veterans are heard.

Once again, we are fighting for the soul of our country. We will demonstrate our patriotism by speaking out with honor and integrity instead of blindly following failed policy. Winter Soldier is a difficult but essential service to our country.

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

The four-day event will bring together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, there will be panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists to give context to the testimony. These panels will cover everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans’ health benefits and support.

Go here to learn where you can go to listen and watch.

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta

God bless him. It’s so nice he’s alive to attend this event…..and be honored.

They once numbered in the tens of thousands. Today, their numbers have dwindled to just two. But U.S. veterans of The Great War, “The war to end all wars,” are not being forgotten.

They will be honored at the Pentagon on Thursday with the unveiling of portraits of World War I veterans made by photographer David DeJonge.

Defense Robert M. Gates will host the unveiling ceremony at 12:45 p.m. in the Pentagon Auditorium.

DeJonge, who is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., began documenting veterans in 1996. In 2006, he began a project to photograph America’s last surviving veterans of WWI, the Pentagon said today in a press release.

DeJonge partnered with the Department of Veterans Affairs and located and photographed the last known surviving WWI veterans. He has donated his portrait collection to the Pentagon.

Within weeks of their portrait sessions, five of the nine WWI Veterans died. They ranged in age from 105 to 110 and served in the Army and Navy. Today, there are only two known surviving WWI veterans.

• John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., served for Canada in WWI and later in the U.S. Army in the 1940s. He became an American citizen in 1946.

• Frank Woodruff Buckles, who lives in Charles Town, W. Va., joined the Army in 1914 at age 15. He served in England, France and Germany during WWI, assigned to the 1st Fort Riley Casual Detachment. He later served in the Pacific Theater during WWII and was held as a civilian prisoner of war at Los Banos, Philippines.

A native of Harrison County, Mo., Buckles, now 107, will be the guest of honor at Thursday’s event.

He is one of many veterans featured in “Experiencing War,” part of the Veterans History Project at The Library of Congress.

“It’s best for anyone who’s been in the military service if he’s had some disagreeable experiences … to talk about it and get it out of his system and then forget it,” he said in an audio interview for the project.

Read more »

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

I’ve been watching and watching in the hopes they will find Eric Hall alive and well. This is the first news I’ve seen ………

An underground spiderhole discovered off Loveland Boulevard in Port Charlotte Monday is believed to have been the temporary shelter of a missing disabled former Marine.

Ret. Army Sgt. 1st Class Tim Baker said he believes the shelter was used as recently as Monday morning, suggesting 24-year-old Eric W. Hall may not be far away.

Hall fled from his aunt’s Deep Creek home Feb. 3, apparently from phantom enemies during a flashback. Monday’s discovery is a sign to the search party and members of Hall’s family that the Iraq War veteran remains in the area.

Led by a bloodhound, Ret. Army Sgt. 1st Class Tim Baker and the Southwest Florida K-9 Search Unit scoped out the makeshift campsite they said was created with military training experience within the last two to three days. The scent given to the bloodhound, Clark, from a shirt confirmed that the Marine was at the location.

Baker said he believed Hall was at the site, located near Harold Avenue Park, as recently as Monday morning.

The spiderhole was dug in the ground with a rake, and was covered by dirt-covered plywood panels taken on each side to provide the inhabitant discreet view of the surroundings. Between the plywood covers was a large sleeping area, covered with a plastic truck bed liner.

Near the spiderhole were a “cat hole,” or toilet dug in the ground downwind from the sleeping area, and an unused fire pit with pinecones and papers.

More at the Sun Herald

2 CommentsEmail Post Toggle Meta

The Edwards campaign has put out a hilarious, on-target spot with great editing/timing about the lastest round of the media blackout he’s consistently faced (via Greg Sargent, who has some good thoughts, as usual).

What blackout is that? Greg Sargent passes on this helpful graphic:
Read more »

1 CommentEmail Post Toggle Meta

Roger Chapin, founder of Help Hospitalized Veterans, one of the country’s largest veterans charities, is expected to testify today before a congressional committee on questionable spending practices.

Between 1997 and 2005, the charity paid $3.8 million in salary and benefits to Chapin and his wife and spent more than $200 million on fundraising and public education campaigns, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal tax filings. The public records also show that the charity awarded at least $19 million in contracts during that period to companies owned by Richard A. Viguerie, a prominent conservative political commentator and advertising consultant based in Virginia.

Why is it, when I read an sickening article like this, I’m assured ninety-nine percent of the time there’s a “compassionate conservative” involved?

“We’re talking about an individual that has tried to duck the committee; he refused to testify voluntarily. It appears he has something to hide, and if you look at his past operations, there are very good reasons to be suspicious about his activities,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), a committee member, said in an interview.

Van Hollen said the committee wants to find a way to distinguish between charities that truly serve veterans and those “committing fraud against the public.”

Mr. Hollen, I think clear distinction can be found in this case.

Leave a ReplyEmail Post Toggle Meta