Why does the Obama administration treat our
military veterans like human garbage? Every year on Memorial Day and
Veterans Day, Barack Obama and our other politicians make very nice
speeches, but the truth about how they feel about our veterans can be seen
in how they are treated every single day. In the United States today, there
are well over half a million veterans that have been waiting for at least
125 days to have their benefit claims processed. Many of them will
ultimately have their claims sent back or denied just so a government
employee somewhere can get a bigger bonus. Meanwhile, conditions at VA
facilities all over the country are absolutely abysmal, and many veterans
have to wait more than half a year just to get an appointment at one of
those facilities. Once you start looking into how this country really
treats military veterans, it becomes easier to understand why 22 military
veterans commit suicide in America every single day. Our vets have a higher
rate of unemployment, a higher rate of poverty, a higher rate of
homelessness, a higher rate of depression and a higher rate of divorce then
the general population. It is a crying shame. One of the ways that any
society is judged is by how it treats military veterans, and the truth is
that America has failed miserably. This has been particularly true since
Barack Obama has been in the White House.The following are 25 signs that military
veterans are being treated like absolute trash under the Obama
administration1. The average claim for veteran benefits takes
more than half a year to be processed.2. The Department of Veterans Affairs has a
backlog of
more than half a million overdue claims for benefits that are at least
125 days old.3. In 2009, the number of veterans that had been
waiting for more than a year to have their benefits approved was
11,000. Today, that number has soared to
245,000.4. Thousands upon thousands of military veterans
that are waiting for their claims to be processed are dealing with
absolutely horrible injuriesOf those who have sought VA care:
More than 1,600 of them lost a limb; many
others lost fingers or toes. At least 156 are blind, and thousands of
others have impaired vision. More than 177,000 have hearing loss, and
more than 350,000 report tinnitus noise or ringing in the ears. Thousands are disfigured, as many as 200
of them so badly that they may need face transplants. One-quarter of
battlefield injuries requiring evacuation included wounds to the face or
jaw, one study found.5. At one VA hospital in Wisconsin, one military
veteran with a broken jaw that was seeking treatment still had not had his
jaw fixed
after a month and a half.6. Today, it takes military vets an average
of seven months to get an appointment at a VA facility.7. Many VA facilities are in absolutely horrific
condition. A while back, ABC News conducted an investigation of conditions
at VA facilities across the United States. What ABC News discovered was
absolutely shocking. The following are just a few of the things that they
found
during the course of their investigation*Bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human
excrement*Dirty linens from some patients mixed in with
clean supplies*Examining tables that had dried blood and
medications still on them*Equipment used to sterilize surgical
instruments that had broken down*Some patients were forced to beg for food and
water*Veterans that were neglected so badly that they
developed horrific bedsores and dangerous infections8. As I have written about
previously, applying for veteran benefits is extremely complicated, and
VA employees are actually paid bonuses for denying claimsThe truth is that we have made it extremely
difficult for our military veterans to claim the benefits that we have
promised them. Vets have to fill out an absurdly complicated 23 page
application and if they make even one small mistake their applications
can be stonewalled for years. The U.S. Veterans Administration
actually has a policy under which they pay large bonuses to employees
that meet certain application processing goals. This explains why
approximately 70% of the claims submitted to the Veterans
Administration are refused or sent back to be redone. In fact,
using the Freedom of Information Act, one
local NBC station was able to learn that $250,000 was paid in
bonuses to VA employees who work inside the Poff Federal Building in
Roanoke, Virginia in just one year alone.9. Large numbers of military veterans that
legitimately should be getting benefits are having their claims denied by
the federal government. Just check out the following example from a
Veterans Today articleIn one case, we found a veteran with 40
percent of his brain removed found to be healthy and employable. He was
also missing his right arm. The physician who examined him over looked
the arm and failed to note the cognitive degeneration the traumatic
brain injury had caused.10. Last year,
more than 85,000 military veterans were treated for sexual abuse that
they suffered while serving in the military. 40 percent of them were men.11. According to a recent Defense Department
survey,
approximately 14,000 men in the U.S. military were sexually assaulted by
other men during 2012.12. According to
the Washington Post, there is an epidemic of sexual assaults being
committed by military recruiters. The Pentagon is pledging to do something
about the problemThe secretary has made it clear that we
will spare no effort to rid our military of sexual abuse, said George
Little, the Pentagon press secretary. The fact that there have been
problems of sexual abuse during the recruiting process is simply
intolerable.13. The number of active members of the U.S.
military that are killing themselves
now exceeds the number that are dying on the battlefield.14. Since the beginning of the Iraq War,
twice as many members of the Texas National Guard have killed themselves
as have been killed in combat.15. According to
one recent study, 22 military veterans kill themselves in the United
States every single day.16. At this point, combat veterans account for
about 20 percent of all suicides in the United States.17. The unemployment rate for military veterans
is
significantly higher than for the population as a whole. This is
especially true for younger veterans.18. On any given night, approximately
200,000 military veterans are homeless in the United States.19. All over America, monuments that honor
military veterans are crumbling and falling apart. For much more on this,
please seethis article.
20. Under the Obama administration, many
military veterans have had to pay to have their medals shipped to them. For
example, one soldier actually had to pay a 21 dollar shipping fee to get his
Purple Heart. The following is from
the Huffington PostWar comes with an incalculable human cost.
And apparently a shipping fee of about $21.Retired Sgt. Major Rob Dickerson says thats
the price he was forced to pay when his Purple Heart the medal issued
to soldiers wounded in action arrived at his door, C.O.D.Instead of being awarded the military honor
in a formal ceremony, the vet with 29 years in the service was handed
his award, and a shipping invoice, by a FedEx deliveryman outside his
Sioux Falls, S.D., home.21. In some areas of the country the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs
has been caught banning the words God and Jesus during funeral
services for veterans.22. Today, the federal government provides end
of life literature to veterans that helps them to determine when their
lives are no
longer worth livingYour Life, Your Choices presents
end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward
predetermined conclusions, much like a political push poll. For
example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users
to then decide whether their own life would be not worth living.The circumstances listed include ones common
among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a
wheelchair and not being able to shake the blues. There is a section
which provocatively asks, Have you ever heard anyone say, If Im a
vegetable, pull the plug? There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such
as I can no longer contribute to my familys well being, I am a
severe financial burden on my family and that the vets situation
causes severe emotional burden for my family.When the government can
steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not
worth living, who needs a death panel?23. One study discovered that approximately
one-third of all military veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq
were officially determined to be mentally ill by government officials.24. All over America, mental illness is being
used as a reason
to take guns away from military veterans.25. The federal government is increasingly
labeling military veterans as potential domestic terrorists if they
express viewpoints that are critical of the government. The following is
from a recent article
by John WhiteheadMaking matters worse, thanks to
Operation Vigilant Eagle, a program launched by the Department of
Homeland Security in 2009, military veterans returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan are also being characterized as extremists and potential
domestic terrorist threats because they may be disgruntled,
disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war. As a
result, these servicemen and womenmany of whom are decoratedare
finding themselves under surveillance, threatened with incarceration or
involuntary commitment, or arrested, all for daring to voice their
concerns about the alarming state of our union and the erosion of our
freedoms.An important point to consider, however, is
that the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing
their discontent so much as it is locking up individuals trained in
military warfare who are voicing feelings of discontent. Under the guise
of mental-health treatment and with the complicity of government
psychiatrists and law-enforcement officials, these veterans are
increasingly being portrayed as ticking time bombs in need of
intervention.Are you upset yet?
You should be.
The way that the federal government is treating
military veterans is absolutely shameful.Do you have a story that illustrates how our
military veterans are being abused?If so, please feel free to share it by posting a
comment below