Tepublicans to Military Veterans: Shove It!!

Add in vitter trying to block the VA budget in the Senate {below} and the tepubs are continuing their decades long obstruction of Veterans Issues while laying blame constantly on the VA and their supporters love that, including veterans among them!!

Since the 110th congress and with Gen. Shinseki in they've been trying to play catchup with What Wasn't Done Nor Mentioned in the 108th and 9th while they rubber stamped two more wars of choice and with Still No Demand from the Country as to their own Sacrifice now over a decade, added to the previous decades!!

I'm sure though they still have a supply of those 'purple heart bandages' they so enjoyed, pointed directly at us in-country Navy personal, while sending those troops into these two conflicts!!

July 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Sooner or later, some senator or congressman was going to target benefits earned by veterans," said John Rowan, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). "It seems that Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) is the one who has taken aim and fired."

Senator Coburn, a medical doctor with a well-earned reputation as a fiscal conservative, has offered an amendment to H.R. 2055, the Military Construction and Veterans' Affairs and related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012. His amendment would require proof of a "causal relationship" rather than a "positive association" of certain illnesses to Agent Orange exposure. "If enacted, this measure will significantly restrict Agent Orange benefits and care. VVA vigorously opposes this amendment," Rowan said.

"This measure is wrong-headed. It is out of touch with science and with the intent of the Agent Orange Act of 1991. It attempts to undo two decades of policy. Currently, veterans are presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange if they served 'boots-on-the-ground' in Vietnam and, in some instances, along the demilitarized zone in Korea," Rowan said. "If they develop certain maladies that the VA Secretary has determined, on the basis of sound scientific and epidemiological research, that a positive association exists between the exposure and the occurrence of the disease, they are entitled to health-care and disability compensation."

"Congress, in part, settled on this mechanism because it was nearly impossible for Vietnam veterans to prove that their exposure to Agent Orange caused their health conditions, many of which are ultimately fatal," Rowan said. "Requiring a causal relationship, which is well nigh impossible to demonstrate, would essentially mean that benefits due to Agent Orange exposure would be out of reach for Vietnam veterans." read more>>>

Jul. 20, 2011 - Anthony Taylor made what he believes could be his last plea for help. The 60-year-old Vietnam veteran, who says he was exposed to Agent Orange overseas and to contaminated water at home, wants someone to help him pay his bills, pay for the 26 pills he takes daily, pay for anything to make his life easier.

"The reason I'm here today is I'm here to talk before I die," the wheelchair-bound Holly Springs man told a panel looking into contaminated water at Camp Lejeune. " ... I drank water up and down Camp Lejeune. ... Give us some dignity. Stop saying I'm a veteran and don't do nothing for me."

Taylor spoke Wednesday at the close of the 20th meeting of the community assistance panel investigating water contamination at Camp Lejeune that may have poisoned as many as 1 million people until the wells were shut down more than 20 years ago. His words gave an emotional end to a meeting that focused on a health survey and the science of water modeling.

He said he suffers from several illnesses, including glaucoma and heart disease, which his doctor attributes to the contaminated water. Other illnesses may be attributable to Agent Orange exposure, but he said he's been unable to get the veterans' benefits he deserves. read more>>>

Our esteem friend, the vitter, must be back to visiting his local house of ill repute!!

He is though doin what tepubs have always done, and the country loves, for decades now, obstructing the VA budget then switching to blaming the VA, reason them tepubs love themselves purple heart bandages!!

07/20/11 - The Senate voted 69-30 on Wednesday to table an amendment offered by Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) that would have killed the Veterans Affairs (VA) funding bill.

Vitter wanted to stop the bill because the Senate has yet to pass a budget for 2012. He argued it makes no sense to move spending measures without a budget framework approved by the Senate.

"The point this amendment makes is a pretty simple but basic and important one, said Vitter from the floor on Tuesday. We don't have a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2012. We're in the process of passing an appropriation bill with this bill, spending money without a budget, without a game plan, without a framework.

"That's clearly putting the cart before the horse and clearly having things backwards in a dysfunctional process," Vitter said. read more

Wonder how this: We don't have a concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2012. We're in the process of passing an appropriation bill with this bill, spending money without a budget, without a game plan, without a framework. fits in to the cost of their wars of choice, over All these years, ideology!

Howard Simpson, a U.S. Army veteran, shows off a 1969 picture from Life magazine that shows him standing behind entertainer Bob Hope in Vietnam. At right is Garrett Miller, of the U.S. Navy, who helped Simpson, a former sergeant, shop for new clothes at Stand Down. Peggy Peattie

July 18, 2011 - A record 1,003 homeless veterans in search of help getting off the streets attended the 24th annual Stand Down event over the weekend.

Last year, 947 people checked in at the athletic fields of San Diego High School for the activity, which brings together groups that assist veterans and the homeless in one location for three days.

Here's the original story. read more>>>

July 20, 2011 The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor has released an online publication that will help community service providers aid homeless women veterans, Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said today.

Solis addressed an audience of several hundred at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Theater on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.

Where we're falling short in meeting the challenge of service women is when they come home, Solis said.

Too many women who once wore our uniform now go to sleep in our streets, she added. It breaks my heart to see that because many of them are sick [and] in need of help, and many are hungry. And it isn't just them -- some of them have children.

The publication, called Trauma-Informed Care for Women Veterans Experiencing Homelessness: A Guide for Service Providers, also known as the Trauma Guide, is the result of nationwide listening sessions with women veterans and service providers about the challenges of homelessness.

Women now make up 20 percent of new recruits, 14 percent of the military and 18 percent of the National Guard and Reserve.

Women represent only 8 percent of veterans, according to the guide, but they are at a four-times-greater risk of homelessness than their nonveteran male counterparts. read more>>>

Trauma-Informed Care for Women Veterans Experiencing Homelessness: A Guide for Service Providers, also known as the Trauma Guide, was created to address the psychological and mental health needs of women veterans. The guide is also a compilation of best practices aimed at improving effectiveness in engaging female veterans. Written for service providers, the guide offers observational knowledge and concrete guidelines for modifying practices with the goal of increasing re-entry outcomes.

Trauma-Informed Care for Women Veterans Experiencing Homelessness includes: read more>>>

We still have to occupation theaters ongoing and yet Nobody has Sacrificed in this population for now over a decade, the bush said "go shopping" as his base as he called them, the extremely wealthy, not only received huge tax cuts as we were sending the soldiers into both they got extended at the beginning of the year. All the while they, either directly or indirectly, through investments, were reaping huge profits off both wars even creating new multi millionaires, think Blackwater/Xe and other no bid off the budget, till a couple of years back, and on the credit card contracts.

Soldiers, as their families wait at home, are still being killed and maimed and nobody is demanding 'Sacrifice', especially the corporate funded and controlled so called TEA Party who's membership of phony mad citizens came from the masses cheering on both wars and supported all that came with. Just today we get these notifications from the DoD:

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died July 18 in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their convoy with an improvised explosive device. They were assigned to the 131st Transportation Company, 213th Area Support Group, Williamstown, Pa.

Killed were:

Staff Sgt. Kenneth R. Vangiesen, 30, of Erie, Pa.

Sgt. Edward W. Koehler, 47, of Lebanon, Pa.

Sgt. Brian K. Mowery, 49, of Halifax, Pa.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Cpl. Raphael R. Arruda, 21, of Ogden, Utah, died July 16 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 416th Theater Engineer Command, Ogden, Utah.