The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 11)

This move by Bush has given the anti-war and anti-American types free reign to ramp up their movements at warp speed. This told the majority of regular Americans that they did not have to worry about our warrior's welfare or about the proliferation of cut and run Dems and their supporters here at home. I would argue that the only counteracting force on the support for our warriors front, has been the hard core horde of citizens (myself included) who refuse to let our warriors suffer the treatment that was handed their predecessors in the years of the Viet Nam era.

Bush had the opportunity to ask America to join him on a war footing until the scourge of Islamic Jihadism was beaten. I maintain that we would have responded positively. I believe that we would have also responded positively to a move to tax ourselves to pay for the ramped up military/national defense connected bill.

p>The Bush administration better dang well fix this crisis in the medical treatment and support system for our wounded warriors and their families. There are a whole bunch of us watching, and pay back will not be pleasant for bureaucratic failure in this instance. br> -- Ken Shreve br> New Hampshire /p>

Just wanted to pass along my thanks for the fine article on how our veterans are being treated by the same Congress who always wants to appear pro-veteran on camera.

The facts mentioned in this article go back to the Vietnam war and possibly before that, but never before has anyone seemed to turn the spotlight on this mess. Could I also point out the other travesty your fine magazine might want to discuss some day soon?

That would be the law established in 1890 -- yes, 1890 -- that denies retired military personnel who served 20 yrs. active duty their full military pension, if they also receive disability pay from the VA for injuries suffered on active duty. It's called the "concurrent receipt" law which specifies whichever amount the veteran receives for his injuries from the Veterans Administration, that amount must be DEDUCTED from his military pension each month.

Now to be fair, Congress has rectified this recently to a small degree -- right now if you are disabled by at least 50%, you eventually do get all your retirement pay. However by far, most veterans are not that severely injured and only rate a 40% disabled rating so they continue to lose that amount of their pension each month.

Please consider writing something about this in the future, it would be a great help to those of us working to get it changed. By the way, ONLY military veterans are treated this way. If you retire from say, the postal service or the FBI, you get your full pension.

Wonder how many of your readers are completely unaware of this?

p>Thanks! br> --

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Taxes, Health Care, Bill Clinton, Business, Earmarks, Catholicism, Islam, Abortion, Law, Military, Iraq