REPUBLICANS AND BUSH DO NOT SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.No Bankruptcy Protection for TroopsU.S. Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to shield military personnel from changes to bankruptcy law that would force more debtors to repay their creditors.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aamWalvvBr.8&refer=usVeterans' Benefits "hurtful" to National Security, says Pentagon The Wall Street Journal describes the pittance set aside for veteran’s benefits as "Congress’ generosity," even as the Republican-controlled Congress and Bush Pentagon get set to slash billions more from Veterans Administration’s (VA) programs. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal (1-25-05), Pentagon official David Chu, in a mockery of the contribution of veterans, defended a new round of cuts by ironically describing funding for programs like veterans’ education and job training, health care, pensions, VA housing and the like as "hurtful" to national security.
http://classwarnotes.blogspot.com/2005/01/veterans-benefits-hurtful-to-national_26.htmlBack from Iraq - and suddenly out on the streetsAn increasing number of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan ending up homeless. Psychological trauma, high housing costs, gaps in pay between civilians and the military which mean ex-servicemen cannot save for deposits and the lag in getting VA assistance all contribute to this growing problem.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p02s01-ussc.html Bush Budget Raises Drug Prices for Many Veterans; more than DOUBLEPresident Bush's budget would more than double the co-payment charged to many veterans for prescription drugs and would require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the privilege of using government health care, administration officials said...
The government had no immediate estimate of how many veterans would be affected if the user fee and co-payment proposals were adopted. But veterans' groups said that hundreds of thousands of people would end up paying more and that many would be affected by both changes
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0E12F8355F0C748CDDAB0894DD404482Soldiers dying for lack of $20 tourniquetsSince at least a month before the war in Iraq began, medical experts in the Army and other services have called on the Pentagon to equip every American soldier in the war zone with a modern tourniquet. The simple first-aid tool - a more sophisticated version of the cloth-and-stick device used by armies for centuries - could all but eliminate deaths caused by blood loss from extremity wounds, the most common cause of preventable death in combat, they argue. The cost would not likely exceed $2 million, or about two-thousandths of a percent of the $82 billion proposed for the war this year.
Yet many of the nation's soldiers - tens of thousands, some doctors and Army medical officials estimate - continue to enter battle without tourniquets. And some bleed to death from battlefield injuries that would not be life-threatening if a proper tourniquet were available, according to more than a dozen military doctors and medics...
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-to.vigil11jul11,1,7580607.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines&ctrack=1&cset=true