Young Turks Interview: Army Denying Medical Benefits To Wounded Soldiers w/ J. Kors of The Nation

[CherylK]

Run time: 15:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uecigghz3KA   Posted on YouTube: April 15, 2010 By YouTube Member: TYTInterviews Views on YouTube: 1063   Posted on DU: April 17, 2010 By DU Member: CherylK Views on DU: 591

 
www.joshuakors.com

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100426/kors

http://www.youtube.com/user/TYTInterviews

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. its just sad. No wonder US has made it so hard for military and vets to vote

the DOD JUST agreed last Dec to help their troops register to vote!
Only by order of DOD Sec, who was pressured by Sens Coryn and Schumer.

But still, we have the Veterans Administration refusing to allow people to
come to VA campus and help register voters, and worse, the VA itself won't
help vets register and vote.

Help Our Veterans Vote
By SUSAN BYSIEWICZ
Published: August 10, 2008
...
I have witnessed the enforcement of this policy. On June 30, I visited the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Haven, Conn., to distribute information on the state’s new voting machines and to register veterans to vote. I was not allowed inside the hospital.

Outside on the sidewalk, I met Martin O’Nieal, a 92-year-old man who lost a leg while fighting the Nazis in the mountains of Northern Italy during the harsh winter of 1944. Mr. O’Nieal has been a resident of the hospital since 2007. He wanted to vote last year, but he told me that there was no information about how to register to vote at the hospital and the nurses could not answer his questions about how or where to cast a ballot.

I carry around hundreds of blank voter registration cards in the trunk of my car for just such occasions, so I was able to register Mr. O’Nieal in November. I also registered a few more veterans — whoever I could find outside on the hospital’s sidewalk.

There are thousands of veterans of wars in Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf and the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan who are isolated behind the walls of V.A. hospitals and nursing homes across the country. We have an obligation to make sure that every veteran has the opportunity to make his or her voice heard at the ballot box.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/opinion/11bysiewicz.html?_r=1

[Capitalocracy]

2. K&R this is a very important story

It's not just about denying benefits, it's also about the domestic use of the same psychological torture tactics used on "enemy combatants" on our own wounded veterans for no other crime than demanding justice... and not to get information out of them, specifically for what torture is best at: getting false confessions.

[ihavenobias]

4. Sadly the important stories get the least views and recs. n/t

[ejpoeta]

3. When i see those commericals telling parents to listen to their kids when they say they want to join

the military and i yell at the tv. why isn't the parent telling the kid to look at how the soldiers are treated. No! There is no way I would let my kid join the military while they treat their soldiers and vets so badly. granted my oldest is 11 right now, but they are girls too and women in the military are treated badly also.

My nieces husband is in afghanistan right now and all he talks about is how he hates it and can't wait to get out. He's only been in for a couple of years though and is on his first deployment. Came back for his daughter's birth. At least he has that. How many soldiers haven't even seen their kids yet. How many have died without ever even getting to see their kids!

The way our soldiers are being treated is atrocious! It's disgusting. They risk their lives, leave their families for months at a time multiple times and this is how we thank them! They come back without limbs, with brain injuries, with PTSD and this is how we treat them.

[20score]

5. Damn. K&R

[Amaya]

6. this is a monumental scandal

email everyone you know about this!

wow :wow: