What Our New Vets Want to Hear Bush Say

By: Teddy
Published On: 1/31/2006 2:00:00 AM

Hope born of desire: the IAVA (Iraq-Afghanistan Veterans of America) have their own expectations of the President. They want to hear him say in his State of the Union address that:

1) This nation?s veterans are a priority. Why? Because 2005 saw billion dollar budget shortfalls, 6-months waits for care and, cruelest of all, only one-in-five calls to the VA help line is answered correctly. Fix a broken system, Mr. President.

2) The current ?military overextension? will end in 2005. The Pentagon itself admits the current military operations are unsustainable, a fact that is not news to our veterans. Serious about Homeland Security? Solve this dangerous problem, Mr. President.

3) Forget ?Stay the Course.? That is a slogan, not a serious plan. We cannot continue to send our troops in harm?s way without our Commander in Chief providing ?Benchmarks for Success? which provide our troops with basic guidelines to gauge their progress on a TANGIBLE course to success.

4) NEVER AGAIN send our troops to war without proper equipment. Soldiers forced to buy their own body armor; unarmored humvees... investigate what went wrong Mr. President.  Fix it.

I took this from the IAVA web site. I can attest that one of the topics discussed at the Fairfax City Town Hall meeting with Congessman Davis was exactly point #4, where a rapt audience heard a soft-spoken father of a soldier in training read a lengthy list of deficiencies: no mortars to train with, much less ammunition with which to train; antiquated rifles, and so on and on. I thought: ?billions in no-bid contracts for Halliburton, but no money for the direct benefit of troops to do their job.? I remember we trained with broomsticks at the beginning of World War II, when we were attacked unawares. But this is a war of choice and we are almost five years into it. Where is the vaunted American business organization? Where is the leadership?

Let's hear if Mr. Bush even touches on the concerns of his soldiers.

Comments



No Adam, you can't " (Teddy - 4/4/2006 11:31:55 PM)
No Adam, you can't "trust" him. Even a former Reublican has been disappointed so many times I have no confidence in or respect for him insofar as his doing a competent job.

I am afriad the seemingly "good stuff" you heard is more Bush Story (that is, B.S.)



You need to know Con (Teddy - 4/4/2006 11:31:55 PM)
You need to know Congressman Davis' response to the father's complaints: first, he told a pretty empathetic story about his own experience as a mortar officer, admitting you absolutely must train with live ammunition on mortars (which I understood, having been raised in the Army, and I'm sure many of his listeners resonated to it), but then offered only that he'd "look into it" and possibly "hold a hearing."