Posted by
Phoenix on Monday, February 18, 2008 9:02:53 AM
Feb 18, 2008
What Must Be Done to Fix The Dysfunctional And Broken Veteran's Administration (VA)
written by Shaun "Phoenix" Orris
http://xsorbit27.com/users5/unifiedveteranscoalition - my website where I write as "sdw3" and edit as "Phoenix"
Travel pay was 11 cents per mile until recently, now it is 28 cents per mile, thus this is better than the former rate of around 11 cents per mile for travel reimbursement for eligible disabled veterans with at least a 30% service connection ... the travel reimbursement pertains to medical appointments of course. This covers the cost of gas should you have a vehicle that gets just 20 miles to the gallon assuming your gas costs $3.20 per gallon. VA is really starting to come around and that is good.
However the service connection claims and appeals process is a turtle pace and deplorable and creates tremendous hardships upon the sick and disabled veterans. Furthermore, it is a disgrace that the burden of proof falls on the veteran filing a claim and the claims process is unbelievably confusing.
With Gulf War Syndrome as an example, the reprehensible government (DoD) knows that this is the result of the experimental vaccines (anthrax among others) mostly and they are destroying the honorable people who served this nation's military! Shame on you DoD and shame on you Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld and Mr. President Bush, you must act as you promised me you would act by way of your signed letter to me concerning this matter. President Bush, I hang your letter on my wall with pride and have faith in you so please, I beg you, don't let me down and don't let the veterans down! You've done so much for the VA Mr. President, but you must do more.
Mr. President, you must authorize 100% service connection for those crippled by Gulf War Syndrome! Mr. President, you must also make a law that when a veteran falls into disability and has their credit report destroyed that the credit bureau must wipe it off to a clean slate. The debt will remain, and should be repaid in time or bankruptcy filed, or a VA system is created whereby debts are structured to be repaid based on a percentage of 20% of disability compensation like a military allotment. Child support and tax debts should also be structured within that 20% maximum "garnished" from disability payments. A disabled veteran on 100% disability pay can easily handle the 20% burden. The debt repayment should be 17% for 70-90%, 15% for 50 -70% and 10% for 10 -40%.
Veterans should receive guarantees for car loans like they do home loans from the government. Cars are a fact of life in this country and public transportation remains deplorable over-all in this country. We are way behind nations like Germany and Japan with respect to their trains. Thank you in advance for making these changes.
Do it now so the Democrats to knock the wind out of the Democrat's movement so that a Republican is the next president to carry on all the good done since President Bush, you, took office. Again, Mr. President, the VA is like night and day compared to how it was when Clinton was in office. Thank you, but remember and understand there is much more that needs to be done, like mandatory VA funding. A strong and healthy and economically sound veteran population will power this Nation and keep it free, just like Washington and Lincoln understood. Amen.
- Shaun Orris aka "Phoenix", Unified Veterans Coalition ( I post as "sdw3" there as moderator: http://xsorbit27.com/users5/unifiedveteranscoalition)