Posted on 05/20/2009 4:12:25 AM PDT by Scanian
A tremendously important story has gone virtually untold by the media, ignored by our political leaders and unknown to the American public. Despite the extraordinarily high price they have paid, America's severely wounded veterans are enduring humiliating financial hardships of epic proportions. Home evictions, utility shutoffs, car repossessions and foreclosures are commonplace.
Spouses have to give up their jobs to become caregivers, cutting family incomes by up to 50 percent or more. Most disabled vets receive much less in compensation and benefits than they did while on active duty, reducing incomes even further. Many are too dysfunctional to hold a meaningful job, if any, because of the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).
Kim Tanner and his wife are prime examples. Mr. Tanner worked as a truck driver while serving with the Army, often driving 12 to 14 hours a day delivering weapons and supplies throughout Iraq. The effects of numerous blasts from exploding roadside bombs have left him suffering from severe PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. He was discharged with a 50 percent disability rating.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
How does one only recieve a combined $800 a month when they were making 7000 before.
Shouldn’t his 50% disability be more than that?
Sorry, can't buy this.
It sounds like she made the bulk of the money, had to give up her income to take care of him. I think the disability pay is based on his base pay only. Upon discharge he lost ration & housing allowances, etc.
DD
Holy crap
http://www.vba.va.gov/bln/21/Rates/comp01.htm#BM04
pay rates for disabled
Can bail out car companies but can pay our warriors
May I suggest folks copy your link Boxerblues to other internet sites through Memorial Day & beyond, those are shocking numbers.
If we weren’t supporting half the world’s population, we could take care of our own.
Close the borders. Let my kids and others like them pick the produce. I’d get out there too!
Me either. Well rarely only.
Then there’s the case of my brother. He gets 100% disability from the VA and 100% disability from Social Security. They don’t talk to one another so he gets them both.
As of December 1, 2008, a 50% disability for a married couple with no children is $845.00.
Base pay doesn’t figure into VA disability pay. The VA uses a scale based upon the percentage disabled. As of 12/1/2008 a veteran with a %50 disabilty, married, with no children, gets $845.
I find it humerous, or at least ironic how many AmeriCAN citizens “won’t pick vegetables”/whatever, and yet “recession”/”crisis” gardens are literally springing up everywhere and people are not only unpaid for tending them, they’re not having to hire illegals to get it done. Interesting...
But are the numbers real or exaggerated? (3 million homeless, 50 uninsured etc... the numbers get fudged sometimes)
Has there ever been a Presidential Administration that has ever been partially successful in trying to overhaul the bureaucracy in the VA?
Having dealt with such in a non-combat related scenario, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible, just a card too frequently played falsely. On the other hand, I have a friend whose brother was in special forces, whose job it was to sneak up behind enemy guards and slit their throats.
He stopped talking to anyone after returning to the States, but I am unsure but fairly certain he never applied for disability, just stuck it out.
Exactly!!!
When I was a kid, if you were lucky, there was a fruit farm close to you. You got to work all summer picking. Our friends were paid a quarter a peck. Back then it was a lot.
We would visit and earn enough money to buy ice cream. It was hard, but we sang and laughed. We had a great time.
Now those jobs go to illegals.
I grew up in the desert, but I’ve heard it was great (from relatives), and I’ve been told the kids would probably have eaten as much as they picked (not so with adults mind you) :) , with the consent of the farmers.
>>I’ve been told the kids would probably have eaten as much as they picked<<
They sure did. But they swarmed like flies and the fields were clean in a few days, then onto the next crop.
It was great!
Me either.
Should we just be happy he isn’t paying his own premiums... /sarc
Have either of you ever been hit by (and survived) -- or, even felt or dealt with the aftermath of -- the blast from an IED?
Today's troops endure stress at a level last seen when our troops were hunkered in their trenches and bombarded by German artillery during WWI.
No...I think you didn’t get my finer nuance of “/sarc” ...Nevermind
No I got it...just figured you had been DUmpster diving to come up with that one.
I come from a military family, but was unable to serve due to an health issue. Perhaps in bad form, but I was infuriated at Obama’s evil proposal to force injured combat troops to pay for their care, and I was therefore cynical.
My BIL was medically discharged. My father and 2 siblings were honorably discharged, and one’s still in service. I hate what’s being done with our military as we speak.
There were several apple farms in the town I grew up in, but I went to work for the dairy farmer. A friend and I spent several summers tossing hay bales. Got a nickel a piece for every bale that made it all the way to the barn. I was psyched when I turned 13 and got to drive the tractor with the mower, tedder, baler, etc. instead of tossing bales. A whopping buck an hour. Oh well, i sure learned a lot.
Nowadays, that farmer would be jailed for violating child labor laws. We worked a LOT of hours in those fields, which are now all condo’s. :(
A nickle a bale is actually a fair amount.
But you’re right about the child labor laws.
We picked 12 to 14 hours a day.
Nowadays, a nickle is fine, because the balers toss it right into the wagon. Half the work!
I’ll never forget all the damn snakes in the fields. it was like there was one hiding under every damn bale.
Yep, LONG days, i’ll bet you were in some great shape then. I know I was, between that and all the cutting, splitting and stacking firewood. I grew up in suburbia, too, it was not like I grew up out in the sticks.
>>I’ll never forget all the damn snakes in the fields<<
Yikes!
We only had bees.
I work for the VA. There are tons of people getting $$$ here who should not, and others, who really need it, go through heck to get it.
This is not the VA’s policy, but policies set in place by Congress.
That said, there is such a difference in the soldiers from WWII and Korea vs. Vietnam, Iraq etc.
The older Vets came home and built a nation - the younger vets, a lot of them, come home sucking their thumbs (not all, I know, but there is a noticiable difference in the generations of soldiers). I have no idea why this difference exits, but it does.
And PS - you do not get PTSD from the CO yelling at you!
Neither of my sons (both active duty) are real happy about the big zero in charge. Moral in their units has hit rock bottom, biggest concern is whether or not they will actually be taken care should they be wounded.
O had flipped flopped on so many issues they dont know what to think.
Please thank your sons for their service on my behalf! Thanks to you, too, for raising such fine Americans!
thanks I will pass it on to them. I know they like to know some American actually care about them.
The answer is simple, their is nothing in it for our elected thieves or our phony TOTUS.
Please pass this vets thanks along.
Every vet has the same foot problem when it cones to politicians.
Yep. $243.
No, I haven’t felt an IED, but I have felt the unbelievable pain from an ICD, and my guess is a gunshot wound to the chest feels about the same, and I know the feeling of living in dread of that happening again at any minute. I know what it feels like to think I could die, and die soon, and that death be a horrific death, but still, I carry on.
I’m sure their stress is real, but I maintain that stress reaching a level where they can’t carry on is rare.
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