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absolutely not. Wounded combat vets couldn’t exactly PLAN could they?
You realize that until Clinton, for well over 100 years the VA was designed primarily to help those wounded in combat
and was until Clinton if you weren’t a wounded combat vet or service related injury vet or retired vet you couldnot get service

Clinton opened it up to anyone who was ever in the military period without increasing their budget.
To your point retired vets are like people who paid into SS for 20 or more years
and combat vets paid with going in harm’s way
Do you think someone who paid into SS for 3-4 years should get life long payments?

I respect the Posters service during the VN era and I am sure he respects those who were in country.
He has the luxury of getting medical care from his wife and Medicare 9 which BTW is analogus to SS)

If you have ever been to a VA you would understand the need to free up time for a wounded vet or someone who does not have the options of the poster
and the overcrowding is only going to get worse

Lets get one thing straight, I don't know why I used the word era in my post. I am a VN VET, USMC VMFA 232 Red Devils, F-4J Phantoms. The only reason I am going to the VA is my wife insisted I apply for my benefits. It took six to seven months to get this first appointment. We do not have a regular Family Doctor and my thought is that maybe we can get a reference to a local Private Doctor or Doctors, where we can use our Private insurance. This is just an initial visit and not an attempt to misuse or game the Va's services.

You realize that until Clinton, for well over 100 years the VA was designed primarily to help those wounded in combat
and was until Clinton if you weren’t a wounded combat vet or service related injury vet or retired vet you couldnot get service

Clinton opened it up to anyone who was ever in the military period without increasing their budget
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
True.
ALSO. One of W’s first acts was to rescind the all inclusive VA to all Vets.
However, those that had signed up under Clinton were allowed to keep their status.
I kept ‘putting if off’ even though I had service related tinnitus.
But from my discharge through Clinton, I felt I could ‘live’ with the tinnitus and leave the care to those that needed it.
There comes a time when one can no longer ‘white out’ the ringing in ones ears and I signed up for VA just before CLinton left office.

The only time I used VA is for a Cataract Op I had in 2007. I only had a slight copay and don’t know if that was because of my age ( I was 68 at the time), with no Medical History or record, the last ‘serious’ dealings I had in the Medical Community was a Hernia Operation in 1959 @ USNH Yokosuka Japan...
I had virtually 50 years between ‘Medical Needs’ and really ‘resent’ the people who show up at the Emergency Room for sniffles or a sprain.....

When BO came into office, one of the first things they did was restore FULL VA PRIVILEGES to all Vets.

I had contended that with both of them it had/has something to do with the HillaryScare/oBamaScare programs.

As to Vietnam Era Vet, I first heard the term coined by people that were in and NOT in country - so as not to take anything away from the Combat Types - NOT to be meant as an insult, but like anything else, a well meaning term gets hijacked and thrown back into peoples faces that were trying to do good.

I have VSM w/star and got out in 1964.