[Feckless]

Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Derrig was fixing a dented .50-caliber machine-gun round outside one of Saddam Hussein's palaces when the bullet exploded.

He's lucky he gets ant benefits at all. The Line of Duty Investigation must be some work of fiction.
You don't "fix" damaged ammo. Brand new recruits learn this before they ever get to pick up a weapon or ammo.

[ThreePuttinDude]

Gomez said. "It's sad that Illinois is so bad to its soldiers."

Take it to your Libsuckin' Obama, or the Socialist sewer sucking' Governor

[em2vn]

The dollar figures given seem extremely high. Can they be correct?

[muawiyah]

"Six percent of Illinois' 922,000 veterans receive disability payments, which are untaxed; the national average is 10 percent"

It's conceivable the difference can be accounted for by looking no further than to the elderly, retired disabled veterans who now live on the Gulf Coast or in Florida!

The writer of this piece seems to be unaware of what winter is like in Illinois.

[steplock]

this reads like a pile of S**T!

Almost $7k/mo for a VA disability check?

Disability is set as a percentage of disability, not an arbitrary amount according to your color, race, or creed - if you lose one eye, your are NOT 100% disabled so you cannot expected full pay for life.

[chainsaw]

IMHO we should just put stars on the blue states and color the rest with red and white stripes. Our boys didn't go to war just for the red states or the blue states. Their effort is to maintain our rights to have this forium, now and in the future.

[amigatec]

The top three: 1. Puerto Rico: $11,607 2. New Mexico: $10,851 3. Maine: $10,842

The bottom three: 50. Illinois: $6,802 51. Michigan: $6,733 52. Ohio: $6,710 I work for the VA and the highest payment I have ever seen is around $2400 a month that is $48,000 a year tax free. I can't believe Puerto Rico pays $11,607 that is over $139,000 a year!!!