Vets angry at White House over pension benefits

Scripps Howard News Service ^ | November 06, 2002 | JENNIFER SERGENT

[hurly]

Still no excuse for voting dim!!

[antidisestablishment]

Before I start, I am donning my asbestos underwear: I put 10 years in service and many of my friends have real service-related and combat disabilities. Many of them are still fighting just to receive their benefits (especially in regard to GWS). If someone wants to fight for these guys, then I am all for it. However, this does not excuse the goldbricking, money-grubbing, disability-point-averaging scumbags who besmirch the name of veterans everywhere by their fraud.

These bastards are the same ROADies we all met before we got out. You remember them: The guys who regaled young troops about their “combat” experience, but got very quiet when a real veteran came in. The guys who would get mad if asked questions about their exact duty stations and units during hostilities. The guys who could went to the same sick call as you, but always came out with a pass while you got two Tylenol. The guys who always had a waiver when it came to heavy labor. The guys who told you how to pad your medical records with false claims so you could “get what’s due to you” before you leave. The guy who now tells people how he received a Purple Heart, but the closest he ever got to a combat injury was a magic bullet in Pusan for an unreported STD.

These are the guys who are clamoring for double-dipping. They want standards lowered so everyone is eligible for benefits. They want universal health care. They want equalization of pay. They want to be guaranteed a living. They feel that Uncle Sam should pay for everything for the rest of their days. Now, I am all for taking care of our vets, but I do not support even disabled veterans getting paid twice for their service—as valiant or as unremarkable as it may have been. And for God’s sake, if it does happen, make sure it isn’t universal. It needs to be for documented combat injury or catastrophic problems directly related to a persons’ service.

[twyn1]

This one is toughie for me--my hubby is a 22-year (Air Force) vet, 30% disabled...and "double-dip" (tax-free) money sure would be nice...BUT...his main disability is a knee-injury, sustained when he played on the base soccer team. He can still work full-time, and getting disability just seems so greedy !

But there are vets who saw combat and who lost limbs or were maimed while fighting for our freedoms, and they're struggling to make it on a pretty pitiful check (non-officer retiree pay is pretty slim), if they cannot work...those guys deserve to be taken care of.

[joesnuffy]

Its nice to see so many so called conservative Republicans 'real' feelings on wounded combat vets..who stick out 20 yrs of serice ..retire and find their war wounds are aggrevated by old age to the point they can no longer function as their non combat veteran draft dodging peers...

In other words...I go fight for you ...and get wounded...I continue to serve put in my 20- with the pain of my wounds- and when this is aggrevated to the point I cannot find suitiable work in the civilian sector...screw me?..

And I get called names like "double dipper"...how about "leech on society"...you clowns were always good for that one..I used to love listening to David Stockman's claims that veterans thought the govt. was a big vending machine...

One check is for 20 or 30 yrs faithfull service the other is for being disabled in that service...
Just as in every private sector and all other Govt sectors...If I put in my 20 I get my retirement check...If I get hurt on the job..and that is aggrevated by my job to the point where I can no longer work after retirement (the retirement is mandatory by the way) I get an additional check for my disabilty...

VA medical care is not only a joke..its a very bad joke on combat disabled veterans...
Teaching hospitals where vets make suitable guinea pigs (they cant sue for malpractice)
Great place for MDs who have lost their state licenses
Great place for foreign docs who dont speak recognizable english...they work cheap

It sends a big message to soldiers...you get wounded ..you arent going to get taken care of..

I to vote straight Repub...anything Clinton stinks to high heaven...Clinton loathes the military and the Vet... I had higher hopes for GW...

He is wrong on this issue and not getting gear that works and training that works to our kids going into harms way..and that is wrong no matter what party does it...

[FRMAG]

You, Sir, are an unmitigated moron! An old saying says "never attribute to another manners or morals meaner than thy own." I suspect that somewhere there is a disputed VA claim in your past.

Many Nam vets have hidden their problems for many years as, I suspect, have many "Gulf War Heroes."

This is a plain and simple case of one "class" of federal workers being discriminated against as opposed to
another "class."

A postal worker who gets a hernia picking up a mail bag and gets a disability collects not only his/her retirement but an additional disability payment. This is for all federal workers to the exclusion of only career military.

A grunt who collects a crotch full of frag and goes on to reach twenty or more years of honorable service gets their retirement pay reduced by the amount of the grudgingly granted diasbility from the VA.

You disgust me by your aspersions on honorable vets.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

The Clearwater, Fla., man said he voted against Gov. Jeb Bush as a protest against Bush's brother, who is threatening to veto defense legislation that would increase pension payments to disabled military retirees - veterans with 20 or more years of service.

The article doesn't say Bush is vetoing the bill because of this provision. Is it possible that there is something else wrong with the bill and this measure could be included in a better bill that would get signed?

I know the Dumbocrats have been running the Senate, so I think its unlikely that this issue is as simple as this article makes it sound.

[MamaK]

My husband is disabled from service with the USAF.He also recieves retirement pay. Sure he would like to have that extra pay, But he has better sence than to turn his back on the Rep. who have stood with the VETS all these years

[Imal]

Disability and retirement are two entirely different things, and should be treated accordingly. If any other organization tried to confuse disability and retirement benefits, they would successfully be sued in civil court. The "concurrent receipt" law was and is unfair at its heart and should be repealed.

However, voting Democrat is not the way for vets to make this point. This should be lobbied through representatives and the Republican Party leadership. Turning to the Dark Side is not the answer.

The 'rats are no friends of vets. Never have been, never will be.

[freeper12]

>>This one is toughie for me--my hubby is a 22-year (Air Force) vet, 30% disabled...and "double-dip" (tax-free) money sure would be nice...BUT...his main disability is a knee-injury, sustained when he played on the base soccer team. He can still work full-time, and getting disability just seems so greedy !

That is the problem isn't it...provide a tremendous financial incentive for military to retire with a disability...and you know what? a whole lot more military are going to start retirng with carpal tunnel, soccer knees, hurt backs from playing football etc....now maybe if there could be put in place a system to differentiate between pure-combat related diabilities and all the other normal things that people can get hurt by.

I agree, retire from the service witha soccer injury really shouldn't be a reason to get two checks a month from the gov't...

[antidisestablishment]

My dispersions ar not on honorable vets. Honorable vets have my utmost respect. However, the largess granted to one "class" of federal workers does not legitimize largess to another. I do not support double-dipping for postal workers either. Do you?

I also stated that I would support direct disability payments for combat injuries. One of the whiners in the article contracted Lyme disease. Now unless the enemy has developed a tick firing cannon, this is not a combat injury. Are you saying that this is equivalent to someone who was fragged?

To be perfetly clear, the only people I am talking about in my previous post are those who are scam artists and professional liars. They constitute somewhat less than 1% of veterans. You can't tell me you served and never met their type. They dishonor veterans by their very existence and they are the ones the media loves to interview. And, no, I do not support them or thier ilk at all.

[NMFXSTC]

MOst of what you rant about is irrelevent...it is, after all, the federal government itself who rates the disabled as service connected or not...case closed on that.

Effects of Agent Orange, PTSD and a host of other service connected maladies frequently appear long after retirement time. They are service connected.

Fact: every federal employee can (and do) retire from the civil service rolls and collect VA service conected disability concurrently...retired military do not.

Fact: the ill founded notion of free medical care is that...an illusion. closed facilities and downsizing, contracting and farming out of care makes health care an empty bullet and a lost "benefit". Ditto VA care (not service connected...not covered, and how many VA health care facilties are there where a lot of retirees live?)

Fact: DOD has the retirement funds in place. What occurs in VA disability for retired military is simple. For every dollar received in disability, a dlooar is taken from retired pay...it's a wash...a zero payment. BUT...what does DOD do with that money? "Discretionary spending"...authorized by the fed and indorsed by a RAND study...and guess who was VP of RAND when the recommendation was made? DR. CHU HIMSELF!!! And now Chu saus it will come from active forces funds...nope!

Hey...the retired disabled vet didn't ask for the disability...it is service connected...conceded to bt the government (see first paragraph here!). And...bottom line? It's like two other issues: you arte either dead or you're not; pregnant or you're not...in this case, you are either service connected disabled or you're not...and if you are, you should be afforded the same compensation as any other federal employee...retired military disabled are not...and they are the ONLY ones so discriminated against.

Thanks, congress...for at least allowing ius a burial flag!

[matrix]

I agree that voting for a Rat is no solution. This guy was, like many like him, grasping at straws.

Those Who Didn't Quite Become Veterans

[matrix]

The point is that 90% of the House and 83 Senators want to CHANGE the law. The law was enacted in 1892, pushed through congress by a Southern Senator who wanted to punish retiring Yankee soldiers.

[matrix]

I know from extensive reading on this subject that the President has specifically threatened a veto of the FY2003 Defense Authorizations Bill if it contains any form of concurrent receipt relief.

[matrix]

I'd say being 90 or 100% disabled is fairly catastrophic.

[matrix]

I believe that any gubmint employee, other than the military, can draw both a retirement and an appropriate disability compensation, too. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[advocate10]

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Oliver North (archive)
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July 26, 2002

It's about keeping promises

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It's been a lousy summer for President George W. Bush. Republican leaders are grousing that he isn't doing enough to keep GOP control of the House. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld has his arm in a cast, and the Pentagon press corps is beating him up because we can't find Osama's body. Diplomatic correspondents are howling that the president isn't tough enough on Israel. The business press blames him for the stock market collapse and for being soft on corporate crooks. And now the gossip columnists are piling on over the length of his vacation. No wonder the man wants to spend a month in Crawford. But while he's at the ranch, he had better phone Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mitch Daniels or it could get even worse. If he doesn't, some of his most fervent supporters will start re-thinking their loyalty.

Who are they? America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, veterans and military retirees. The troops' lament: broken promises.

Here's the problem. When he was campaigning for commander in chief, Bush habitually said things like: "To the veteran, we owe gratitude -- shown not just in words of tribute, but in acts of care and attention. ... As president, I will work with Congress to raise the standard of service -- not just for veterans, but for our military retirees. All of them must be treated with the care they have been promised and the dignity they have earned."

Gov. Bush spoke those words to the American Legion in Milwaukee, Wisc., on Sept. 6, 2000, and replicated them throughout his campaign. America's military and veteran families -- more than 26 million of them -- heard and believed. And overwhelmingly, they voted for him -- as was evident after dimpled chads and absentee ballots became big issues in Florida. Many military and veteran families believe that if it weren't for them, George W. Bush wouldn't be president. And they may be right.

To his credit, Bush continued his courtship of veterans after his inaugural. At a Memorial Day breakfast in the East Room on May 28, 2001, he said: "America's veterans ask only that government honor its commitments as they honored theirs. They ask that their interests be protected, as they protected their country's interest in foreign lands. In all matters of concern to veterans -- from health care to program funding -- you have my pledge that those commitments will be kept. My administration will do all it can to assist our veterans and to correct oversights of the past." Great stuff. Too bad that this week the Bush administration's budget boss, OMB Director Mitch Daniels, made all those promises appear hollow.

The issue, like so much else in the federal government, is a little-known inequity with an arcane moniker: "concurrent receipt," a provision of law that prohibits retired military veterans from drawing full retirement checks if they also receive a disability payment. What it means is that those who suffer a disabling wound defending our country will be financially punished if they somehow manage to stay in the armed forces long enough to retire. Sound nuts? It is.

In the interest of full disclosure, let me make this personal. During my 22 years in the Marines, I wasn't always quick or agile enough to get out of the way when our nation's enemies were doing bad things. My fellow Marines pinned a couple of purple hearts on my uniform to remind others of my clumsiness.

When I got around to retiring in 1988, a Navy doctor wrote up a long report describing various wounds and injuries. The Department of Veteran's Affairs took the doctor's evaluation and decided that the damage was worth about $450 per month. What I didn't understand at the time was the ingenious way our government had of paying me roughly $5,400 per year. It comes out of my own pocket. Every month, my retirement check is reduced by precisely the amount of my disability payment. And that's exactly how it's done for roughly 550,000 other disabled, retired veterans.

No one would dare to reduce retirement benefits for postal workers with hernias from hoisting mailbags. Nor would anyone in Congress have the temerity to suggest that Civil Service employees forfeit a portion of their retirement checks to pay for on-the-job injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. Only those who do the dirty and dangerous work of defending this nation suffer this indignity -- the very ones who believed the president's promise that, "My administration understands America's obligations not only to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past -- our veterans."

Unfortunately, the deficit hawks in Bush's Office of Management and Budget are now ignoring this "obligation" (his word, not mine) because fixing the problem is too expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it would cost approximately $2 billion in fiscal year 2003. Of course, bloated deficits haven't stopped Congress from padding its own payrolls or stuffing 8,341 pork-barrel projects, estimated by Citizens Against Government Waste at $20 billion, in this year's 13 appropriations bills.

What's worse, the Rumsfeld Pentagon doesn't seem to grasp that this punitive policy has an unquantifiable adverse effect on retention and combat effectiveness. Do we really want a military force led by risk-averse, desk-bound officers and NCOs who avoid the possibility of getting wounded because they don't want to financially punish their families?

Bush has said, "Veterans are a priority for this administration." He had better make those in his administration believe it because veterans also believe that old axiom, "You can't just talk the talk -- you have to walk the walk."

Contact Oliver North | Read his

[knak]

The VA is the best example of why the government shouldn't be in the health care business.

Please don't get me started. I know nothing about the burial stuff yet, thank the Lord. But the health care is a curse.

[antidisestablishment]

Alright, you poor joes have convinced me. Give all vets their "concurrent reciept," or institute the same practice for all federal workers.

Personally, I would still rather see vets (and active duty) get decent medical care and other benefits that have all but disappeared since X42 and his minions reinvented screwed the military.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Yikes!