Remembering all those who have given their all for our liberty and freedoms
WASHINGTON (Oct. 31, 2002) - "I just don't get it!" American Legion National Commander Ronald F. Conley said, referring to the failure of congressional conferees to ignore the specter of a presidential veto and to approve concurrent-receipt legislation before Election Day.
"President George W. Bush said we have billions of dollars to rebuild Baghdad, not to mention Afghanistan," said Conley, whose 2.8-million member Legion is the nation's largest veterans organization. "At the same time, his non-veteran advisors are saying they will encourage him to veto any legislation that corrects the inequity of concurrent receipt, because it is a budget buster. Well, 402 House members and 82 Senators did not think so when they voted for correcting a 100-year-old travesty. The travesty is that service-disabled military retirees, by law, are the only group of Americans who have to give up their retirement pay dollar-for-dollar to collect their disability pay."
The 2003 National Defense Authorization that conferees will deal with after the election contains concurrent-receipt provisions that would allow service-disabled military retirees to receive their full military retired pay as well as their disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Under a federal law passed in the 1890s, service-disabled military retirees receive a cut in their retired pay equivalent to their VA disability compensation.
Consider the case of two service members in the same wartime military unit. One is injured during military service, leaves the military after a five-year enlistment and is awarded VA disability compensation while working a federal civilian job, and continues to collect full disability after retirement.
The other is injured also, and is given a disability rating by VA after retiring with 20 years of military service. Both veterans are federal retirees. But the military retiree is the only federal retiree that receives a cut in retired pay equal to the amount of disability compensation.
"Obviously this is wrong," Conley said. "I'll tell you something else that's wrong. Two weeks before a major national election, the power brokers in Congress stalled the conference committee, so that no version of concurrent receipt could reach the president's desk prior to November 5th.
"These same non-veteran advisors to the president claim that paying disability and retirement would jeopardize national defense. My response to that is this: There is money budgeted in the House version and even if there wasn't, no civilized nation can afford to send its young men and women to war, and then play the budget shell game with them after 20 or 30 years of service defending our nation.
"What signal does this send our brave young men and women who are now going to war? Is it, 'Don't get wounded, don't get shot, and don't get ill, because we didn't budget for that?' If we didn't budget for concurrent receipt, then perhaps we should rebuild the Baghdads of this world tomorrow and take care of our veterans today.
"It is the same old story as told by the English poet Rudyard Kipling, when speaking about the British soldiers referred to as Tommys when he said: 'Tommy this and Tommy that. Chuck him out, the brute. But he is the savior of his country when the guns begin to shoot.'"
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