From the National Commander of the DAV
From the National Commander
A Year of Accountability
Edward R. Heath, Sr., National Commander
As we begin this new year, disabled veterans are facing immense new challenges and daunting obstacles to obtaining adequate health care and well-deserved compensation for service-connected disabilities. The obligation falls to us to ensure that issues that affect us receive fair treatment from our elected representatives.
A new Congress begins its session this month with many public policy issues on the agenda. There is the war against terrorism, a possible war in Iraq, and increased emphasis on homeland defense, to name just a few of them that our lawmakers must face. It is apparent that veterans issues may be given even lower priority.
At this time, the Congress has not passed a spending bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The temporary continuing resolutions passed by our elected representatives only fund the VA at last year's inadequate levels. Health care services at VA medical centers are already stretched to the breaking point. The VA has instituted a new priority system for disabled veterans, but some veterans still wait months before getting an appointment with a doctor or specialist.
Last fall, we witnessed how the Congress initially whole-heartedly supported concurrent receipt for military longevity retirement pay and disability compensation only to adopt a provision that was a mere shadow of the original bills passed in the House and Senate. The compromise offered to resolve the Bush Administration's objections to concurrent receipt was no compromise. Shamefully, only a few disabled military retirees will benefit from the legislation passed.
This year, the DAV will demand that Congress do better. Equally crucial is the continuing DAV drive for mandatory funding of VA health care. It is a much-needed initiative that will eliminate the annual uncertainty about VA health care funding, and would assure that veterans receive adequate health care. Many in Congress support this concept, but it requires the resolve of every DAV and Auxiliary member to help make it a reality.
That is why you are so important to this initiative. Your support can make all the difference. I am asking as many of you as possible to join in the DAV Commander's Action Network, or DAV CAN, to inform your elected representatives of your support for DAV initiatives. When your elected representatives are in their home districts, tell them face-to-face that you support mandatory funding for VA health care. Ask your members of Congress if they will support it. Also please make telephone calls and send e-mails, letters, and telegrams urging them to support mandatory health care funding. It is important that you make your desires heard.
If at all possible, please attend the 2003 Mid-Winter Conference February 23-26, and personally visit your Senators and Representatives on Capitol Hill to push for the DAV's legislative program.
It's going to be a tough year for veterans. As we have seen, neither Congress nor the Administration has shown a great interest in supporting fair and adequate treatment for veterans health care and benefit programs.
But Congress can be persuaded with an effective grassroots campaign to pay more attention to veterans issues. The DAV needs its members to voice their desires in support of our initiatives, not just once, but relentlessly and continuously. One contact from a DAV member is a huge help. Dozens of contacts from each DAV member becomes a tidal wave that your elected representatives cannot ignore or hide in conference committee dealings.
Each of you has stood up for our nation in the most difficult of times. You all have served with honor and courage. You are again being called, not in the defense of liberty, but in the defense of justice--to ensure that the promises made by our government are kept. I know that each of you will proudly serve the DAV and its initiatives during the coming year.
The DAV, along with the support of other veterans service organizations, will be a new, more powerful force before Congress in 2003. We depend on our outstanding DAV staff to tell members of Congress and the Administration what is fair and what is needed. But the DAV also needs you to tell your elected representatives that you will be watching, participating, and expecting your elected representatives and the Administration to truly represent us in a fair and equitable way.
That's what I plan to say when I address a joint meeting of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees in February. I hope you will join me in support of the DAV.
It was the pressure of the veterans community that forced Clinton's VA Secretary out of office and Clinton got routinely hammered for flatlined VA health care budgets.
Yes, on a site like this it's proper to criticize your political opponents, but for an organization, there is no reason to dwell in the past.
All that matters is that there are problems that exist and that this president has not done enough to fix them--or in the case of concurrent receipt, has been an obstacle.