John McCain Votes Against Vets

Posted on September 5, 2008 in Campaign 2008 Occupation of Iraq PTSD

Pacifist that I am, I am against all war. I know it is a position that I will never see any president embrace and even some Democrats think I am a traitor, but I feel that people like me are, at least, a valuable check on our country’s impulses to attack other nations and to ensure that civilians are not slaughtered. I also feel that soldiers deserve our sympathy: back in 1992 I was in former Yugoslavia. The tired faces and slumping shoulders of those men — fighting for the safety of their homes like no American has had to do in this generation — impressed themselves on me. I rose and gave my seat on the bus to more than a few. It hammered into me a sense of their humanity.

I wish John McCain felt the same. His endurance in the Hanoi Hilton deserves to be commended along with those of the 600 other men who went through the same thing. And so does the strength of those who were never captured but subjected to the pounding beat of patrol in the jungles or deserts.

But pacifist that I am, I feel that when you do take on a war, you take up an obligation to take care of those who are affected by it. John McCain and I differ on this. By this I mean the civilians caught in the middle of it, the enemy combatants who are captured, and the soldiers on our own side who have to erase the blasts and spurts of blood from their eyes when they come home.

Since FDR’s citizen armies of World War II, we have looked after the medical and social reintegration needs of our veterans. To our country’s credit, we have made major strides in understanding the physical and psychological syndromes that battle create in a person. To our shame, we have failed many veterans of Vietnam and other wars. A large percentage of our homeless served in combat. If you go to a shelter or dare to talk to them on the street, they’ll show you the Distinguished Service Stars and Purple Hearts that they have won. It’s the only piece of jewelry that many will ever own.

Under Republican rule, little was done to help these people other than create a Department of Veterans’ Affairs and salute the flag on Veterans’ Day. John McCain has been there, rolling off tales of his experiences in the Hanoi Hilton. But he has voted time and again against helping veterans. Once the video game is over, like many Republicans, he turns the computer off, and thinks about his investments, his vacations, his six houses, or the wienie-roasts he throws for reporters.

I hope you’ll take time to read Senator Obama’s position on veterans because it is laced with a deep sense of the traumas that soldiers go through when they must become civilians. We’ve spent trillions on the boondoggle in Iraq: the cost of reintegrating them will be far less and of far more importance to our country’s integrity.

McCain has voted against these things:

• Adequate rest for troops between deployments
• Providing the DVA with $20 million for health facilities
• Authorizing $430,000,000 for the Department of Veteran Affairs for Medical Services for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. He was one of 13 senators to do so.
• Increasing veteran health services funding by $1.5 billion by closing corporate tax loopholes. He has championed corporate tax breaks over veterans’ health several times.
• Giving soldiers in the field safety equipment.

These deficits in care mean more stress on soldiers, veterans, their families, health care workers, and the communities they come home to. They undermine national security in the heart of the homeland.

John McCain Votes Against Vets. That motto alongside “90% with George Bush” should be on our lips.

[tags]Campaign 2008, veterans, veteran, Mean John McCain, John McCain, John McCain Votes Against Vets, Barack Obama, PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder[/tags]