More Ways Bush is Screwing Veterans Over
Posted in H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts) on February 21st, 2007 6:34 am by HL
Military amputee uninvited from Bush event because the press would see him with no legs
Americablog
Excerpt
May these people fry in hell. (This a portion of a much larger, second part of the expose in the Washington Post on Monday.)
Perks and stardom do not come to every amputee. Sgt. David Thomas, a gunner with the Tennessee National Guard, spent his first three months at Walter Reed with no decent clothes; medics in Samarra had cut off his uniform. Heavily drugged, missing one leg and suffering from traumatic brain injury, David, 42, was finally told by a physical therapist to go to the Red Cross office, where he was given a T-shirt and sweat pants. He was awarded a Purple Heart but had no underwear.
David tangled with Walter Reed’s image machine when he wanted to attend a ceremony for a fellow amputee….” ‘Are you telling me that I can’t go to the ceremony ’cause I’m an amputee?’ ” David recalled asking. “She said, ‘No, I’m saying you need to wear pants.’ ”
David told the case worker, “I’m not ashamed of what I did, and y’all shouldn’t be neither.” When the guest list came out for the ceremony, his name was not on it.
Novak: House GOP fired Veterans-friendly committee chair in order to “save money”
Americablog
Excerpt
We now know how the Bush administration got away with years of providing such paltry support to our injured and maimed veterans from the Iraq war and Afghanistan. The Republican congressional leadership forcibly removed the GOP House committee chair in charge of overseeing veterans. Why? He was too vet-friendly, too interested in meeting the growing needs of our war veterans, and the Republicans wanted to save money at the expense of our injured and maimed veterans.
And I quote Robert Novak, one of the most conservative Republican columnists in existence:
[T]he House Republican leadership had removed [GOP] Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey as chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The extraordinary purge buttressed the growing impression of arrogance as Republicans enter their second decade of power in the House.
The party’s House leaders purportedly removed Smith, a tireless promoter of spending for veterans, to save money….
