Opinion/Editorial
I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
Donald Trump would turn the physical and psychological treatment of veterans over to the states. This is a popular idea for conservatives to present and Trump is not the first. Currently, the federal government, through the Department of Veterans Affairs, distributes most veteran’s benefits. That Department reports directly to the President through a Cabinet-level position. Conservative America would change that. Conservative America sees the Veteran’s Heath System as a failed exercise in social medicine. Whenever the conservatives want to get rid of a program, they find does not directly benefit them they attempt to kill it by turning it over to the states.
Our states have weak veteran’s programs one and all. A license plate benefit here and there, almost universally without financial benefit to the veteran driver. Some education benefits in attending schooling within the state are offered. There is usually some sort of job training program in these states, and some go as far as to provide minimal cash stipends to veterans in trouble. A few even offer lodging for homeless veterans.
All the states have one rule in common and it is a very exclusionary rule for the majority of their benefit programs. They require the veteran to return home and re-establish residence in the state they were inducted volunteered or signed up in. There is nothing in their rules about the state you were born in. And there are no exceptions for those who traveled to other states for entry into the military. Once accepted to be an Officer in the Marine Corps you are sworn in at a recruiting office or training facility which happens to be located at the pleasure of the service without consideration for where the veteran may be returning.
The use of this scheme allows the states to provide very little in the way of benefits at all. This is done on purpose. The states are the local recipients of returning veterans and they care the least. We live in a culture that is generally in love with its military, unless it is a specific military member, or former military veteran, in which case that person is feared, avoided, or left to wander about ‘making his or her way.’ All of us ex-military have learned to keep discussions about our difficulties and disabilities to ourselves, for fear of hearing the dreaded question: “Why don’t you just get over it?” The state’s programs exemplify this kind of treatment and provide a lubricant to assist veterans coming home that wholly resembles spit.
Donald Trump has insulted veterans at memorials and even directly to John McCain a true war hero and POW for five years. This man refused to serve when called, instead using some ridiculous medical excuse to stay out of the Vietnam War. He’s become the leading representative of the current republican effort to denigrate veterans of all services and times. How this nation can countenance such awful actions and comments is almost beyond belief, as it is these veterans, surviving and dead, who have gone out time after time for bad pay and terrible physical and mental circumstances to fight the nation’s wars. How must most veterans feel today about this awful conduct on the part of the Republican leadership? Hopefully, we, the regular citizenry, will not truly find out what reaction these living vets might decide to display in the way of being just a bit more than upset. Trump is aging and one day will be gone. He may be buried at Arlington National Cemetery among those he was denigrated and disgusted with. The silence of the hallowed ground will remain as the men and women buried there no longer have any voice, but those living vets who might visit and stop by will communicate for them. They will simply walk by quietly and spit on his grave.
