News Analysis: June 8, 2009

President Obama honors the veterans of D-Day.

A bill to make it easier for veterans to receive benefits and immediate care for their post-traumatic stress disorder advances in the US House. The nation needs to work hard to ensure all of its veterans receive the care they require — just as they marched to war for us, we now must fight to ensure they’re totally cared for in return. We should never hear about destitute veterans waiting for help — especially when they’re living in a shed, penniless, and suffering dire psychological trauma; it’s long past time to cut into the VA backlog of cases.

The Army is looking to crack down on alcohol and drug abuse in the ranks, which is skyrocketing. The crackdown was initiated as part of the service’s effort to stem the rising tide of suicides among troops. The rise in soldier suicides is, in a word, intolerable. We must confront the stresses on our troops.

Building Afghan forces capable of fighting insurgents and bringing stability to the war-shattered country is proving highly challenging. American training units have been under-staffed and over-worked with too little equipment on hand and too little oversight of what equipment does exist. On the Afghan side, there are serious problems with illiteracy, equipment loss, corruption and basic lack of loyalty. How to measure success there? We now have 7,000 of our troops patrolling Afghanistan’s southern desert. Afghanistan remains an intense war-zone for our troops, highlighted not just by the casualties but also by the heroics — four 101st Soldiers were awarded the Silver Star for their actions there. 

Speaking to the frequently-deployed troops now in Iraq, comedian Stephen Colbert acknowledges the strain they’re under while filming his program at Camp Victory: “It must be nice here in Iraq because I understand some of you keep coming back again and again,” he said. “You’ve earned so many frequent flyer miles, you’ve earned a free ticket to Afghanistan.”

Better retirement benefits for our Guard and Reserve veterans?

Making it easier for military spouses to hang onto their residency benefits…

North Korea…back on the terror list?

SEARCH OUR SITE

VFA Blog