How We are NOT Supporting Our Troops

America is not properly supporting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can display all of the bumper stickers we want, but if we can’t protect their lives and well being as much as possible America is not doing our part.

We all recall the soldier who challenged the Defense Secretary on military vehicles not having enough armor. Now, in an environment where roadside bombs go off every day, troops are waiting for good body armor. A Defense Department report last year showed that thousands of armored vests for deployment in Iraq failed inspection. The Pentagon has now directed that soldiers need the option of adding side armor plates to their vests. This, after a Congressional committee report claimed side armor plates could have saved about 21 of the lives that have been lost in the war.

The most recent news is that thousands of soldiers are suffering from concussions that go undetected. In many cases they are returned to battle with the effects of the concussion still present. The military just came up with a new helmet, but it is designed to withstand a better bullet and not sufficiently lined to protect against concussion.
An American non-profit organization collects money to send helmet liners to soldiers, but the Pentagon has now said that the fighters can only wear official issue.

If it is a question of money, perhaps the military could make a decision to operate more efficiently in other areas. It was just revealed that DOD inventory management centers are a mess. For example, the Army’s Aviation Missle Command was found to have about 193-million dollars worth of inventory that was so poorly coded the command wasn’t even sure how long they should keep the items, or whether they were needed.

And all of the abuses don’t just have to do with war. Veterans returning home have found some unwelcome news. The GAO and Congressional testimony revealed that many are being hounded by professional callers who are collecting military debt. It is debt that in many cases the soldiers didn’t even know they owed. Thousands more aren’t in debt because they knew sooner. They paid after they were erroneously given money on exit from the service, only to have the government make them return (sometimes thousands of) dollars that they are told had been paid by mistake.

The GAO found that 900 battle injured soldiers were being hounded by debt collectors for military debts amounting to 1.2 million dollars. The same report discovered that some Vets were unable to obtain loans or buy a car because they were unable to work the government red tape to clear up persistent reports of debt. These debts are turned over to collection agencies. We can only hope the GAO will check into whose brother-in-law owns the collection agency that is making money on all of this. The GAO also found that soldiers who died in combat were shown by the military to owe about 300-thousand dollars.
Further, Congress and GAO discovered that VA offices in different states were using widely varying approaches to how much Veterans were paid for benefits. A few state’s Vets were getting woefully short-changed on their benefits as compared to the benefits given to those who applied in other states.

To add insult to injury, now the VA has lost control of records of millions of vets, giving them the added burden of having to worry about whether someone is going to steal their identity
Meanwhile, America has pretty much settled into a ho-hum routine about soldiers being killed. There are over 2500 now killed in the current wars. During Viet Nam we saw the combat on television. We saw the flag-draped caskets coming home. The networks ran the names. Now, only a few television shows bother to show the names and ages of those who have died.

Regardless of how one feels about the war, our support to the troops must be steadfast. They make up the great wall of defense that protects our freedoms in a dangerous world. If we favor an all volunteer army, we must protect the honor, dignity, stability, and lives of our fighting individuals. On top of the assignment to fight a war that many are questioning, the military men and women must also put up with too many irritating and unfortunate failures by the current administration.