What's New
| VA Secretary Pressed by Senator on High Percentage of Wrongly Denied Benefit Claims |
March 16, 2010, Washington, DC (CQ Politics) - A leading Republican senator on Tuesday asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to explain why so many veterans’ benefit claims are wrongly denied, resulting in a high rate of reversal on appeal. |
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| Profile of New Veterans' Courts in New York Times |
Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court - VCS Supports Veterans' Courts March 15, 2010, Charleston, West Virginia (New York Times) — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break. |
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| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Philanthropist Bobby Willis to Build New $3.3 Billion Hospital for VA in Farmington, NM for Rural and Native American Veterans |
Proposed state-of-the-art Kirtland veterans clinic could provide as many as 8,000 jobs March 14, 2010, Farmington, New Mexico (Farmington Daily Times) — A proposed veterans complex in Kirtland centered around a new hospital, backed by a wealthy entrepreneur and costing an estimated $3.3 billion promises to bring state-of-the-art medicine and other benefits to veterans, as well as 8,000 jobs to the local economy. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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What Do I Tell My Children?
Written by Charles Sheehan-Miles
Tuesday, 24 September 2002 00:00
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September 24, 2002 - I’ll never forget the morning of February 27, 1991. As a young U.S. Army tanker, near the banks of the Euphrates River, two trucks raced through our position at roughly 2 a.m. We opened fire. One truck carried fuel and splashed its burning cargo on the other, and burning men ran everywhere, only to be met by our machine gun fire. This was the clean, precise Gulf War, for me, and those images never left me.
One day my growing son or daughter will ask me what I did in the war, and I’ll tell him. And they’ll have other questions, questions that haunt me, questions we should all be asking.
Where were we, when our country allowed 1.2 million Iraqis to die of preventable diseases related to sanctions? Reaping the benefits of the “new” economy? Working for high-tech startups, trying to provide a better future for our children? Where were we, when 130,000 disabled Gulf War fought for help from the government, and for years got lies and bureaucratic misdirection? Were we buying our first homes? Trading up to a new one? Saving for our kids’ college? Where were we, when Congress legislated away our rights to privacy and due process? Huddled with our families, protecting them against terrorists? What about when the President named American citizens enemy combatants and denied them the rights guaranteed in the Constitution? Were we too busy worrying about the recession? Were we too busy thinking about the next round of layoffs? Where were we when Congress handed over its Constitutional authority to declare war? The founding fathers wisely placed that power in the whole body of Congress, yet they are too timid to insist on keeping it. Were we too scared by the propaganda and lies? What if there were terrorists in our neighborhoods? Our children are growing up in a country no longer America: a country where the government can search your house without telling you; a country where your neighbors may be informants; a country where “Americans should watch what they say;” a country where people are “disappeared” if they look wrong, talk wrong or think wrong; a country that dominates world affairs and keeps its citizens scared; a country willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives over politics, and where the people don’t know or care the cost; a country where democracy is controlled by corporations and the rich. You know, I’ve been pretty busy, with not a lot of time to spend on all those “issues.” I make pretty good money, I’ve got a nice house in the suburbs, a minivan, and I’m raising my children with a better standard of living than my parents had. Isn’t that the American dream? Isn’t it? Do you think our children will thank us for their legacy? The kill-the-Constitution coalition quips “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.” They are patently wrong. Our nation’s quest for liberty is best typified by Virginian Patrick Henry’s exhortation, “Give me liberty or give me death.” That is the legacy I would give to my children. Charles Sheehan-Miles, a decorated Gulf War combat veteran, is the author of “Prayer at Rumayla” (XLibris, 2001) and is a former President of the National Gulf War Resource Center. He can be contacted at http://www.sheehanmiles.com |