Veterans for Common Sense

June 3, 2007 – Elkton, Maryland – Yellow ribbons and American flags cover store windows and car bumpers in this Eastern Shore town, which recently said goodbye to its largest deployment of National Guard members since World War II.

But as 131 Cecil County soldiers head to Iraq as a part of a national surge in troop levels, Elkton represents a divide in what could prove a national gauge of support for the war among Republicans.

That’s because the Eastern Shore faces a dilemma in the re-election campaign of Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, a 16-year incumbent who was one of only two Republicans to vote earlier this year for a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq.

The genial Gilchrest now faces a 2008 primary challenge from a hawkish state senator who says voters in this faithful Republican district are outraged by his Iraq vote. And if Gilchrest survives the primary, he faces another challenge from a Democrat.

There’s a feeling among some that Gilchrest, long considered one of the most moderate Republicans in Congress, could lose his career over his choice on Iraq.

“He’s too wishy-washy,” complained James Green of Elkton, a 62-year old veteran who attended the recent National Guard deployment ceremony. “I really don’t think he supports the troops like I support the troops.”

Others lauded his Iraq vote. Betty Rhoades, 63, came to the ceremony to see off her son-in-law. She praised Gilchrest for voting for withdrawal, even as she clutched a small American flag.

“I wish it was over,” she said of the war. “Bring ’em home. I think there ought to be a time limit. I don’t like to see the young babies go over there and die.”

Interviewed last week at an Annapolis coffee shop, Gilchrest was sanguine about his political future. He voted to authorize engagement in 2002, even rising to the House floor to compare the Iraq effort to World War II and saying of the troops, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Today, Gilchrest said, his opinion of the war is much different. He blames the continuing violence on bungling by the Bush administration, from not having enough military personnel to not adequately negotiating with Iraq’s neighbors.

“The bottom line is, we assumed the administration would be competent,” Gilchrest said, shaking his head. A Vietnam veteran, Gilchrest compares the Cold War to being stuck in a room with a cobra, while fighting terrorism is like being stuck in a room with a beehive.

“This is not our grandfather’s war,” he said. “This is not a World War I, a World War II. This is not even a fight like we had in the Cold War. … You don’t fight bees with a sledgehammer.”

Those criticisms — especially complaints about the president — have chafed so many Republicans in the district that some are plotting Gilchrest’s ouster. As Baltimore County Republican Sen. Andrew Harris flirted with a run, some sported “Run, Andy, Run” stickers at meetings.

Harris announced last month that he is planning to run. Once the second-ranking Republican in the Maryland Senate, Harris is considerably to the right of Gilchrest and says that Gilchrest’s anti-war stance will cost him his job.

“Wayne is a nice guy, but he has not participated in the Republican Party,” Harris said. On the war, Harris said, “I think the tipping point was reached on the Iraq war. … I think it sent a message that he is out of step with the Republican mainstream.”

Others were more pointed.

“It’s a slap in the face,” said Republican Sen. Richard Colburn of Dorchester County, who ran unsuccessfully against Gilchrest twice in Republican primaries, most recently in 2004. “Never in the history of warfare has an army been given a date to withdraw from their enemy. It’s just unbelievable. On the Eastern Shore, we support our troops.”

If Gilchrest survives the Feb. 12 Republican primary, he also has a Democrat to defeat. Queen Anne’s County State’s Attorney Frank Kratovil planned to announce Monday he would seek the seat. Kratovil, a war opponent, said Democrats would like to see Gilchrest ousted, too.

“This most recent vote on Iraq has got a lot of people riled up. But he typically votes hand-in-hand with the Republicans,” Kratovil said. “Everyone says Wayne’s a nice guy, and I think that’s true, but it comes down to how effective you are. Getting fresh blood and new energy is a good thing for the district and a good thing for democracy.”

Gilchrest claims he doesn’t think about elections. He’s been challenged several times in Republican primaries. But he was unchallenged in 2006 on the GOP side and went on to beat a little-known Democrat with 68 percent of the vote.

“I simply don’t think about whether I’m vulnerable,” he said. “I’m a member of Congress; I do my job.”

Political scientist Harry Basehart of Salisbury University said Gilchrest is right not to lose sleep over his prospects.

“Wayne is still a very popular politician on the whole Eastern Shore,” Basehart said. “I just think there has to be some real reason for Republicans to vote against him … and I just don’t think Iraq is enough. I think it’s going to be very difficult to unseat him.”

Even some Republicans who disagree with Gilchrest’s withdrawal vote said they’re sticking with him. Delegate Michael Smigiel, R-Cecil, said at the deployment ceremony that he didn’t like Gilchrest’s Iraq stance, but he’ll vote for him.

“You have to appreciate that he’s brave enough to say what he believes,” Smigiel said.

A few blocks away at the Main Street Cafe, manager Natalie Konopka got ready for the lunch crowd by hanging a newspaper page showing all the deploying soldiers next to a yellow handwritten “WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” poster. Konopka said she’s a patriot, but she backs Gilchrest.

“I don’t understand what the troops are over there for, so I agree with him,” Konopka said.

Gilchrest said that he suspects many Republicans share his war concerns. He said even some GOP House colleagues have confided that they agree with his Iraq position, though they felt unable to join him.

The question of Iraq, Gilchrest said, is too important to base on his political fortunes.

“I have a sense of urgency about stopping the slaughter. Stop the killing, stop the mayhem,” he said. “This is about more than Republicans. This about the new phase of human existence on the planet and how the United States fits into that. We have to raise our sights.”

June 2007

Disability Ratings Dustup

Senators grilled Pentagon officials about major disparities in the way the armed services award disability ratings. They also challenged disparities in the award practices of DOD and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Terry Scott presented data gathered for the Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission, which Scott chairs. It showed that, from 2000 through 2006, the Army gave 30-percent-or-higher disability ratings to just 13 percent of soldiers found to have service-connected injuries or illnesses.

(Thirty percent is the threshold at which members are designated as disabled “retirees,” qualifying them and their dependents for retiree privileges.)

The Marine Corps, by contrast, awarded disability retirement to 18 percent of its disabled members. The Air Force did so for 27 percent and the Navy for 36 percent of disabled troops.

Gordon England, the deputy secretary of defense, conceded that there was a problem during his April 12 testimony at a joint hearing of the Senate’s Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees.

England noted, “It certainly seems evident to me that we need to get down to some sort of consistent process, because it is confusing.” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) shot back: “It’s just unfair. It’s unjust.” Levin chairs the Armed Services panel.

How to Fix Disparities

Pentagon officials explained that disparities in the award of disability ratings have sometimes resulted from the missions that led to the disabilities of service members.

England noted, “Each of the services evaluates fitness to serve based on their particular service, so it is perhaps not surprising that maybe Air Force is different from Marine Corps because of the nature of what [their] people do.”

Harder to explain, Scott suggested, are data showing that the Army over the same six-year period awarded a zero percent rating to 13,646 soldiers that it found unfit for duty. By contrast, the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps had assigned a zero percent rating to only about 400 members per service.

The VA reviewed the cases of soldiers with zero percent disability ratings and 20 or more years of service. Afterward, it raised the disability ratings to an average of 56 percent. VA recognized many conditions that were ignored by the services.

Was the Army cutting costs? Acting Secretary of the Army Preston M. Geren said no, that the service’s evaluation boards are not in any way directed or encouraged to hold down costs by limiting disability awards.

However, Geren said the system “needs a radical overhaul” because it “doesn’t work for soldiers and their families today.” He added that the Army is pursuing reforms.
Scott recommended that Congress and the Bush Administration quickly:

Restructure the DOD disability award process to streamline medical and physical evaluation board responsibilities.

Require the services to evaluate and rate all disabilities of separating or retiring service members.

Direct VA and DOD to conduct a joint analysis of rating instructions to determine the basis for wide differences.

Change a law keeping veterans from receiving disability compensation for a partial month in which they are discharged and delays in the second month’s payment.

In April, VA Secretary R. James Nicholson accepted 25 recommendations of an internal task force. On receiving the study and recommendations, President Bush ordered VA to implement all of them, including one calling on VA and DOD to create a joint process to set disability ratings.

Help for Burn-Injured Vets

Members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee are expressing strong support for new legislation that would provide severely burned veterans up to $50,000 to modify their homes and up to $11,000 to modify their vehicles.

“I am highly confident that we can pass this legislation quickly,” said Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho), the panel’s ranking Republican. “It’s needed now.”

Co-sponsors of the bill, S 1096, include Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.).

Craig said the payments would be made to family members while service members are still on active duty and recuperating at military hospitals. This will permit modification of their homes in time for their return.

“Efficiency Wedges” Slammed

The surgeons general of the three military departments, appearing before a House subcommittee in March, slammed Pentagon efforts to insert “efficiency wedges” on their wartime medical budgets. The wedges amounted to straight out cuts, they said.

The testimony immediately threw DOD on the defensive on yet another sensitive veterans issue.

Lt. Gen. James G. Roudebush, the Air Force surgeon general, said his $190 million efficiency wedge won’t produce real savings but will merely reduce the number of patients who can be treated on base in the fiscal year that begins in October.

The same patients will seek their care from the Tricare network of civilian providers, driving overall costs even higher than would be the case if patients were seen in-house.

Before it cuts patient services, Roudebush said, the Air Force will slow spending on facility upkeep, medical equipment, and research and training.

In other words, said Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), chairman of the House Military Personnel subcommittee, the Air Force is being forced to reduce “seed corn.” “Yes, sir,” said Roudebush. “We push things downstream” creating “a bow wave of obsolescence, … a bow wave of risk.”

Service medical departments saw their proposed 2008 budgets cut by a total of $650 million for unnamed efficiencies.

Vice Adm. Donald C. Arthur said the $343 million Navy cut is comparable to closing a large family practice hospital like the one at Camp Lejeune, N.C., or at the naval base in Pensacola, Fla.
Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, acting Army surgeon general, called her cut “equivalent” to losing a community hospital. “It will be a cut in service,” said Pollock.

The efficiency mandates imposed by defense officials are in addition to $1.86 billion withheld from the same defense health care budget on the assumption Congress will approve a plan to raise Tricare fees on retirees under age 65 and their families. (See “Action in Congress: Tricare Assumptions,” April, p. 26.)

Reserve Retirement

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) is touting a bill (S 648) to lower the retirement age of reserve component members by taking into account the length of time they are mobilized in support of contingency operations.

Chambliss, who appeared April 18 before the Senate Armed Services subcommittees on personnel, joined other witnesses speaking in support of improving the quality of life for service members and their families.

At the same hearing, representatives for military families warned that the high pace of operations and frequent deployments were taking a toll on family members.

Reservists clearly deserve an improved retirement package given their deepening role in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts in the war on terrorism, Chambliss said. His bill, the National Guard and Reserve Retirement Modernization Act would lower the age 60 start of reserve retirement by three months for every 90 days reservists have served on active duty since Sept. 11, 2001, to support a contingency or respond to a national emergency.

The bill prohibits a drop in retirement age below 50 regardless of how long a reservist is mobilized. Also, Tricare health coverage still wouldn’t begin until age 60, if the bill is enacted into law.
National Guard and Reserve personnel are the only federal retirees who have to wait until age 60 to draw their annuities, said Chambliss.

Through late May, the bill only had eight co-sponsors, but Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), ranking Republican on the personnel subcommittee, said he favors the idea. Congress might delay any action on costly changes to Guard and Reserve benefits, however, until the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves delivers its final report to Capitol Hill next January.

Pretax Health Premiums

More than 150 House members have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill that would amend the tax code to allow federal civilian and military retirees to pay health insurance premiums on a pretax basis and to allow a tax deduction for Tricare supplemental premiums or enrollment fees.

The House bill was introduced by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) and referred to the military personnel subcommittee whose chairman, Rep. Vic Snyder, recently signed on as a co-sponsor. An endorsement from the House Ways and Means Committee would be a bigger prize.

Sen. John Warner (R-Va.)has introduced an identical bill, S 773, in that chamber. It has attracted 25 co-sponsors.

Another Long Summer

Politics in the American style has never been particularly sane, to be sure. Every so often, however, the usual level of strangeness we’re accustomed to reaches a new gear, and the whole show just goes right over the moon. Over the last few years, we’ve pretty much been permanently locked into that higher gear, so it takes something exceptionally deranged to ring the cherries.

Leave it to a Republican Party official, of course, to spelunk our national dialogue into a whole new low. This latest installment for the You-Gotta-Be-Kidding-Me file came on Sunday, courtesy of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, in an interview with that state’s new Republican Party chairman. His name is Dennis Milligan, he runs a water treatment business, and he is very much hoping for more terrorist attacks on US soil so the policies of George W. Bush can be vindicated.

Yes, you read that correctly. Here’s the quote: “At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on (September 11, 2001), and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country.”

Be warned: trying to wrap your mind around that thought-bomb is a perilous undertaking. In truth, an apology from me to you is in order, because everyone who reads that dreck will come away a little bit dumber for the effort. I’m sorry, but it had to be done.

Seriously, though, chew on that one for a while and try to ignore the taste. For the dwindling cadre of Bush supporters – defenders of the indefensible, one might say – it has come to this. Most Americans would probably agree that anyone actively and publicly cheerleading for another September 11 needs therapy, or maybe a good punch in the nose. For the Bush bitter-enders, however, such venal comments are now acceptable talking points.

Think about the mental, moral and philosophical contortions necessary to formulate a thought like that, especially in light of the events of the last few days. Fourteen more American troops were killed in Iraq; Bush’s people have advocated staying in Iraq for another 50 years; the so-called “surge” hasn’t come anywhere near accomplishing whatever nebulous goals were put forth at the outset; they are actually still looking for the much-ballyhooed WMD over there, and an overwhelming majority of Americans are now shoulder-to-shoulder with the anti-war Left in their disdain for this calamity, but none of that matters, because all we really need around here is a few more explosions and mass-casualty attacks. That’ll straighten us right out, don’tcha know.

To be sure, people like Mr. Milligan are fairly rare, and becoming rarer with every passing day; if the poll trends continue their current course, there won’t be enough Bush supporters left in the country to fill the roster on a Big East college football team. But this fellow isn’t some anonymous Limbaugh-addled flake. He’s in charge of the Republican Party in an entire state, one of fifty GOP state party chairman, and it is immeasurably telling that someone willing to say things like this on the record has been handed a position of such responsibility.

It’s hard to avoid feeling a little bit of genuine pity for people like this, because what we have here is unequivocally pitiful to behold. When the architecture of your integrity has crumbled to such a degree that you express a genuine desire for more carnage and horror, when your best political hand available requires successful acts of terrorism in America, you’ve become almost less than human, loathsome nearly beyond definition, and sad beyond measure.

There are a thousand explanations for our current situation – corporate media distortions, oil barons who hold high office, sixty years of foreign policy geared around the permanent wartime economic footing Truman established after Kennan’s long telegram from Moscow, the end of the Cold War, blowback from former-ally maniacs we armed and trained during that conflict – pick your poison – but people like Milligan serve to explain what ails us quite succinctly.

So much for pity.

The scariest part is the real possibility of Milligan getting his wish. The war he supports inspires and creates the terrorism he hopes will salvage his party’s standing, and if a solution isn’t found soon, the violence unleashed by this perfect circle of bloodshed may very well come calling.

A lot of people are waiting for the Democrats in Congress to thwart Milligan’s desires, but any legislative fix is still a ways off. A recent CBS-New York Times poll laid out the conundrum: a huge majority disapprove of the war and wants to withdraw, or at least wants timetables set for that withdrawal. That same poll, however, showed a meager 13 percent support cutting the war funding, which is pretty much the biggest club in the Democratic bag.

Those numbers bring to mind a poll, taken in Iraq a couple of years ago, that attempted to reveal what kind of government the Iraqi people wanted. According to the poll data, around 90 percent of all Iraqis desperately wanted democracy as their governing principle. That same poll, of those same people, also showed a 90 percent approval rating for the creation of an authoritarian dictatorial regime in Iraq.

The CBS poll provides the same kind of conflicted gibberish as that Iraq poll. Americans want out of Iraq, want timetables, they want this by big majorities … but they don’t want anyone to touch the money that sustains the war they hate. Congress has the purse strings, people want the war ended, but people don’t support Congress using their best weapon – those purse strings – to end the war. Any Congressional Democrat trying to thread that needle with legislation, absent a veto-proof majority, is pretty much doomed before getting out of bed in the morning.

Basically, it’s going to be another long summer. The Milligans among us still hold enough sway to keep this berserk train on the current tracks, the Democrats in Congress are still figuring out what it means to be in the majority, and Mr. Bush is about to embark on a six-nation jaunt through Europe that is almost certain to deliver another cascade of international humiliation upon these United States.

Gad zooks.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: “War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You to Know” and “The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.” His newest book, “House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America’s Ravaged Reputation,” is now available from PoliPointPress.