Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment

Sgt. Shaft 08/18/2003

Dear Sergeant Shaft:
On behalf of the 2.6 million members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its Ladies Auxiliary, I would like to make you and your readers aware of a crisis in the veterans’ health care system.

Unfortunately, access to VA health care is controlled by available dollars, not our veteran’s health care needs. As a result there are currently more than 150,000 veterans waiting six months or more for a first time or specialty care appointment. Further, this de facto rationing of health care has led the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to even deny care to certain veterans by suspending their ability to enroll in the VA health care system altogether.

How have members of Congress, whom I am sure do not have to wait six months to see a doctor, responded to this crisis created by a lack of funding? On July 25, 2003, the United States House of Representatives passed the VA-HUD Appropriations bill for FY 2004 that they will tell you contains a $1.4 billion increase for veterans’ health care. What they will not tell you is that this amount represents a $2 billion cut from the congressionally approved FY 2004 budget resolution and a clear betrayal of the assurances made to America’s veterans earlier this year.

Without this needed funding, over 1 million veterans will be turned away or pushed out of the VA health care system. Is this what our returning heroes, from Afghanistan and Iraq, can expect from their elected officials as they seek health care for their painful injuries sustained in the line of duty? Over two hundred years ago, George Washington stated that “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.” Those words still ring true today!

I encourage you to ask your member of Congress how he or she voted on the FY 2004 VA-HUD Appropriations bill. Those who voted for the bill cast a vote against veterans by approving a wholly inadequate budget. Please have them explain how they plan to provide adequate health care to our nation’s veterans. Those who voted against the bill deserve our gratitude for holding out for the needed additional funding. Please ask them to continue to stand with us so that no veteran is ever left behind.

We call on Congress to do the right thing and restore the $2 billion cut when the conference committee on VA-HUD funding convenes this fall.

Thank you for your consideration of this important issue.

Sincerely,
RAY SISK
Commander-in-Chief

Dear Ray,
The Sarge along with many other veterans and veterans services organizations shares your concerns about mandatory funding. As my good friend Joe Barnes, National Executive Secretary of the fleet Reserve Association said in a recent column.

The VA states that its mission is to serve America's veterans and their families with dignity and compassion, and be "their principal advocate in ensuring that they receive medical care, benefits, social support, and lasting memorials promoting the health, welfare, and dignity of all veterans in recognition of their service to this Nation." The statement does not qualify access to benefits based on income, wealth or any other measure. Service to our country is the only prerequisite and Category 8 veterans have certainly met that standard.

In representing veterans before Congress, the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and other governmental agencies, FRA has consistently called for full funding for all veterans programs, regardless of disability rating or income. In a statement submitted before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees in March, FRA called on Congress to establish a realistic DVA budget that will provide adequate funding "for all of the Nation's veterans, their families and survivors."

Mandatory funding must be passed by the U.S. Congress in order to end the Peter to pay Paul method of providing health care to our Nation’s veterans

Dear Sgt. Shaft,
A member of our army unit Reunion Association recently requested help in locating the address to which a request should be submitted for providing any medals awarded, but never actually presented or issued prior t separation from the Service. He also wanted to know what supporting documentation would be required such as a signed declaration that the actual Medal had never been received plus some proof of Award such as a copy of DD Form 214 or copies of Unit Orders making the award, etc.

He also wanted to know the address to which he should submit a request for a correction or amendment to DD Form214.

If your would be kind enough to provide both of these addresses to your readers, it is certain that many of them, especially of WW II and Korean vintage plus some from more recent engagements, still have evidence of awards which have never been actually presented or issued prior t separation of the Awardee. Hopefully only a very few will have been awarded medals that also failed to appear on their DD Form 214.

The particular former soldier requesting these addresses reports that he not only has Unit Documentation awarding him the Purple Heart in Viet Nam which was never actually delivered to him before his separation from service only two months later, but has subsequently noticed that the Purple Heart Award also failed to make it to his Form 214 as well.

Your assistance in locating and publishing these addresses will be much appreciated.

John O.
Alexandria, Virginia

Dear John,
Application for correction of military records such as Form 214 can be requested by completing DD from 149 which is available from VA or on the Internet at http://web1.whs.osd.mil/icdhome/ddeforms.htm. Requests for medals should be submitted on Standard Form 180, which can also be obtained at VA offices or on the Internet at http://www.vba.gov/pubs/otherforms.htm.

Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, P.O. Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax to 301-622-3330; call 202-462-4430 or email sgtshaft@bavf.org.

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