dickmith: Bush’s shameful treatment of veterans
Yeah, I’ve been trolling at VetsVoice again. dicksmith is peeing himself with excitement that the Obama Administration has made it easier for veterans to qualify for treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The government is making it easier for combat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits.
The Veterans Affairs Department plans to announce Monday it will no longer require veterans to prove what might have triggered their illness. Instead, they would have to show that they served in combat in a job that could have contributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.
This is good news – real PTSD cases will get treated while the IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from the pizza guys at 8th and Eye, the IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from interviewing real veterans while a journalist and IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from worrying about their friends who actually deployed, well those guys won’t qualify for treatment without trying to convince the DVA they were combat soldiers. That’ll get some more phony soldier business.
But anyway my bitch with dicksmith today is this paragraph;
This doesn’t even address the Bush Administration’s under funding of VA and general lack of concern for Veterans and caring for them. The treatment received by Vets from George W. Bush was shameful, but President Obama has raised the bar and set a new standard for the way we care for Vets.
Yeah, Bush’s underfunding of the VA. See, I actually research before I make idiot claims like that. According to the VA’s own accounting, their entire budget in 2000 (the year before Bush became president) was $106.2 billion. In 2008, the last year of his presidency the DVA’s budget was $422.6 billion. So the “underfunded” DVA’s budget grew four-fold under Bush. Was it enough? No, it wasn’t, but it was a damn-sight better than it was before him and a damn-sight less shameful than dicksmith would like to you to believe.
dicksmith’s post brags that Obama set the standard for Veteran care, but it looks to me like Bush set the standard and Obama learned from Bush to not slight veterans.
Category: Veteran Health Care
“IVAW members who claim they got PTSD from worrying about their friends who actually deployed”
I didn’t think people like this actually existed, but my brother-in-law is a preliminary screener for the DRO and had one come across his desk recently that pretty much claimed exactly that. My brother-in-law survived an IED blast outside Fallujah that killed four of the other five guys in his humvee. Temptation to seek out and stomp this guy was strong, no doubt.
Scott, all three of the examples I gave are actually from statements by IVAW members – they’re all on this blog somewhere. Zachary Findlay-something was the first, Matthis Chiroux was the second and I forget the name of the third douche-nozzle. I’m sure there are others with claims just as ridiculous, I just haven’t seen them yet.
“it looks to me like Bush set the standard and Obama learned from Bush to not slight veterans”.
….a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
– Simon and Garfunkel
This doesn’t even address the Bush Administration’s under funding of VA
This is the quote you reaaly want Joe isn’t it? After all, Jonn’s got real numbers and stuff…400% increase Joe, math is cool!
Jebus H, I just read up on Findlay. What a fucking waste of air. One of his missives at IVAW’s site says “As a first hand witness to the attacks on 9/11, I totally believe it was an inside job.”
Yup, eight miles away. You had the same “first hand” view as I did from 1200 miles away: CNN. Oh, I guess you saw some smoke in the sky. That’s all you need to expertly declare that 9/11 was an inside job.
Zachary Findlay-Maddox, you’re a fucking lying poser bitch.
The third guy was Jeremy Bergren. Since I didn’t include the URL in the first post, here it is. You’ll probably have to copy and paste it into your browser since IVAW blocks access to their website from TAH for some reason;
http://www.ivaw.org/membersspeak/non-deployed-veterans-can-have-ptsd-too
And, oh, yeah, Bergren is a candidate for the IVAW board, too.
I heard about this at our last VFW meeting (last Thursday). My initial thoughts were, “GREAT!!”. However, after a little discussion, I can see where the 0baMao administration has opened the door for rampant fraud, waste and abuse. Now, some REMF can claim PTSD for just about any reason. Seems pretty ridiculous to me.
BUT……. if one considers the agenda of the 0baMao regime, classifying folks with PTSD can result in a favorable outcome to the regime. Once classified with PTSD, the regime can use that issue to remove a person’s 2nd Amendment rights. Imagine how many guns could be legally confiscated because a person has a “psychological condition” and has been adjudicated as such by the VA??
As for the “underfunded VA”, the VA didn’t get what it WANTED for it’s annual budget during the Bush regime, so therefore, in the small minds of the idiots, they received “budget cuts” even though the Bush Administration increased VA spending dramatically over the years. Perhaps if the VA operated more efficiently, like the “for profit” hospitals do, they wouldn’t NEED these massive budgets.
Dicksmith…need I say more?
Ye gods, they just keep knocking ’em out of the park over at IVAW. I suppose I can’t muster any more surprise. Jeremy’s “Woe is me, i never deployed” sobfest was subsequently gobbled up by fellow Pro Victim Findlay-Maddox, wherein he opines:
“I honestly say that I feel pain everytime I see our soldiers in war. War for what? Bin Laden??????????????????????????
Why can’t Amerikans wake the fuck up?
Ever since I realised how badly 9/11 was a lie, a black Op’s military operation, I feel like I am in some crazy movie, LOL.”
You can “disclaim” all you want, IVAW. These are the kooks who you let use your website as a soapbox for their kookery. Findlay-Maddox continues:
“I am white, but I am also Native American. My father and his parents have Cherokee heritage. I am proud of that.
I believe in the warrior spirit, I believe one must learn the ways of the warrior, and also learn the ways of peace.”
Ah, the old Ward Churchill trick. When being white is not interesting enough, reinvent yourself as a minority and spout some faux-Native American metaphysical jargon. You are now unique!
If I tell Jeremy I have PTSD just from reading his bullshit, will he fight for my right to receive benefits?
I’ll believe Findlay-Maddox understands the “Cherokee warrior spirit,” when he can read a Cherokee newspaper.
I’ve said this before, in part.
The DSM requires only a traumatic event that offers that: The symptoms must cause the individual clinically significant distress or impairment in psychosocial functioning.
In an attempt to encompass everyone the nitwits that fill their purse from treating folks have left the barn door wide open.
It sucks, but there it is. Think a bit about everyone who might have been disturbed by some traumatic event and/or toss in the wannabe.
This recent policy change is NOT a good thing. It offers no/zero/nil plus for those that need the help.
YMMV
We need R. Lee Ermey as a therapist.
Scott offered R. Lee Ermey.
Yep. Back in the day the VA wouldn’t even consider a claim without a combat related award.
Keep in mind that PTSD is one of the newer diagnoses available.
Along with a slew of new diseases that a paddling would cure.
Disclaimer: I don’t have kids.
I have to jump into this one. Those that know me know that I treated PTSD for almost 30 years before my burnout. John knows I was also a combat disabled VNVET. For years, even as a therapist, I had to fight with the VA to get true combat vets their real PTSD claims. My favorite story, of hundreds, was the 1st Cav doorgunner they denied because of “no evidence veteran was ever a doorgunner”. His 214 stated doorgunner, his last assignment was 229th AHC, 1st Air Cav, his 201 indicated doorgunner school at Ft. Rucker, crewmen wings, and like 18 Air Medals. He eventually got it but this was the kind of crap we had to put up with. Guys with PH,CIB, BSw/V, ETC. got turned down all the time. The criteria used to clearly state, “trauma beyond the realm of normal trauma”, i.e. life threatening. Although this new Obama thing will help some very derserving that do not have a combat arms mos….what it really will do is open the flood gates for phoneys. It took 2 years of research for my claim and my best friends claim, (327th PIR, VN, A Shau Valley for 12 months), to get our “stressors” approved even though we both have CIB’s and PH’s. But, I said, it keeps the wannabee’s out. Well not anymore. There will be a flood of phonies which will minimalize PTSD, overload the system, and possibly force states to drop some of the benefits they offer to 100%ers. I argued with the Pentagon in the 80’s, (awards division) about the Army adopting a Combat Action Ribbon for those without Combat Arms MOS’s to show they were in combat. They laughed saying, we have a CIB, and CMB. Well, now they have adopted the Combat Badge to show those in different mos’s served in Combat. Now, you won’t even need one of those. Vet Center therapists will now be spending most of their time with phonies trying to get a free ride. Sorry about my rant guys, but they can never seem to get the pendulum in the… Read more »