The stories of neglect that are emerging from Walter Reed Hospital have opened a firestorm of debate, recrimination and promises of change.  All of that is good and long overdue, but the bottom line is that our government is failing those who have served and sacrificed for this country.  Men and women who have been wounded fighting for this country are being abandoned by the very system that should be caring for them.  Our wounded soldiers, Marines, sailors, airmen and National Guardsmen are being wounded again by the disgraceful treatment they are receiving by VA hospitals around the country. In the weeks since the Walter Reed scandal hit the papers, stories of moldy barracks, broken wheelchairs, lack of access to doctors and indifferent politicians have flooded newspapers, websites, blogs and email chains.  Vets from the Vietnam conflict are adding their voices to the scores of vets from Iraq and Afghanistan who have been let down by the VA healthcare system.  Generals have been relieved of command, congressmen and women have expressed outrage and the pubic has demanded something be done.  But, once these first flames of scandal die down, will any significant changes actually take place?  Will our government and the politicians live up to their outrage and take the steps necessary to fix this broken military healthcare system?  Or will they simply move on to the next big issue and hope the wounded will go back to suffering in silence?  The poor treatment of our wounded soldiers is just another example of the way we have so often taken advantage of the men and women who volunteer to serve this country.   We expect them to serve, we expect young men and women to dedicate their lives to defending our nations, we expect them to fight when asked, then we expect them to just get on with their lives and not remind us of the wars they have fought.  That is a great disservice to the people who volunteered to put their lives in danger and who paid the price for our freedom and it must change.  Our troops need support not just when they’re in combat, but when they come home too.  Perhaps for those of us safe at home, the war ends once we turn off the evening news, but it doesn’t end there for those who marched in the jungles of Vietnam or patrolled the streets of Baghdad.  When you carry scars, the war never ends.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 5:56 am and is filed under Frequent Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.