VFW fills a critical need now: amidst the current war, rights of veterans need protecting now more than in three decades. As advocates, each of us has a role to play

VFW Magazine, Jan, 2004 by Edward S. Banas, Sr.

Perhaps for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago, those serving in the armed forces and recently discharged veterans can use VFW's help.

To be sure, we as an organization have been there to assist veterans of half a dozen or more overseas campaigns in the last 20 years. But Iraq and Afghanistan represent the first sustained combat for GIs since Vietnam. Americans have been dying on these battlefields virtually every day for nearly a year.

If you doubt the demand for our voice, just look at some issues that have made headlines in recent months. First there was the woefully insufficient (now fortunately doubled to $12,000) death gratuity for families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. A lack of medical safeguards for deploying and returning soldiers also was an issue.

Inadequate protection of troops on the ground because of a shortage of bulletproof vests has been alleged. Troops coming home on R&R are burdened with unfair travel expenses.

Then there is the plight of citizen-soldier "medical holdovers" at places like Fort Stewart, Ga., and Fort Knox, Ky., awaiting treatment.

Reserve and National Guard forces are being paid on inexcusable and burdensome timetables. This has a "profound financial impact" on them and their families, logically concluded a 125-page General Accounting Office report released Nov. 13. The effect on troop morale is even easier to gauge. And speaking of morale, let's not forget our casualties of war. Besides the more than 400 Americans killed in Iraq, 2,000 have been wounded in action and 7,000 evacuated for non-combat related medical conditions. Many of the wounded suffer severe disabilities and face lengthy recuperations.

While the focus is on active-duty personnel, keep in mind the recently separated. At last count, 17,000 discharged veterans had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 2,000, or 12%, had sought VA care. VA Secretary Anthony Principi has been unequivocal concerning vets encountering problems: "Such delays and barriers to VA care and benefits are unacceptable."

Indeed, they are. But if these and other veteran problems are to be solved, we must stay involved. Never forget that veterans are only 13% of all American adults, so we depend on public understanding and support. That backing must be continually cultivated, though.

As Loyola University political scientist John A. Williams once wrote: "Americans may love their military, but it is in the same way they might love their Rottweiler: They are happy enough for the protection, but do not want to become one themselves." To the average citizen, he concluded, service in uniform is "as unfathomable as life on another planet."

VFW's role today, then, is crystal clear. The above-mentioned issues cry out for our attention, serving to energize us as individuals and as an organization.