VA to call Iraq, Afghanistan veterans

VA to call Iraq, Afghanistan veterans

The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Apr 25, 2008 8:20:39 EDT

WASHINGTON — Iraq and Afghanistan veterans: Get ready for a phone call.

The Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday that on May 1, it will start calling 570,000 recent combat veterans to make sure they know what services are available to them.

The first calls will go to about 17,000 veterans who were sick or injured while serving in the wars. If they don’t have a care manager, the VA says they will be given one.

The next round of calls will target 555,000 veterans from the wars who have been discharged from active duty, but have not reached out to the VA for services. For five years after their discharge from the military, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have access to health care at the VA.

The effort will cost about $2.7 million and will be handled by a government contractor.

The agency has faced complaints that a backlog in claims and bureaucratic hurdles have prevented some recent veterans from getting proper mental and physical care. Earlier this week, two Democratic senators accused the VA’s top mental health official of trying to cover up the number of veteran suicides and said he should resign.
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While I commend the VA on performing this outreach to "new veterans" at what cost will the "old veterans" pay for this? If they can call all new vets, why can't they contact the older vets of Korea, WW2 and Vietnam and Desert Storm and let them know of the veterans benefits they might be entitled to, education.job retraining, war time pensions for veterans that are subsisting on below average incomes.

What is really troubling is that the ONLY veterans organization that is complaining about this unequal treatment is the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) where are the other service organizations on this issue? They are supposed to be representing ALL veterans, not just the "new ones" it's politically correct to help the OIF/OEF veterans, but it's morally correct to properly care for all veterans, all veterans should be subjects of this out reach, not just "President Goerge Bush's" special veterans. This is one of the easiest and nastiest ways I have seen to devide the veteran community, talk about stopping the divisive of "back of the bus please" they are not even saying please, rather the Bush VA is saying to hell with all of you, just wait longer until we get caught up on new claims and medical care, we'll get around to you all later if you are still alive.

If we die before they adjudicate our claims all it does is stop the claim and saves the VA millions of dollars in claims they will no longer have to pay. Yup they really care about veterans alright, this proves it.

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