Soap Box

The subject I broach in this column transcends political parties and partisan politics. It is a chronic and growing shame that should rank at the top of the pile in the business of any president and Congress, no matter which party holds the majority or who is in the White House and is not a blanket indictment of those dedicated doctors, nurses and other health care workers who really care about our troops and with limited resources and questionable leadership, have tried to maintain a standard of care for them.

I am speaking about the deplorable way the men and women who fight our wars are treated when they return home. We all know about the disgraceful condition of the Veterans Administration and the crooks and incompetents who ran the program, cooking the books and allowing American heroes to suffer for months, or in some cases to die before they were taken in and treated.

Where does the blame lie?

In my opinion it lies in a lot of places. Like a president and his predecessors whose attention was seldom aimed in their direction, a Congress too busy grandstanding and headline seeking and too consumed with partisan politics to make sure the people we owe so much to were adequately cared for.

An indifferent and partisan media who covered the wars they fought in but did little to follow up on what happened to them after they came home, many with catastrophic physical and mental wounds who became just a number in an inefficient and corrupt system, shuffled around and ignored by the very agency charged with taking care of them.

The suicide rate among our returning veterans is a national disgrace and the psychiatric facilities needed to deal with this problem simply do not exist in the VA and I believe that the bureaucrats and military brass do not understand the scope of the problem.

There is program developed by a teenage suicide prevention group called The Jason Foundation. It is a simple intervention process whereby trained professionals are standing by, a phone call away to consult with a person considering suicide.

Adjutant General of the Tennessee National Guard, Max Haston, had long been deeply disturbed about the suicide rate among his returning troops and when he heard about the program he brought it to the Tennessee National Guard and made "Guard Your Buddy" available to everyone in his command.

The program consists of a simple app on a cell phone that when activated puts the caller in instant touch with a health care professional trained in suicide prevention.

The program works and has been successful in bringing soldiers back from the brink of self-destruction, a proven and efficient tool in the arsenal for suicide prevention.

Yet when the program was offered en masse to the military powers that be at a cost of around five million dollars a year, a program that would offer the service to veterans in all fifty states, the mossbacks at the Pentagon turned it down responding with some vague statement like, "our troops are just going to have to toughen up"

Is this the kind of thinking of those whose job, no, whose iron bound obligation it is to take care of our returning veterans, that they need to "toughen up". No wonder the program is such a mess.

Any organization is no better than the people at the top and we all know what a merry go round the federal government is and when the people at the top are incompetent, they hire other incompetent people and the whole thing becomes a pass the buck, bureaucratic nightmare and when it affects the health of those who have laid their lives on the line for us, it is unacceptable.

If congressmen and senators who sit out the wars behind a desk are entitled to Cadillac private health care, why not our veterans.

Instead of maintaining wasteful, inefficient, badly managed VA hospitals why not provide insurance in the private sector for our veterans so they can receive the care they need when they need it and have the advantage of the very latest in technological and medical science?

Why should other government employees enjoy cradle to grave health care while the troops, who have maintained our freedom, are shunted off to overcrowded, understaffed institutions?

Mr. President, you're out there pushing your latest piece of socialism, free college for all, well don't you think the nation would be better served if you devoted that energy to doing something about how our veterans are treated.

This disgrace runs up Pennsylvania Avenue from 1600 to Capitol Hill, this is not a partisan problem but an American problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.

Hey you guys who will be running for president, how about making this a campaign issue.

And remember it's a debt, not a political football.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem. 

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​