Letter - Our veterans deserve total coverage for all their needs

To the editor:

Has this nation no shame? After refusing to raise taxes for the wars in the Mideast, our wounded veterans come home with lifelong injuries, and it is necessary to form charitable organizations such as Wounded Warriors to care for their very dire needs. Is our Big Government repudiated by Republicans as over-bloated with tax dollars still so small that it cannot meet every need for the military who gave everything while we at home sacrificed nothing at all?

I am utterly disgusted to hear anguished pleas repeated on the media for $19 a month contributions as needed support from individuals to address unmet governmental support for veterans’ families who are struggling with mounting debts not available from an ungrateful nation through a national Veterans’ Service. We have a bloated Pentagon that is stuffed with billions of tax dollars, but apparently cannot provide coverage for wounded warriors without begging individual citizens to come to their aid!

Who is to blame for this if not our Congresspersons who apparently are so absorbed in pleasing citizens’ concerns about keeping taxes at a minimum that we can neglect this, our greatest responsibility?

We are more than willing to put up yard signs asking God to support our troops, but that is as far as we are prepared to go. Every stay-at-home supporter of these misguided Mideast military adventures begun by George W. Bush and his preemptive strike against Iraq should be storming Washington with demands for full medical coverage for those who are now paying a heavy price.

Instead of supporting Wounded Warriors, let’s demand total coverage for these veterans from our so-called Big Government so we can at least sleep the sleep of the just as we have until now, ignoring the sacrifices of those who have given all!

Lee Paulson

Glenwood, MN

Tags: opinion, letters