[Vision2020] Support for veterans

[Tom Hansen]

Mr. Falen -

Thank your very, very much for your concern, and action, in this most dier 
issue.

PTSD is, and has been since WW1, a low priority on our national budget.  

What returning combat troops need, as importantly as medical care, is 
transitional therapy, as they go from combat in Iraq/Afghanistan to 
walking the streets of their home towns.

According to President Bush's 2009 budget, the dollars fall short again 
and thre returning combat veteran is forced to get his life in order 
almost immediately.

Disabled American Veterans (DAV) created a video to illustrate the needs 
of these veterans, needs being ignored by BUsh's 2009 budget.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v27KmWBgKgw

When these troops return home, many are suffering from PTSD and they are 
cast out onto the streets without any therapy whatsoever.  The result is 
often measured by their ever-increasing numbers under parkway overpasses, 
in back alleys, and addiction to controlled substances.

We can . . . We must . . . We WILL provide for these veterans.

Thanks again.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho



> Tom
> I don't know if you reed The American Legion Magazine or not, but there 
is a good article
in the February issue on General Richard Cody. He stresses the need for 
improving support
for veterans. He supports the Dole-Shalala recommendations.
> Create comprehensive recovery plans, managed by a corps of recovery-plan 
coordinators, to
ease the transition to civilian life.
> Udate and simplify the process for determining disability ratings and 
benefits between DoD
and VA.
> Aggressively improve care for veterans suffering brain injury and post-
traumatic 
disorders, signature combat conditions faced by those who fought in Iraq 
and afghanistan.
> significantly strengthen support for military families.
> More rapidly transfer patient information between DoA and VA.
> Recruit and retain first-rate professionals through 2011 at Walter Red 
Army Medical
Center.
> 
> On the unsanitary conditions reveled last winer a Walter Reed outpatient 
facility he says;
Our challenge will be to put behind us Building 18. It was never an issue 
about the
quality of care for soldiers on the ward, the soldiers in the intensive 
care units. Walter
Reed is the best hospital in the world. If you have a traumatic anything, 
you want to be
at Walter Reed. The issue had to do with soliers who were being processed 
out, with
medical problems. The whole system got overloaded. It had nothing to do 
with medical
treatment. It all had to do with having the leadership and assisting them 
through the maze
of medical evaluation boards, physical evaluation boards, and then trying 
to marry up what
benefits they got, especially if they weren't going to get 30-percent 
disability ratings
from VA.
> Walter Reed is fully funded until the day we close the doors. Everyone 
is looking at
"closing" Walter Reed. Look at this as closing a post, a hospital, that 
was going to cost
aus almost $1 billion to upgrade. It had no room, bounded by four streets. 
So the
discussion was made to move Walter Reed, merge it with Bethesda, rename it 
Walter Reed
National Military Medical Center, and to build a world-class military 
medical center. The
Bethesda campus, six miles away, has three  rimes the room to build new.
> 
> 
> I spent 12 weeks OJT at Walter Reed in 1961-62. I was billeted at Walter 
Reed, but worked
at Bethesda. From there  I was transfered to Brook Army Hospital, Fort Sam 
Houston in San
antonio, Texas, another great hospital
> 
> Roger
> 
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room forums are neither brave nor clever." 

- Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch (August 21,
2007)

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