Something I came accross in the local online paper today @
http://www.standard.net/
Taking care of those who served
Some veterans remain reluctant to sign up for benefits
Sun, July 27, 2003
By CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- Kent Hite has been to 16 job interviews in the past two weeks, but still finds himself sitting in front of his apartment at the Homeless Veterans Fellowship, cooling his heels.
The job market is tough, for one thing. Plus he has no car, not even a bike. And, he also admits, he"s got some "background check" issues -- possession of stolen property 13 years ago -- that still haunt him.
So even though his hair is neat, his clothes crisp, his eye steady and his voice clear, he finds jobs to be scarce.
He was in the military from 1978 to 1980, and that is the only thing keeping him going at this point. He ended up homeless after making "bad choices" involving drugs, eventually having to start over at the bottom.
If it weren"t for veterans
benefits -- medical benefits and counseling benefits that included referral to the Fellowship that gave him a home -- he"d still be on the street. He may not be finding work, but at least he"s looking and working to improve his life.
Hite is one of 161,000 veterans in Utah who depend on a system of benefits for the country"s former soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen that are, increasingly, threatened.
Terry Schow, director of the Utah Division of Veterans" Affairs, says the military is cranking out new veterans as fast as the war in Iraq can turn, but government funds to help them after they get out of the service are not keeping up.
The result angers many veterans.
"Clear betrayal"
For example, last week the Veterans of Foreign Wars issued a press release slamming a congressional committee that cut $2 billion from the proposed increase of veterans" health funding.
"VFW officials point out that inflation alone will absorb that meager amount," the release says. It also calls the cut "a clear betrayal of the assurances made to America"s veterans by the House Republican leadership."
On Tuesday Frank Maughan, former Weber County Commissioner and president of the Utah Chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America, was writing a letter to the two Republican congressmen from Utah over a different matter in which he sees vets getting short shrift.
A law approved more than 100 years ago makes it impossible for a combat-injured veteran to collect both disability benefits and a military pension. They have to pick one or the other, he said, something wounded veterans who have civilian pensions don"t have to do. There are about 550,000 veterans who would benefit if the old law were changed.
Anger at Washington
Maughan, a staunch Republican and supporter of the war in Iraq, said he"s especially angry that Republicans in Congress just voted a prescription benefit for Medicare clients while the bill to help vets is stalled. The bill is stuck in committee; a Democrat is attempting to get it out and is meeting resistance from Republican members of Congress. Most House Republicans signed on as bill sponsors, but only one has, so far, supported lifting it from that committee.
MATTHEW HATFIELD/Standard-Examiner
Korean War veteran DeVere N. Hess looks at names at a memorial in Tremonton. Today is the 50th anniversary of the armistice that brought an end to combat in Korea after three brutal years.
He"s also angry that the Bush administration, which ran on a platform of giving veterans more benefits than the Clinton administration, has threatened to veto the attempt to help the veterans.
"Mr. Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) sent a note to the committee saying, "Gosh, we just can"t afford to do this," " Maughan said.
"It"s a little bit of a dichotomy in a lot of minds. We can give prescription drugs to a lot of unknown numbers of people at an unknown amount per year," but can"t provide for veterans "who picked up shrapnel, whatever, serving their country."
Utah has a lot of veterans from the country"s many wars. The 2000 Census found 161,000, including 23,000 from the Korean War, 44,000 from Vietnam, 30,000 from World War II, 12,000 from the Gulf War, and the rest from the periods in between the wars and to the present.
Schow spends a lot of his days trying to get those veterans to sign up for the benefits they deserve, even as he struggles to get adequate funding for those same benefits.
More accurate count
Utah"s total population of veterans actually went up, from 125,000 to 161,000, after the last census. There was no huge influx, he said, just a more accurate count. Previous estimates were made by the Veterans Administration.
Schow said his biggest problem is getting veterans to apply for the benefits they deserve. As they age, he said, they need that help more and more.
Veterans from World War II and the Korean War are still feeling the effects of cold-weather injuries, such as frostbite, he said. Vietnam veterans still suffer from Agent Orange exposure and a variety of tropical diseases. The whole Gulf War syndrome for Desert Storm vets is still developing.
"And the hard thing is, how do you know?" Schow said. "Some of these people were exposed to chemical and biological stuff." Recent findings, for example, show that Korea veterans were exposed to Agent Orange, too, not just those who served in Vietnam.
Schow said he needs to get more veterans to apply for their benefits. Utah"s veterans receive $129 million a year in pensions and compensation. By comparison, he said, 150,000 veterans in Maine receive more than $200 million.
Embarrassed?
A lot of veterans don"t want to be a bother, or are embarrassed, he said. Some even think applying for VA benefits is the same as applying for welfare.
"This Vietnam vet I talked to this week, he had a gunshot wound. This breaks my heart: He came back, got spit on, was so dispirited he threw away all his medals, all his papers, but now he"s ill, he"s in a wheelchair, he needs help."
The problem, he said, is partially fault of President Clinton. Clinton opened up Veterans Administration health benefits to all veterans, not just those with service-related disabilities.
"Prior to that time they had 3 million veterans they were caring for," Schow said. "Now there"s 5 million who want to be cared for."
There"s one big reason a lot of veterans want to sign up, he said: prescriptions.
Medicare doesn"t pay for prescriptions -- the Senate and House have approved differing versions of a bill to change Medicare, but they are stuck in a conference committee -- but veterans can get any prescription they need for a $7-per-month co-pay.
Long wait
The trick, of course, is getting in to see a doctor to get the prescription. That"s where the crunch comes in.
Steve Rawle, assistant director of the Homeless Veterans Fellowship in Ogden, said any veteran who wants to go to the VA now for non-emergency help, such as getting a physical examination, is looking at as much as a nine-month wait for an appointment.
Many hurdles
Fortunately for him, he said, most of the veterans he sees are already in the system, often having been referred by drug treatment or similar programs. The Homeless Veterans Fellowship has 26 people in its transitional housing program and sees as many as 70 a day at its drop-in center.
Anyone new trying to get services, though, faces a lot of hurdles.
"The system is just full, and with all the cutbacks we don"t have the funds to open new hospitals," he said. "So it"s difficult for the men and women who go and serve our country, and who have this entitlement, to go take advantage of it."
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