SEARCH
Returning Veterans Must Fight for Shelter, Jobs, Health Care |
|
 |
|
Today we honor veterans on the official observance of Veterans Day, and the AFL-CIO pays tribute to the brave men and women, many of them union members, who served in the armed forces.
Yet, it is clear that thousands of soldiers, including those whom the Bush administration has sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, face another tough battle when they return home—lack of U.S. support to ensure they have the basic necessities of life such as shelter, a decent job and health care.
It’s an outrage to learn that hundreds of thousands of veterans of all ages are homeless. A study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows that some 195,827 veterans were homeless on a given night in 2006—an increase from 194,254 in 2005. The alliance estimates that more than 336,600 veterans experienced homeless at some time in 2006.
Veterans make up a disproportionate share of homeless people, NAEH found. They represent roughly 26 percent of the nearly 2 million homeless people, but only 11 percent of the civilian population.
Erik Eckholm reports in The New York Times that the government and aid groups say they expect a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead
The homelessness crisis among veterans is fueled by the lack of family-supporting jobs and affordable housing. The alliance estimates that nearly half a million (467,877) veterans are paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent. More than half (55 percent) of veterans with severe housing costs fall below the poverty level, and 43 percent are receiving foods stamps.
Now, it also seems the same Bush administration has abandoned veterans when they come home looking for a job. Last week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions heard that the agencies responsible for protecting veterans from job discrimination are not doing the their job.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), committee chairman, said veterans who seek help
face a Walter Reed-like nightmare of having to negotiate a maze of bureaucracy.
He says those who seek help must wait for months, even years, just to get a simple answer about whether the government will take their case to court.
A new Defense Department report shows significant numbers of veterans have difficulty finding a job after they return home, even though the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) requires employers to reinstate returning veterans and give them full benefits.
A Pentagon survey of military reserve members showed that 44 percent were dissatisfied in 2006 with the Labor Department’s handling of their employment-discrimination complaints, a huge increase from the 26 percent in 2004.
To make matters worse, recent congressional hearings found that the federal government, which is charged with protecting veterans from job bias, has violated the law by denying veterans reinstatement to federal civilian jobs or full benefits when they return from service.
Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), quoted in BNA’s Daily Labor Report (subscription required), is outraged:
It is simply wrong that individuals who were sent to war by their government should, upon their return, be put in the position of having to do battle with that same government in order to regain their jobs and benefits.
And then there is health care. We’ve reported here that about one of every eight veterans under the age of 65 is uninsured, which contradicts the widespread assumption that all vets qualify for free health care through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Researchers at Harvard Medical School projected that about 1.8 million veterans overall lack health coverage. That’s an increase of 290,000 since 2000. The researchers said most uninsured veterans are in the middle class and are ineligible for VA care because of their incomes. Still others cannot afford their co-payments, or lack VA facilities in their community.
Bush likely will show up at for at least one photo op as part of official ceremonies honoring our troops today. But where is he when the cameras go off?
4 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Remember the Bonus Army?
The Bonus Army was an assemblage of about 17,000 World War I veterans, accompanied by their families and other affiliated groups, who demonstrated in Washington, DC, during the spring and summer of 1932. American veterans had been promised by the U.S. government that they would be paid a “bonus” for their service during World War I. They were to receive $1 for every day they had served during that war, or $1.5 for each day they served in combat. When the depression of the 1930s hit, U.S. WWI veterans began a movement to demand that they should not have to wait until 1945 for their bonus. They wanted it to be paid immediately.
They began many protests and lobbying efforts. The Bonus Army massed at the United States Capitol on June 17, 1932 as the U.S. Senate voted on the Patman Bonus Bill, which would have moved forward the date when World War I veterans received a cash bonus. The bill had passed the House of Representatives on June 15 but was blocked in the Senate. After the defeat of the bill, Congress appropriated funds to pay for the marchers’ return home, which some marchers accepted. Some of the veterans stayed and continued to protest.
On July 28, Washington police attacked the veterans. After many people got injured and two veterans died, the protesters assaulted the police with blunt weapons, wounding several of them. After the police retreated, the District of Columbia commissioners informed President Herbert Hoover that they could no longer maintain the peace, whereupon Hoover ordered federal troops to remove the marchers from the general area. Hoover told the military general, Douglas MacArthur, to “Use all humanity consistent with the due execution of this order.” He was ignored.
The marchers were cleared and their camps were destroyed by the 12th Infantry Regiment from Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment under the command of MAJ. George S. Patton from Fort Myer, Virginia, under the overall command of General Douglas MacArthur. The Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the U.S. military from being used for general law enforcement purposes in most instances, did not apply to Washington, DC, because it is one of several pieces of federal property under the direct governance of the U.S. Congress (United States Constitution, Article I. Section 8). Dwight D. Eisenhower, as a member of MacArthur’s staff, had strong reservations about the operation. Troops carrying rifles with unsheathed bayonets and tear gas were sent into the Bonus Army’s camps. President Hoover did not want the army to march across the Anacostia River into the protesters’ largest encampment, but Douglas MacArthur felt this was a communist attempt to overthrow the government and thus exceeded his authority.
Hundreds of veterans were injured, several were killed. Two veterans were shot and killed, William Hushka and Eric Carlson. An 11 week old baby was in critical condition resulting from shock from tear gas exposure. Two infants died from tear gas asphyxiation. An 11 year old boy was partially blinded by tear gas. One bystander was shot in the shoulder. One veteran’s ear was severed by a Cavalry saber. One veteran was stabbed in the hip with a bayonet. At least twelve police were injured by the veterans. Over 1,000 men, women, and children were exposed to the tear gas, including police, reporters, residents of Washington D.C., and ambulance drivers. The army burned down the Bonus Army’s tents and shacks, although some reports claim that to spite the government, which had provided much of the shelter in the camp, some veterans torched their own camp dwellings before the troops could set upon the camp.
– Time magazine August 2, 1932
When war came in 1917 William Hushka, 22-year-old Lithuanian, sold his St. Louis butcher shop, gave the proceeds to his wife, joined the Army…last week William Hushka’s Bonus for $528 suddenly became payable in full when a police bullet drilled him dead in the worst public disorder the capital has known in years. –
The visual image of U.S. armed soldiers confronting poor veterans of the recent Great War set the stage for Veteran relief and eventually the Veterans Administration. Reports of U.S. soldiers marching against their peers did not help Hoover’s re-election efforts; neither did his open opposition to the Bonus Bill due to financial concerns. After the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, some of the Bonus Army regrouped in Washington to restate its claims to the new President.
FDR did not want to pay the bonus early, either, but handled the veterans with more skill when they marched on Washington again the next year. He sent his wife Eleanor to chat with the vets and pour coffee with them, and she persuaded many of them to sign up for jobs making a roadway to the Florida Keys, which was to become the Overseas Highway, the southernmost portion of U.S. Route 1. On September 2, the disastrous Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 killed 259 veterans working on the Highway. After seeing more newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, public sentiment built up so much that Congress could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt’s veto was overridden, making the bonus a reality.
Perhaps the Bonus Army’s greatest accomplishment was the piece of legislation known as the G. I. Bill of Rights. Passed in 1944, it immensely helped veterans from the Second World War to secure needed assistance from the federal government to help them fit back into civilian life, something the World War I veterans of the Bonus Army had received very little of. The Bonus Army’s activities can also be seen as a template for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and popular political demonstrations and activism that took place in the U.S. later in the 20th century.
Retrieved from: Wikipedia
Does the leadership of the AFL-CIO favor a single payer, Canadian-style, Medicare-for-all, health insurance system? They do not.
The California Nurses Association, which joined the AFL executive council earlier this year, supports single payer.
More than 350 other union locals support single payer.
More than 80 members of the House of Representatives support legislation that would create a single payer system in the United States (HR 676).
But the leadership of the AFL-CIO does not support single payer.
They may say they support it.
But yesterday, at a press conference at the National Press Club, it became clear that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and his fellow labor union bosses are actively working to derail the rank and file movement for single payer.
Thanks, FraternalOrder, for the information about the Bonus Army. I did not know anything about this. Your post was not only informative but very troubling. You would think that as our nation got older, it would have hopefully learned something from past mistakes and bad deeds, but no, not in our lifetime. It is sickening that this country could send men and women off to war to fight for everything this country stands for - freedom, democracy, human rights and dignity, and yet once these people have served their ‘duty’, they are so readily and easily discarded. Says a lot about our country, doesn’t it.
union friend:
I posted this tidbit of information only to serve as a reminder that; should we not learn from the mistakes of history, then we are doomed to repeat them.
Solidarity my brother!