With a new president in office promises of our far away loved ones coming home is a dream come true, and and couldn't come soon enough for the men and women that have been serving and sacrificing for our country for the past eight years in Iraq. These veteran's will be welcome home with open arms by our people, but unfortunately not so by our economy. The article I read was called "Are We Ready to Welcome the Soldiers That Obama's Bringing Home from Iraq?", this title caught my attention because of the severity of our nation's financial situation. We are living in a day of the highest unemployment rates, greatest economical debt, and the most poverty and home foreclosures we've seen in decades, so the prospect of our veteran's coming home to unemployment checks is tragic although not surprising.
Although these men and women signed up for their duties, we still owe them everything we can offer them for making a stand and sacrificing all that they have while in service. They have been far away from home, enduring 3rd world conditions (missing out on our everyday luxuries), and witnessing tragedies so that we may not have to. Foutunately this week president Obama released his budget for veterans, which appears promising for our returning tropps. This budget reveals increased spending on health care and other veteran's programs bout appromiately 11%, and, an influxe in VA funding of $25 billion over five years.
The author (Paul Rieckhoff) of this article found at alternet.org seems the be skeptical of the budget. He explains how the budget plan is optimistic but still very vague, in that it does'nt mention one of Obama's campaign promises; additional funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs. This advanced funding wouldn't cost anything, however it would help all goverment funded veterans' hospitals plan their budgets sooner, and possibly prevent "care-rationing" that many VA hospitals go through when budgeting is prepared too late.
Only time will tell if we will be able to repay our protectors for their 8 years well done. Hopefully Obama's promise was not only a "campain" promise.
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I agree with helping our troops as much as they have done for us. They put their lives on the line for us everyday and it's something they want to do.
ReplyDeleteOur society needs to realize the efforts and the sacrifices that our vets are making and do something worthwhile for them when they do get home. Only time will tell if it was a campaign promise or not.
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