Respect for Veterans

Greetings fellow Wyomingites!

Yesterday I spoke with a newspaper reporter about a bill that incumbent John Barrasso is touting as proof of his commitment to the care and concern of combat veterans. The bill had to do with ensuring prompt medical care for the wounded vets at the V.A. Center in Cheyenne, and may well be a good thing. The devil is always in the details.

But what strikes me is the overall plan behind some of these pronouncements. Politicians will run a flag up the flagpole that is positive in nature, while many parts of the rest of their record are questionable.

For example, John Barrasso voted against a proposal to limit the time of a tour of duty in Iraq. The amendment would have reduced the tour for Army soldiers from 15 months to 12 months, under the theory that the stress of combat duty and overseas tours could be moderated by a shorter stint. Keeping in mind that our soldiers are serving numerous tours as time goes by. It's not like Vietnam where folks served one tour and were out. I have read that some soldiers are on their 4th tour. That is tough on family life.

Another angle is that there has been an ongoing issue with the quality of military medical care in general. There was a dust up about it a while back, but have reforms really been implemented? Those type of systemic problems take many years to really flush out of a system, and I suspect that has not happened to any significant degree in this case.

Thanks for reading.