Give the Senate a Lollipop
Finally. It’s about time. The Senate did the right thing and passed the Burn Pit Bill. Wow. Who ever knew something so right and easy could be so complicated? But then again, it is the dysfunctional world of DC politics.
Personally, I’m thrilled to see it. Just this week, I had another fellow veteran sitting at my dining room table who might now have an easier time getting VA help. He’s only been fighting them for a few years.
As an individual, I tend to help vets on my own figure out how to get through the morass that is the VA maze to get benefits and to get the right answers on their health and their benefits. This vet had come to me after the Burn Pit Fiasco. We had both hoped it would be complete as it would make his journey through the VA less of a fight than his time in Iraq. Yet for some vets, fighting the enemy has always been easier than fighting the VA. But with the Burn Pit Bill in turmoil, we rolled up our sleeves and dug in to begin the next fight. Hopefully, with this bill finally passed, the work of that day will lead to an easier resolution for this vet. He and his family need answers, care, and support.
today am going to see another older veteran – a Vietnam vet. I have been helping him with his case for about three years now. We have had some wins in his care and some of his compensation. It’s been a wild fight to get it, but every fight with the VA is just that – a fight involving a veteran against the government he served. In his case, it took me reviewing all his medical records over the last few decades along with all the pertinent issues concerning Agent Orange to put together the packages of information that finally has gotten him to this point. What a journey it has been. Maybe with this bill, the last of his fight with the VA will finally lead to him being made at least partially whole from his decades of suffering from the effects of that war.
So I’d like to offer the Senate a lollipop. It is the cheap treat of choice when a child does what they need to do but doesn’t really want to. Of course, since it’s just one lollipop, those of you who voted on the bill deserve at least a ceremonial lick.
Those of you who voted against it just deserve my pity as well as the pity I feel for the veterans you seem to not represent. But that is another discussion for another day.
For now, thanks to all who helped this bill finally get passed. And again, a special thanks to Jon Stewart. Maybe we can be a little less F’d.
Besides that, veterans – choose joy and take care of each other. In the end, we as our own special family, sometimes we are all we have.