With bands marching, flags flying, the firing of salutes and the playing of taps we honored those who'd given the last full measure of devotion this past Memorial Day. All of these things are impressive and well-deserved. We need to honor those who never got a chance to grow old.
But if we can honor the dead why do we have such a hard time honoring those who made it back? True, they're not always of sound mind and body but don't we owe them the best life possible?
We don't provide for their needs, of course, and I think it's shameful that the main culprit in this maltreatment they suffer is the very government they fought to protect. The Veterans Administration, created to look after those who put it all on the line too often treats our vets with disdain as they wait in long lines to receive the care they were promised.
Other government agencies, especially the Justice Department, exclude veterans when it comes to granting them the job preferences the law says they are to have. Unbelievably, Supreme Court decisions favorable to vets are ignored by lower courts who simply ignore them so groups favored by them will get the job a veteran should have gotten. Three Administrations, Obama, Clinton and Carter (himself a Veteran) have been particularly unfair to all Vets but especially the Vietnam Vet.
Many government employees in those administrations had once demonstrated against that war and relish another chance to stick it to the Vietnam Vet. Sad but true. A few years ago the Smithsonian told a Vietnam Vet that veterans from Vietnam were no longer considered veterans. Only a visit to Sen. Chuck Robb's Veterans Advisory Panel righted that wrong, William Layer, who served as a member of that panel, wrote recently in a piece for the Washington Times. The committee found that the Smithsonian had been disobeying the law for a long time.
Most Americans honor our vets but a few dishonorable people in high places can wreak havoc on what should be a protected class. They have earned our protection.
Don Haines
Westminster
The writer served in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1963.
