Failing to Serve America's Heroes on the Home Front

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Failing to Serve America's Heroes on the Home Front

jebaz 11-10-2007, 9:12 AM
Dear Senator Grassley,

Your comments in ABC's story "Failing to Serve America's Heroes on the Home Front" are a disgrace and the highest form of disrespect to all veterans and soldiers serving in harms way today. Your comments disgraceful as they are are particularly disturbing as they were made one day before Veterans Day when we should be honoring our Nation's heroes.

It is evident from your comments you have no knowledge as to what National Service Organizations that represent disabled veterans like the one I work for do for disabled veterans and their families at absolutely no cost, not one-penny do. Unlike some attorneys who make huge sums of money based on the tragic disabilities of our Nations heroes, we do not make one penny. Yet I personally often work up to 80 hours a week to keep up with the ever-increasing demand to represent our Nation’s heroes. Organizations like ours are at the bedsides of these heroes at VA Medical Centers taking care of the needs of these individuals and their families. We are their not just at the beginning to assist these heroes secure the benefits they are entitled to receive, we are there to serve them and their families throughout their life, and again at no cost. If a veteran passes away, it is we who are there for their widows to assist them with benefits they may be entitled to receive. Not you, Brian Ross and/or Susan Schwartz, or ABC news are there for these heroes, it is people like us who often never stop working due to our commitment to disabled veterans. If an attorney does happen to take a case and is successful winning that case, the attorney often makes a significant amount of money off that case and that veteran’s disability, than my entire year’s salary. If you were educated before making your disgraceful comments, you would know what the VJRA is and why very few attorneys ever developed any expertise in representing disabled veterans. It is because prior to enactment of the VJRA, attorneys were barred from charging more than $10 to represent a disabled veteran. The reason for this is because both Congress and our Nation did not wish to have attorneys profiting from the suffering and often catastrophic disabilities of those who proudly served our Nation. Because there was never a financial incentive for attorneys to represent veterans, they never developed expertise in VA statutes and regulations. I personally have clients that paid attorneys a significant contingency fee to handle their appeal, the attorney lost the appeal, and the disabled veteran lost their money and received no disability benefits. After coming to us and spending weeks of my own personal time working on cases like this, not only won the case and secured the appropriate disability compensation for the veteran, but huge retroactive payments for the veterans, and unlike attorneys, it did not cost the veteran anything. Is it your belief these American heroes should pay huge sums of money for the benefits they earned, rather than receive them free from non-profit organizations like ours that only survive on donations from the public? Your disgraceful comments are typical Washington spin allowing you to avoid the real problems and issues, and blame someone else. Is it that difficult understand why Congress has the lowest approval ratings I can ever remember in history. Your comments clearly indicate you are not knowledgeable with respect to the issues you commented on, and distort reality and mislead the public. Your comments on ABC news stating, “We owe the veterans a great deal, and this shows a lack of respect for what veterans have fought for, our freedom.” You refer to the report from the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP) regarding your investigation into charities, (and/or apparently non-profit organizations such as those that represent disabled veterans) “an outrage.” I suggest to you sir that is an outrage that every year we have to come to Capitol Hill every year and literally beg from you and your colleagues adequate funding for VA healthcare. I suggest to you sir that if maybe you and your colleagues properly took care of our men and women in uniform and our disabled veterans, non profit organizations like those that represent disabled veterans would not have to rely solely on donations from generous Americans to provide the services we provide for free.

If a disabled veteran regardless of how catastrophic, their disability is, somehow ends up in jail, maybe due to psychological disorders incurred during wartime, their disability benefits are reduced to 10% or $115 per month. I respectfully ask you sir, with so may of your colleagues in prison due to scandals or who have left Congress in disgrace due to scandals, why are their pensions not only reduced, but also terminated? Maybe the millions of dollars saved doing so could be better spent on our Nations veterans. With Congress suffering from historical low approval ratings, rather than resolve real issues that you were elected to resolve, you are negligent in your responsibilities and deflect attention by trying to find fault and create scandals among dedicated people and organizations that go well above and beyond the call of duty to assist our Nation’s most disabled heroes for free. As a veteran myself, I find your actions and comments to be the most reprehensible, disrespectful, discourteous and abhorrent directed at all those who have proudly served our Nation, and those serving today.

It appears the biggest PACs that donate to your campaigns are the healthcare industry. Yet you seem to have no understanding of VA healthcare for disabled veteran and/or are uninterested. One note on your web site states, “Our answer to Abraham Lincoln won his seat handily through hard work, high ethical standards, and never forgetting who sent him to Washington.” A famous quote of President Abraham Lincoln referring to disabled veterans is as follows. “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.” With all due respect, Senator Grassley, you are no Abraham Lincoln.

Over many years, I have received numerous requests from Senators and Congressman to assist disabled veterans and have always assisted in every possible way. Since this is rather common, you may have made the same requests yourself. Yet you have the audacity to criticize these organizations. Maybe it is time Senator to stop deflecting attention from the real issues, and investigate a Congress with historically low approval ratings that cannot seem to accomplish anything other than finding someone else to investigate and blame for your shortcomings. Your reckless remarks hurt no one more than our Nation’s veterans, and those you have helped put in harms way today serving in the active military. You therefore not only owe them a debt of gratitude, and sincere apology, you owe the Nation an apology for your misleading comments. All the freedoms and luxuries afforded to you today, the freedom to make careless remarks in the news, the freedom to speak from the floor of the Senate, and all the other luxuries you enjoy as a Senator, are not free. They were paid for by the blood and lives of American veterans. Please think about this the next time you speak from the floor of the Senate or the freedom you enjoy to speak to the press, enjoy a very comfortable tax payer funded lifestyle, the best type of healthcare that veterans will never receive, and an enormous pension you will receive when you retire that veterans who served their Nation proudly, will never receive.