Staunton: Vets speak out for Obama
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
Seth Lovell and his twin brother, Eli, thought they had a creative way to pay for college. They signed up for the Virginia National Guard as high-school seniors, the idea being that the tuition assistance would take a load off their mother, who had just been diagnosed with cancer.
A week after he returned from basic training in 2004, the Wilson Memorial High School graduate and Staunton resident was deployed to Afghanistan and served for a year before returning to college. He was surprised and dismayed to see the level of education assistance had dropped significantly in the meantime.
“To see benefits going backwards instead of going forwards, especially when I gave up a year of my life to serve my country, it was disheartening,” said Lovell, who was sent to Iraq in 2007 for another year on the front lines and is now back in school at James Madison University.
Lovell became an interested political observer and then participant in the interregnum, backing U.S. Sen. Jim Webb in his 2006 campaign and laying the groundwork for getting involved in the 2008 presidential process.
“I love America, and I am proud to be American, and I believe that we can do better. And I believe that on the world stage, we should not be losing respect, we should be gaining respect,” said Lovell, who took part in a tour of Western Virginia by a group known as Virginia Veterans for Obama that made a campaign stop in Staunton on Tuesday.
A military couple from Northern Virginia was with Lovell in Staunton to talk up their support for Obama. Brian McGough and Kayla Williams met while on respective tours of duty in Iraq and have struggled together in the aftermath of McGough’s battlefield injuries that put him in Walter Reed Hospital as an inpatient and then outpatient for more than two years. The experience pushed both out of the military and turned them into activists and advocates on behalf of better treatment for military veterans.
“I was shocked to see that he wasn’t getting the care that he needed. And I came to realize that just as this administration was not prepared to handle the occupation of Iraq, they were also unprepared to deal with the volume of severely injured service members coming home, and there was not a plan in place to take care of them, especially those with mental-health problems and traumatic brain injuries,” said Williams, an Arabic interpreter and author of a book about her time in the military, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army.
McGough said he knew the people in charge at Walter Reed “wanted to do more. They requested to have things fixed. They requested to have more doctors, more case managers. They were told that they didn’t have the money. The vote to get them more money was shot down so they could keep tax breaks for people who make over a million dollars,” McGough said.
As the couple struggled to get the proper medical care, Williams began doing some research into the politics of what was going on behind what she and her husband were dealing with, and she was “devastated,” she said, when she heard that John McCain, himself a disabled veteran, had repeatedly voted against increased funding for the Veterans Administration.
“While we were struggling to get my husband the care that he needed, we actually sought help at one point in the civilian sector, thinking that was a way around the problem. And the civilian doctors said, We don’t know how to deal with you. We don’t know anything about blast injuries. You need to deal with the VA. You need to deal with people who know how to treat blast injuries,” Williams said.
“The military culture really encourages stoicism. Suck it up and drive on. It’s very hard to say, I can’t do this by myself. It’s very hard to say, I’m struggling to cope. To take that leap and reach out and seek help and say, I need help with my mental-health issues, I need help to get through this, that’s hard enough. Sen. McCain’s plan to bypass the VA and send people trying to reach out for help into a system with people who have no idea how to deal with combat trauma would make that experience even harder,” Williams said.
Barack Obama, meantime, has consistently supported increased funding for VA programs and was an early supporter of the Post-9/11 GI Bill that expands educational benefits for servicemembers like Williams, who returned to graduate school after finishing up her service in the Army, and Lovell, who is finishing up his work at JMU.
Lovell, Williams and McGough all three back Obama for an additional reason.
“Sen. Obama has shown time and time again that he has the leadership and the judgment to be our commander-in-chief. That’s why I’m proud to support him. That leadership and that judgment helped us usher in a new era in Iraq. We will be able to responsibly redeploy our troops from Iraq within 16 months and focus where the real Al Qaeda is growing to pre-9/11 strength right now, which is along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” McGough said.
“As somebody who is a recent service member, I believe that Sen. Obama is someone who has the leadership and the judgment to be the right commander-in-chief for our country,” Williams said. “It upsets me greatly to learn that we’re sending $10 billion a month to Iraq while Iraq has a $79 billion surplus and we are facing grave financial problems here in this country. Sen. Obama has the right plan to responsibly redeploy our combat forces from Iraq in conjunction with military leaders on the ground and the sovereign, elected government of Iraq, and then we will be able to refocus our attention on Afghanistan, which is the real central front in the war on terror,” Williams said.
“This tough talk that John McCain wants to pretend is going to work with Russia and Iran, I don’t think that’s going to gain us respect. And when he says it’s too dangerous for us to sit down with other nations and discuss our problems, I just disagree,” Lovell said. “Sen. Obama has said before, and I’m going to quote him, because it’s a great point, he said, We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate. Sitting down with other countries and trying to prevent unnecessary wars in the future like Iraq, how is that dangerous? I spent two years in harm’s way, and I’m not anxious to go back. That’s why I support Barack Obama. I think Barack Obama is what this country needs right now. We don’t just need a new face in Washington. We need a new direction,” Lovell said.
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All our active duty military deserve the best Commander In Chief and veterans also deserve the best. McCain knows were he’s been and knows the way our country must go…
As a fellow veteran have you also been walking down that lonely street of dreams? Well it is time to stop hanging on to the promises of yesterday, and walk alongside John McCain in bipartisan unity. Except for on-line I have not meet many veterans who are not on McCain’s strait talk express, the bus stops here, jump on board!
There is absolutely no debating the fact that with Senator McCain not voting for bills laced with pork and ear marks especially on bills for other veterans; he does put our country first.
If anyone bothered to read or listened to his words – they would already know he wants these billions in wasteful spending to go directly to Veterans Affairs.
While a good president knows there would be no United States without veterans he would-not rightly put veterans in front of our Country (what true veteran would even want that?). Veterans barely survived these last thirty years and our funding has finally been getting on the right track, and with no thanks to this congress for adding billions in back door pork, earmarks and/or amnesty for illegal’s etc…
Straight from McCain:
“I’m not here to tell you that there is a cost that is too high to be paid in the care of our nation’s veterans. I will make sure that Congress funds the VA health care budget in a sufficient, timely, and predictable manner. But I will say that every increase in funding must be matched by increases in accountability, both at the VA and in Congress. And this requires an end to certain practices and abuses that serve neither our veterans, our country, nor the reputation of Congress itself.
Exactly because funding VA programs command bipartisan support, some in the Congress like to attach unrelated appropriations and earmarks to VA bills. The result is to mix vital national priorities with wasteful and often worthless political pork. Earmarks show up in bills of every kind, and not just VA bills. That’s how we end up budgeting hundreds of millions of dollars for bridges to nowhere, or lesser sums for Woodstock museums and the like. When that earmark for a million bucks to fund a Woodstock museum didn’t come through, I don’t imagine that many veterans had to change their vacation plans. And the principle here is simple: Public money should serve the public good. If it’s me sitting in the Oval Office, at the Resolute desk, those wasteful spending bills are going the way of all earmarks, straight back to the Congress with a veto.
When we make it clear to Congress that no earmark bill will be signed into law, that will save many billions of dollars that can be applied to essential priorities, and above all to the care of our veterans. But reform doesn’t end there. We must also modernize our disability system to make sure that eligible service members receive benefits quickly, based on clear, predictable, and fair standards. And we must address the problems of capacity and access within our VA health care system. While this will involve a wide range of initiatives, I believe there is a simple and direct reform we should make right away.
Reform must also recognize that greater care is needed for certain types of injuries. In the Senate, I co-authored the Wounded Warrior Act, which was the first major legislative initiative to address post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. As president, I will build on this legislation to improve screening and treatment for these severe injuries suffered by many in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The VA must also broaden its care for the women who are entering the armed forces in greater numbers than ever. The growing ranks of women in uniform have left the VA lagging behind in the services it provides. And here the Veterans Care Access Card will prove especially valuable, affording women medical options while the VA improves capacity and expands services.
These are among the elements of my reform agenda for the VA system. And today, as other occasions, I have stated in the plainest, most straightforward terms that the Veterans Health Care Access Card will expand existing benefits. I don’t expect this will deter the Obama campaign from misrepresenting my proposals, but lest there be any doubt you have my pledge: My reforms would not force anyone to go to a non-VA facility. They will not signal privatization of the VA. And they will not replace any scheduled expansion of the VA network — including those facilities designed to serve veterans living in rural and remote areas.”
Text of whole speech here
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfAUG08/nf081908-6.htm
To use the song that best describes what is going on with the lives of many veterans and VA funding this ones explains it the best:
To see White Snake performing: Here I Go Again
Just click on the youtube video.
“Except for on-line I have not meet many veterans who are not on McCain’s strait talk express …”
There was a whole room full of vets for Obama in Staunton the other night. Crowd estimate: 75, three-quarters of whom raised their hands when a speaker asked those in the room who were vets to do so.
I really hope those 75 veterans will soon realize just how Obama is already exploiting those who need help and that includes veterans.
Young voters, homeless targeted in Ohio’s election
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008...
It should be illegal to exploit the homeless for their vote. After the election those who actually help them obtain a real address/home should then be able to legally register them. The same applies to the poverty stricken. What is presently being done is sociopathic and our whole country will pay for this crime. I’ve been saying it is wrong to do this just to the small veteran population which includes the homeless and the many veterans in nursing homes;
http://newsblaze.com/story/2008072111363...
Republicans are the ones being exploitative here. They’re the ones telling people to wait ’til after the election to exercise their constitutional rights. The word sociopathic does apply here. Shame on you, GOP!
Pat,
If the only veterans you know supporting Obama are on the internet, then you haven’t looked hard at all. That is a mileading statement, and one that carries no validity. The organization I am a member of, “Virginia Veterans for Obama,” has over 2,000 members across the state. Other veterans organizations across the country have seen the same response, and in other states an even greater response.
I would list to you all the reaons I, and other veterans see the change we need not in John McCain, but in Barack Obama, but I’m not sure it would get through to you. I will tell you this though as a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq, just being a veteran, doesn’t mean you support veterans. I respect John McCain’s service, but that doesn’t mean I think he would be a good commander in chief.
Seth I can understand voting for this promise of a better world – a little ‘something’ for everyone. And Seth seriously; I can’t hold this against anyone especially a new vet because just like with the VA you’se kids don’t know any better (yet). If you’re 32 or younger you are young enough to be my kid, while my daughter is 19 she still has to find things out the very hardest of ways, instead of taking some advice. . .
P S – Seth what about the Florida Veterans for McCain
(Dare to read):
http://floridaveteransforjohnmccain.blogspot.com/2008/10/john-mccain-proven-advocate-for-america.html
How about this story from the Army Times, Pat.
- http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_mccain_healthcare_072208/
That’s the Army Times. Not a pro-McCain blog that references a speech.
- http://www.military.com/news/article/vets-to-mccain-back-new-gi-bill.html
- http://www.military.com/news/article/vets-to-mccain-back-new-gi-bill.html
- http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/05/23/mccain_misses_vote_on_a_new_gi_bill_scorns_criticism_from_obama/
- http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/mccain-now-supp.html
Looks like veterans across the country have spoken on McCain’s inaction on the New GI Bill. Except for that handful of Veterans for McCain in Florida. Maybe they ought to look at his record.
Greg
Maze is a good writer, and I save most of his articles, these links just show me you haven’t read much of mine or the facts from Florida. You can find both pro and con articles anywhere (except for the closeminded liberals). Referring back to your first link quoting Paul and the Vets for common sense; I have a blog there because the main objective there is to help this new generation of vets. There might be a few loony liberals I tick off there from time to time, but living in Pa. I know that most Democrats are great intelligent people. Like I said I’m just here to help and hate seeing veteran’s issues being exploited for personal political gain – and this congress has been really good at doing just that. At this time in history; the thing all Americans and our Country needs the most – to work out these huge problems – is the UNITY of our political parties. McCain has already proven he can do this; being a maverick for so many years in Washington he has taken hell from the left, the right, and those in-between. McCain has the God given ability to rationalize and debate even liberal protocol…
Maverick alert! Maverick alert!
All due respect, Pat, we can do without clumsy attempts to inject “maverick” into the discussions here. And without pushing your partisan blog posts as being more valuable than stories written by nonpartisans at the Army Times.
John McCain voted the way he did for reasons that he felt were valid. He has been on the record about his thoughts regarding the rationing of VA health care and his opposition to the New GI Bill. You can claim otherwise until the cows come home, but your claims and blog posts and the rest can’t change those facts.
You seem to acknowledge this in your reference to Democrats exploiting these issues for political gain. Sadly, it is you that is attempting to exploit these issues for political gain. It would do us all a bit of good if you would embrace your favored candidate’s actual record on these issues. I’m sure that the veterans who have looked at the record and based their decisions to vote for Obama-Biden based on the facts would respect you greatly if you did that.
Thanks!
I apologize to our readers. I had to delete a recent comment that contained profanity. I hope that I catch things like this before they’re up too long, but this post was up for a few minutes before I caught it.
Again, my apologies.
Once again, I apologize to our readers. The same poster used the same profanity (word starting with an s- that refers to animal excrement).
That poster is now prohibited from participating in our forums.