Vets tell Loebsack Health Care, Equipment Top Concerns

Health care and equipment were the top concerns for vets of all ages who met with Congressman Dave Loebsack Friday at a town meeting for veterans at the Iowa City library.

Veterans are not fully informed of their eligibility for benefits when they return home, and miss out on available help until it is too late, said Afghanistan vet Jennifer Zarr of the University of Iowa Veterans Association.  “The unit never told me, and when all you want to do is go home, you’re not always paying attention.”

Veteran Jennifer Zarr shares her concerns as (left) Rep. Dave Loebsack and (center) John Mikelson, Veterans Advisor at the UI Pomerantz Career Center, listen.Most veterans have a two-year window of eligibility for VA service.  Johnson County Veterans Affairs director Leo Baier said enrollment was open from 1998 until 2003, but that opportunity was closed in 2003 with budget cuts.  Means tests now make many veterans ineligible.

“There is no shortage of people in Washington D.C. in both parties who want to do things for veterans,” said Loebsack.  He expects the proposed $87 billion VA budget will be met or exceeded, but expressed some concern about possible increases in co-payments proposed by the Bush administration but opposed by the House.

“If we send people off to war, we have the responsibility to take care of them when they get back,” said Loebsack, who this week voted to override President Bush’s veto of a bill that provided funding for the Iraq War but set a withdrawal deadline.  The override vote failed to get the 2/3 vote required.

Loebsack did not discuss war politics during the veteran’s forum, focusing instead on their health care and equipment concerns.  “I don’t know” what comes after the veto, he told me after the forum.  “I don’t think anyone does.  What I’m telling Nancy Pelosi, and what other freshmen are telling her, is to keep the pedal to the metal on this.”  Loebsack cited the key role Rep. Dave Obey (D-WI), Appropriations chair, would play.  “If they have to step back to benchmarks, rather than a deadline, it’ll be harder to support.” 

“Every freshman voted for the supplemental, including those in the districts Bush won.  They’re the brave ones, not me.”

The first-term Mt. Vernon Democrat acknowledged criticism from protesters who call for an immediate defunding of the war, and said they have a role in the process.  “We all have the same goal – to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.”

  Those who have been in the hell over there said Guard units are especially ill-equipped.  “Our biggest problem was supplies,” said Zarr.  “I hade no body armor plates the first two months I was in country.  My M16 was older than I was.”  Zarr said there was a prejudice in the regular military toward guard units: “They see us as part-timers with part-time benefits.  But when you’re called up, you’re full time.  I made $30,000 the year I was in Afghanistan.”

Loebsack, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was shocked by briefings on how ill equipped troops are.  “We have no unit that is truly C-1 combat ready in the United States.  You (the troops) have suffered as a result of these decisions.”

“I’m not trying to be partisan, but there are differences between the new majority and the people who were in charge before.  What’s driving our decision making process is what’s good for the troops NOW, not newfangled weapons systems in 2022.”

Zarr said her unit only lost one soldier in Afghanistan, but that death was a direct result of an inadequate.  “75% of our Humvees were soft-top cloth.  We had to buy scrap metal from the locals to plate the bottoms,” and the vehicle in which the soldier died did not have such improvised protection.  “It was because we didn’t have the equipment.”

Loebsack, who visited Iraq soon after taking office, said he wished every one of his colleagues could see the military vehicle graveyard in Kuwait.  Rows and rows and rows of jeep and tanks and Humvees hit by IED’s? and then thinking about all the people who were in them.”

Zarr said her unit was lucky and got new helmets.  Roy Romans, a Cold War era vet from North Liberty, said many guard units still have the old ones.  “Your head is like a BB in the old ones.  Brain injury is the signature wound of this war.”

Veterans are also denied benefits for drug abuse, even if the abuse is service related to some degree.  People are self-medicating for post traumatic stress disorder, said Zarr.  “Is it anything to do with that you were in Iraq and saw your best friend die?”  “They’ve got to be covered no matter what, echoed another veteran.”

“If you wear that uniform and risk your life, you’ve earned it,” said Romans, “whether you saw combat or not.  When I was in, the deal was: if you served honorably, the VA would be there for you.”  Veterans were united in their praise of the actual work of the VA despite frustration with bureaucracy.

Zarr also said Blackwater, a private security force working alongside the military, put troops at risk.  “We despise Blackwater.  They were the ones torturing people, and it made the locals not trust us.”

Student veterans also said they were having issues with education benefits.  Lindsay Anderson said on enlistment in the Guard, she anticipated 100% of her tuition would be paid.  But when she was called up to active duty, her eligibility did not transfer, and she’ll have to pay her last three semesters out of pocket.  “I was disadvantaged because of my deployment.”

“Every vet needs to know,” said Zarr.