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Veterans AdministrationBy VVAWOn August 19th, President Ford appeared in Chicago before the national convention of the VFW where he named Richard L. Roudebush as the new director of the Veterans Administration. "Roudy," as his buddies call him, was hauled in to fill the vacancy left by the sudden departure of the VA's former director, Donald E. Johnson. But whether it's Ford or Nixon, Roudebush or Johnson, it's still the same story: the only way vets are going to get decent benefits and services is to fight for them. Changing the names on the doors of a few top-floor offices can't even begin to change this fact of life. Even as President Ford was patting the new director of the VA on the back and telling the faithful at the VFW convention what a great guy he was, over 50 people, members of VVAW/WSO and supporters from the Revolutionary Student Brigade, the People's Voice, and the Revolutionary Union, were at the Regional VA Administration Office on the other side of town letting the VA know what they though of the whole, lousy VA system. They seized the Chicago Regional VA Director's office and served notice on the VA that there would be no letup on it. The new director, Richard Roudebush, has since then made a point of asking for a :moratorium on criticism of the VA"--a fighting brand of "criticism" that had kicked his predecessor, Donald Johnson, out of office -- while he "overhauls the agency." The many VVAW/WSO actions such as the Chicago VA take-over should have made it clear to both Roudebush and the VA that this is not going to happen. Just who are we taking about when we deal with the Veterans Administration? It's not as if it was some two-bit operation struggling along doing what it can with an impossible situation. Rather, it is the third largest federal agency, only behind the DOD and HEW, receiving on the order of $13 billion a year. Yet, we find that only 20% of this budget goes to veteran's benefits while 40% goes to "administration." The VA is the second largest federal employer and runs the largest hospital system in the U.S. Yet it has the lowest doctor to patient ratio of any large hospital system in the country. Out of every 140 employees in the VA hospitals, 50 work solely with administrative work. As opposed to the 340-400 employees per 100 patients in university hospitals, or the 292 employees per 100 patients in community hospitals, the VA has an appalling ratio of 140 employees per 100 patients in its hospitals. Dealing specifically with Roudebush, his whole nation of a "moratorium on criticism of the VA" is pure nonsense. He has been working for the VA since Jan. 1971, and holding the #2 post of deputy administrator since Jan. 1974. He clearly represents the reaffirmation of the same miserable policies the VA has followed for years. Recently, he stated that Vietnam veterans are getting their fair "share" of the VA budget. "From a numbers standpoint." Vietnam veterans represent about 20% of the nation's 29 million veterans and they are getting about 30% of the total budget." Who is he kidding? To say that a veteran recently discharged from the service out of a job, without schooling or training and often with extensive medical needs requires the same VA assistance as a 55 year old WWII vet is outrageous. But more importantly, where does Roudebush get off with his silly arithmetic in the first place: 30% of lousy VA benefits equal lousy VA benefits! In a classic position statement on where the VA really stands in terms of meeting veterans' needs, Roudebush recently said that he opposed the "demand made by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (sic) that VA medical care be offered to veterans with less-than-honorable discharges." Such a policy, he said, would have to be enacted by Congress and the President, but that even if they did enact such policy, he would oppose it! (This is partially a lie as it is up to the discretion of each regional VA director whether or not vets with administratively-given bad discharges receive medical care). Such a statement from the head of the agency that is supposed to "serve" vets is unbelieveable. But that's why Roudebush was put in the job to begin with. His personal political history is, in and of itselft, eought to provoke a confrontation between vets and the VA. A staunch right-winger, friends have described him as "having a patent on patriotism." In any case, his political views were sufficiently reactionary to win him the post of national commander of the VFW in 1957. But the lesson we must draw from all this is not that Richard L. Roudebush is the problem. Actually, he is just the symptoml a hack mouthpiece hired by the corporate elite, the real rulers of this country. His role is to serve these people by keeping veterans in line and politcally "de-fused." Once he can no longer perform this task, he (like Donald Johnson) can be discarded. The real enemy is the system of imperialism and the business interests that run it. That is the real cause of the problems veterans face and the reason why the VA cannot and will not solve them. Imperialism is now facing the worst political and economic crisis it has seen in over 40 years. The actual extent of the crisis may well exceed the depression of the 1930's. The causes of this crisis have their roots in the defeat imperialism suffered in Indochina, the untold billions poured down the rat hole of a genocidal war of agression, the struggles for liberation and independence of oppressed people all ofver the world, and the rising resistance of working people here at home. To survive, imperialism is increasingly forced to place the burden of the crisi on the backs of the American people through economic attacks and political repression. Veterans, in the forefront of the struggle against the war in Indochina, now find themselves in the forefront in the fight against these attacks. When Congress passed a recent GI Bill increase, President Ford promptly put the brakes on it and theatened to veto it ouright to "control inflationary excess." The increase voted by the Congress was only for a measly 23% (it also included an extension of GI Bill benefits from 36 to 45 months, and would have made vets eligble for a new $1000 federal loan program). The 23% increase would have raised a single vets check from $220 to $270, a married vet's from $261 to $321, and a married vet with a child from $298 to $366. Besides the fact that inflation already means that a GI Bill would have to be increased by 12% just to keep from acutally being reduced in its real value. To equal the GI Bill given WWII vets, the presdient GI Bill would have to increase by over 300%. And yet, President Ford killed the increase! It's clear that policy decisions such as this are a direct reflection of the attack the system is waging against vets in particular (in this case) and working people in generla. Small wonder that a recent Congressional study found that "the unemployment rate for honorably discharged young Vietnam veters, age 20-24, for the first quarter of this year has been 9.9%, and a staggering 18.9% for non-caucasian veterans." There is no other solution to thsese attacks on veterans and the American people as a whole other than by uniting and fighting back against the whole imperialist system and the VA as one integral part of that system. The best way of doing this is by exposing the system to the people for what it really is and by attacking it through militant action of the people. National Program At its last National Steering Committee Meeting in Buffalo, New York, VVAW/WSO adopted a new program for the coming year that is aimed at building just such people's struggle. The program is based aroudn 4 demands: Universal and Unconditional Amnesty; Implement the Agreement, End All Aid to Thieu and Lon Nol; Decent Benefits for All Vets; and a Single-type Discharge for All Vets. During the ocming year, the organization will build a people's campaign aroudn these issues in their communites, coming together for coordinaed regional demonstrations all over the country oon four target dates: Veteran's Day, the Anniversey of the Signing of the Paris Accords, Vietnam Veterans Day and Armed Farces Day. These demonstration dates will provide a focus for nationwide action aroudn the 4 demands, though they, of course, will only be the "high points" in the campaigns that naturally must be built in the communities on a day-to-day basis. The two aspects of the program, visible actions and daily work aroudn the demands, must go hand in hand. VVAW/WSO believes that these demands provide the nevessary link between the immediate needs of veterans aroudn their day-tp-day struggle for survival and the more general, over-riding anti-imperialist issues that are vital to the growth of the anti-imperialist movement and a real solution to the basis cause of our problems. The Chicago VA take-over was but one of the more recent examples of how this campaign can unfold. In Chicago, VVAW/WSO members and supporters sezied the director's office and forefully raised their demands: decent VA benfits for all vets, a single-type dishcarge for all vets, universal and unconditional amnesty, and implement of the Paris Agreement-end all aid to Thieu and Lon Nol. The demonstators also explained these demands to hundreds of sympathetic VA staff employees and vets in the hospital through the leafletting, speaking and picket lines held during the action. As was pointed out to these people, the goal was not to seize the director's office, but to use that as a tactic to expose the VA. The goal was to use that action to unite with as many other people as possible, vets and VA workers alike, in attacking the VA and fighting to meet the needs of all veterans in the US. The Chicago demonstrators emphasied that the VA take-over there was just one of many militant actions against the VA organized by VVAW/WSO all across the coutnry. Similar demonstrations and activites have been held in such places as Milwaukee, New York City, New Jersey, Washington DC, and Miami, Florida. The militance and increasing frequency of such actions all spell out one message: the VA is infor a long siege! Vets are fed up with the hollow promises, lies and shoddy treatment the VA's been handing out. And they are going to fight to see that things start changing -- one way or another. *UNIVERSAL UNCONDITIONAL AMNESTY
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