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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

About a year ago, George Bush landed on an aircraft carrier on the high seas off San Diego, startling the local surfers. This dramatic effort was to declare victory in Iraq and to show the world that Bush really was a military man. At about the same time, real troops were coming back from the war in need of medical attention. They found that said attention was lacking. At Fort Stewart and Fort Knox they were waiting up to eight weeks while being housed in World War II barracks under spartan conditions.

About half a year ago, Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq. He spent his time there in a mess hall, eating and bonding with the troops. It looked good on TV, but it's too bad that he hadn't loaded Air Force One with Kevlar vests (The A-1 chickee bobo modern lifesaving version of the flak jacket). It seems that the Bushies can start a war but not properly supply equipment for the troops. It's bad enough that relatives back home have had to send the troops things like mosquito netting, flashlights, canteens, and in the case of Afghanistan, warm gloves. After a parent bought a Kevlar vest for a son in Iraq and it was reported in the Washington Post, Congress took it upon itself to add funding for the vests in the Pentagon budget. This enabled U.S. troops to be as well-fitted as the Mongolian contingent.

Next month, Bush is to go to France for the ceremonies on the 60th anniversary of D-Day. There he will likely rub shoulders with some former soldiers who pay the disabled veteran tax. (That's not exactly a tax, but is a requirement that 20-year military veterans get disability compensation deducted from their retirement pay, so they call it a tax.) While seeking votes in the 2000 election, Bush promised to fix this. Then, when it came before Congress, he reneged, sending Rummy to tell them that fixing the problem would be too costly. So Bush will party and get down with the old vets in France, but back home, his budget this year eliminated access to health care for 164,000 veterans and reduced VA hospital services some of the guys might need.

I guess the man is Commander-in-Chief, so he makes these appearances so he can feel affinity with his men. Either that or he feels guilty for missing so many National Guard meetings back in the day. That, and they're good photo-ops for the re-election campaign. VVAW has campaigned for better veterans' benefits using the slogan: "Used once and thrown away." Not for Bush. His slogan for us is: "Use them and reuse them." We have voter appeal.

While Bush likes to get himself photographed with soldiers and veterans, there is one photograph or film clip you don't see. Bush is the first war president who hasn't found a way to honor dead soldiers returning from the war. Aside from Memorial Day — which he can't elude — Bush seems to ignore (and hide) the returning body bags. I suppose this is because he doesn't want to call attention to the consequences of this war he started under false pretenses.

From our nation's leaders we don't usually expect a great amount of material support for soldiers, and even less for veterans. But Bush seems to be the worst one yet. Other presidents have screwed us, but they had the decency to be surreptitious and embarrassed about it. Bush seems to be "in your face" and doesn't care as long as Karl Rove or one of his people can keep a lid on it. It's not only soldiers and veterans. Bush has a way of acknowledging a problem and then doing nothing about it. Another example is in education where he came up with the No Child Left Behind program and then provided zero funds for it. George Bernard Shaw must have seen a Bush in the future when he said, "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."