While over 800,000 war veterans are still forced to fill out over 600 pieces of paperwork to claim basic VA benefits and our male combat veterans are being diagnosed with vaginal cancer (more on that later), Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel found it imperative late last month to appease our left wing President and announce that the DOD will “move quickly” on enacting benefits for same-sex marriage couples in the military. What boggles the mind is that in the wake of billions of forced defense cuts that will, to quote our own leaders in Washington, “gut the world’s greatest military,” the Pentagon has already admitted they are unable to estimate the costs of the changes they are moving quickly to enact.
It’s all because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to scrap the Defense of Marriage Act from the books, making same-sex marriage a federally recognized institution. Now I personally think we have more important things to worry about than same-sex marriage– al-Qaeda anyone?–and I’m sure my conservative readers will have something to say about that. But for now I will just focus on the effect post-DOMA implementations will undoubtedly have on the hundreds of thousands of veterans, many with severe injuries, who have been fighting to receive basic care and provisions under the current military benefits system.
There are an estimated 17,000 servicemembers and their same-sex partners who would be affected by the roll out expected by this October, quite a small amount compared to the overall size of the military, but not such small potatoes when thousands of our combat vets are already on a two year wait – and that’s a good day – in the VA healthcare system.
What’s even more ironic is that while enacting new benefits for same-sex couples has become the latest priority for an already bloated military system, the military norm is to ALWAYS postdate new benefits so that current soldiers get screwed out of them.
click to read more
It’s all because of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to scrap the Defense of Marriage Act from the books, making same-sex marriage a federally recognized institution. Now I personally think we have more important things to worry about than same-sex marriage– al-Qaeda anyone?–and I’m sure my conservative readers will have something to say about that. But for now I will just focus on the effect post-DOMA implementations will undoubtedly have on the hundreds of thousands of veterans, many with severe injuries, who have been fighting to receive basic care and provisions under the current military benefits system.
There are an estimated 17,000 servicemembers and their same-sex partners who would be affected by the roll out expected by this October, quite a small amount compared to the overall size of the military, but not such small potatoes when thousands of our combat vets are already on a two year wait – and that’s a good day – in the VA healthcare system.
What’s even more ironic is that while enacting new benefits for same-sex couples has become the latest priority for an already bloated military system, the military norm is to ALWAYS postdate new benefits so that current soldiers get screwed out of them.
click to read more
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