Baby Doc to Wounded Veterans: Suck it Up, Wussies

This one came by while I was recovering, but I wanted to make sure everyone knows about it. Our wounded troops are returning home to the worst conditions for disabled veterans since the Vietnam War. In addition to the appalling state of our underfunded Veterans Hospitals, the severely understaffed Veterans Administration, and the long waiting lists just to get in to see a doctor, our returning veterans are also being dunned for nickle-and-dime pay adjustments that in most cases hover on that fine line between immoral and irrational.

In one documented case, a wounded soldier languished for months in an Army hospital after being airlifted out of Iraq following a bombing, only to be assessed an "overpayment" of $6200 as he was processing out of the service. Among other things, he was expected to pay for the gear he was wearing when he was wounded: his Kevlar helmet, his rucksack -- even his fucking suspenders!

Obviously the bean counters who have come up with this shit have never been in any kind of combat situation. As anyone who has actually been there knows, the very last thing on anyone's mind when you are dealing with a wounded soldier is to keep track of his goddamn equipment. This is so appalling that it would be gallows-humor laughable if it were not such a tragic -- and trenchant -- commentary on our whole Iraq misadventure, the "Mess-o-potamia", as fellow pissed-off veteran Jo Fish calls it.