County - The Metro Herald

VETERANS DAY 2008
November 7, 2008
LEGGETT UNVEILS FINDINGS OF
VETERANS STUDY; OUTLINES INITIATIVES
AIMED AT ASSISTING VETS
Isiah Leggett
County Executive Isiah Leggett,
a combat veteran of the Vietnam
War, today unveiled a series
of initiatives aimed at helping address
the mental health and social
service needs of Montgomery County
veterans and their families. Leggett
made his announcement the Mental
Health Association of Montgomery
County’s Annual Legislative Breakfast,
held in Rockville.
“As we approach our celebration of
Veterans Day, it is important that we
recognize and honor the sacrifices that
veterans have made for this country,”
said Leggett. “We should welcome
them home and at the same time, make
certain that they are provided with care
and services due them. With the upcoming
transfer of the Walter Reed
Army Medical Center to Bethesda, it is
important that we work with our community,
as well as with state and federal
officials, to ensure we are ready.”
Leggett today released a report, cosponsored
by the Community Foundation
of the National Capital to identify
the needs of veterans in Montgomery
County and determine what local governments
and community-based nonprofit
organizations can do to complement
government and national
nonprofit efforts. Results of the study
show that the signature wounds and injuries
of Operation Enduring Freedom
(OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom
(OIF)—traumatic brain injury, amputations,
post traumatic stress disorder
and depression pose serious treatment
challenges and typically require not
only extended and specialized care ,
but also support and assistance for the
entire family ranging from respite care
to home modifications. In addition,
there are few connections between the
civilian helping organizations and the
military helping organizations. The
report is available at www.
thecommunityfoundation.org.
When the study concluded, an estimated
37,000 solders from the National
Capitol Region had “ever deployed”
and an estimated 6,000 were
“currently deployed” to either or both
Afghanistan and Iraq. There are an
estimated 18,000 spouses and more
than 25,000 children in the region.
Leggett announced the launching of
a mental health information and referral
line for veterans and their families.
The service will be operated by the
Mental Health Association of Montgomery
County (MHA) and will begin
answering calls on November 17. The
County is providing $40,000 to establish
the service.
“While government ramps up its
programs to meet the complex needs,
we believe our regions’ communitybased
nonprofits can help provide critical
services for our military families,
especially during these bleak economic
times,” said Terri Lee Freeman, President
of the Community Foundation for
the National Capital Region.
“We have seen an increase in the
demand for our services since the first
local residents were deployed to
Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Sharon E.
Friedman, LCSW-C, Executive Director
at Mental Health Association of
Montgomery County. “The addition
of these specialized information and
referral services is much needed.
MHA is proud to be a part of the
County’s efforts to support veterans
and their families.”
Leggett has also nominated members
to his Veterans Commission. The
Commission will advise the County
Executive and the County Council on
actions the County can take to honor
and assists veterans. Issues that the
Commission will begin work on immediately
are to plan and convene a regional
conference in 2009 aimed at coordinating
services for veterans across
the region, design and sponsor an enhanced
County celebration of Veterans
Day and to recommend an appropriate
memorial for County veterans who lost
their lives in our nation’s wars.
In addition to these services, Montgomery
College’s Extended Learning
Services Office, with primary support
from the Takoma Park/Silver Spring
campus, provides information and
services for Walter Reed Army Medical
Center (WRAMC) employees and
Wounded Warriors at WRAMC, including
on-site classes, advising for
those classes as well as classes on the
College’s two three campuses, and life
planning services. Three quarters of
the current Montgomery College (MC)
class at WRAMC are Wounded Warriors
and many of them enroll at MC
campuses.
OP-ED
Each year, Veterans Day offers
us a day of reflection and
recognition of the sacrifices
our nation’s veterans have made for
our country. With one of the largest
populations of veterans and active duty
service members, Virginia plays a vital
role in our nation’s defense. It is only
proper that we honor their service and
sacrifice with the necessary benefits
that they have earned and deserve.
The 110th Congress boasts several
important achievements for America’s
veterans and service members, enacting
landmark new programs in healthcare
and education and providing unprecedented
funding levels that
demonstrate our country’s commitment
to those who have honorably
served in our military.
On my first day in the U.S. Senate
in 2007, I introduced legislation that
eighteen months later would be enacted
into law as the Post-9/11 GI Bill. This
new program restores a full educational
OP-ED
Every Veterans Day we pay tribute
to our fellow Americans
who have served in the military.
With speeches and ceremonies,
we recognize their courage and valor.
But justice demands that we also recognize
that we should have far more
living veterans than we do. All too
many of our soldiers have died unnecessarily—because
they were sent to
fight for a purpose other than America’s
freedom.
The proper purpose of a government
is to protect its citizens’ lives and
freedom against the initiation of force
by criminals at home and aggressors
abroad. The American government has
a sacred responsibility to recognize the
individual value of every one of its citizens’
lives, and thus to do everything
possible to protect the rights of each to
life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of
happiness. This absolutely includes
our soldiers.
Soldiers are not sacrificial objects;
they are full-fledged Americans with
the same moral right as the rest of us to
the pursuit of their own goals, their
own dreams, their own happiness. Rational
soldiers enjoy much of the work
of military service, take pride in their
ability to do it superlatively, and gain
profound satisfaction in protecting the
freedom of every American, including
their own freedom.
Soldiers know that in entering the
military, they are risking their lives in
the event of war. But this risk is not, as
it is often described, a “sacrifice” for a
“higher cause.” When there is a true
threat to America, it is a threat to all of
our lives and loved ones, soldiers included.
Many become soldiers for precisely
this reason; it was, for instance,
the realization of the threat of Islamic
terrorism after September 11—when
3,000 innocent Americans were
slaughtered in cold blood on a random
WHAT WE OWE OUR SOLDIERS
Alex Epstein
Special to The Metro Herald
TAKING CARE OF THOSE
WHO HAVE TAKEN CARE OF US
Senator Jim Webb
Special to The Metro Herald
benefit to the members of the ‘new
greatest generation’ who have honorably
served our country since 9/11, in a
manner similar to what the original
‘greatest generation’ received when
they returned home from World War II.
In an effort spurred by our office,
later joined by fellow Vietnam veteran
Senator Chuck Hagel and two World
War II veterans, Senators John Warner
and Frank Lautenberg, we used a deliberately
bipartisan approach that
eventually resulted in 78 Senate cosponsors
and 303 sponsors in the
House of Representatives. This new
educational benefit, which will cover
the full cost of a public four-year college
education and provide a monthly
livingstipend, earned the full national
endorsement of every major veterans
organization, including the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, The American Legion,
and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of
America. Over five hundred Members
of Congress voted for final passage
of this new program. The President
signed the new educational benefit
into law on June 30, 2008.
Additionally, Congress passed an
historic $47 billion in additional veterans’
healthcare funding for fiscal year
2009, the largest annual funding level
ever. This bill will improve and expand
access to healthcare for thousands of
veterans, particularly those in rural areas
who struggle with high gas prices as
they commute long distances for care.
Congress also passed an expansive
benefits package which, in addition to
needed updates and enhancements for
our disability compensation system, extends
critical V.A. home loan programs
to help veterans afford and stay in their
own homes. Finally, building upon the
success of the 2007 Dignified Treatment
for Wounded Warriors Act, this year we
enacted the Justin Bailey Mental Health
Improvement Act, further enhancing
treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
and substance abuse problems.
Tuesday morning—that prompted so
many to join the military.
For an American soldier, to fight
for freedom is not to fight for a “higher
cause,” separate from or superior to his
own life—it is to fight for his own life
and happiness. He is willing to risk his
life in time of war because he is unwilling
to live as anything other than a
free man. He does not want or expect
to die, but he would rather die than live
in slavery or perpetual fear. His attitude
is epitomized by the words of
John Stark, New Hampshire’s most famous
soldier in the Revolutionary
War: “Live free or die.”
What we owe these men who fight
so bravely for their and our freedom is
to send them to war only when that
freedom is truly threatened, and to
make every effort to protect their lives
during war—by providing them with
the most advantageous weapons, training,
strategy, and tactics possible.
Shamefully, America has repeatedly
failed to meet this obligation. It
has repeatedly placed soldiers in
harm’s way when no threat to America
existed—e.g., to quell tribal conflicts
in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
America entered World War I, in which
115,000 soldiers died, with no clear
self-defense purpose but rather on the
vague, self-sacrificial grounds that
“The world must be made safe for
democracy.” America’s involvement in
Vietnam, in which 56,000 Americans
died in a fiasco that American officials
openly declared a “no-win” war, was
justified primarily in the name of service
to the South Vietnamese. And the
current war in Iraq—which could have
had a valid purpose as a first step in
ousting the terrorist-sponsoring, anti-
American regimes of the Middle
East—is responsible for thousands of
unnecessary American deaths in pursuit
of the sacrificial goal of “civilizing”
Iraq by enabling Iraqis to select
any government they wish, no matter
how anti-American.
In addition to being sent on ill-conceived,
“humanitarian” missions, our
soldiers have been compromised with
crippling rules of engagement that
place the lives of civilians in enemy
territory above their own. In
Afghanistan we refused to bomb many
top leaders out of their hideouts for
fear of civilian casualties; these men
continue to kill American soldiers. In
Iraq, our hamstrung soldiers for years
were prevented from smashing a militarily
puny insurgency—and to this
day are being murdered unnecessarily
at the hands of an undefeated enemy,
with no end in sight.
To send soldiers into war without a
clear self-defense purpose, and without
providing them every possible protection,
is a betrayal of their valor and a
violation of their rights.
This Veterans Day, we must call for a
stop to the sacrifice of our soldiers and
condemn all those who demand it. It is
only by doing so that we can truly honor
not only our dead, but also our living:
American soldiers who have the courage
to defend their freedom and ours.
• • •
Alex Epstein is an analyst at the Ayn
Rand Center for Individual Rights, focusing
on business issues. The Ayn
Rand Center is a division of the Ayn
Rand Institute and promotes the philosophy
of Ayn Rand, author of “Atlas
Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”
Visit us on the web at
www.metroherald.com
These important legislative accomplishments
stand as testament to the
high priority this Congress has placed
on our nation’s veterans. As we remember
those who have served in uniform
this Veterans’ Day, those of us
who serve in Washington will remain
committed to taking care of those who
have taken care of us.
• • •
Senator Jim Webb, former Secretary of
the Navy, served as a Marine Corps
rifle platoon and company commander
in Vietnam.
16 THE METRO HERALD