House hearing returns focus to visible wounds

[unhappycamper]

House hearing returns focus to visible wounds
By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 23, 2010 10:02:30 EDT

After years of hearings and debates about the “invisible wounds of war” — the traumatic brain injuries and combat stress injuries inflicted in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones — lawmakers met Thursday to focus on the visible wounds of war, such as amputated limbs and spinal cord injuries.

Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s health panel, said these injuries often are overshadowed as the media, Congress and the Veterans Affairs Department have given a higher profile to head trauma and psychological injuries.

“I like that you highlighted that in this town, you don’t hear about the other injuries,” said Thomas Zampieri, director of government relations for the Blinded Veterans Association. He said he sees other issues that need to be addressed.

For example, while VA has hired 50 new blindness rehabilitation specialists, a promised Vision Center of Excellence keeps getting pushed back, said Thomas Zampieri, director of government relations for the Blinded Veterans Association.

“I’ve been chasing the ghosts of a timeline for a long time, and I’m still not sure” when the center will become reality, Zampieri said. “The Center of Excellence is an administrative center. It’s like 4,000 feet of office space.”

[gratuitous]

1. Well fer heavens' sake!

They're all volunteers, fully informed when they sign up, and consenting to whatever happens to them. Just put the pieces back in the box, like good little Risk game tokens and forget about them. What's really important is making sure those fat defense contracts keep getting let, because that's where the good campaign contributions come from.

Okay, that's not, like, part of the official brochure or the relentless ad campaigns or anything, but it's the way it is. And if some 17- or 18-year-old isn't sufficiently curious when he or she signs on the dotted line, well, that's not really Congress' lookout, you know? If teen-agers want responsive government, they're going to have to pay to play. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to Halliburton or KKR or Xe.