With so much attention going to issues of war recently, albeit in Afghanistan, Iraq or the looming threat of one in Iran, one would expect that as a nation, we would provide great benefits for our men and women who have served the Stars and Stripes. Expectations, however, are something we should know our government is not keen on living up to.

In between the botched handling of the personal data belonging to 26 million veterans that made national headlines in May, all the way up to the former mayor of Atlantic City pleading guilty to robbing the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) of almost $25,000 (and the outright neglect of patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center somewhere in between that), it is apparent that many of our elected officials (or as in Dick Cheney’s case, appointed officials) are much more interested in investing time, cash and manpower toward practicing nation building in foreign countries rather than using their influence to funnel resources toward the individuals who have been injured while fighting for American interests.

Military personnel come back to the States not to a parade where they can be celebrated as heroes, but rather to a hospital where an understaffed shift of workers combat a tight budget and are encouraged to recommend our injured soldiers get some more sleep rather than be allowed to go see a doctor. Generations of men and women who have served this country in war suddenly find the decision makers of their children’s generation weaning them off what few benefits they have left; for all we know, those resources have been redirected into Guantanamo Bay and are being used to take care of some terrorist who cannot wait to see the day when he is back on the battlefield, shooting his gun off at the American soldiers across from him who are fighting a war without proper health services.

If our nation can spend roughly $2 billion a week on occupying a country that most of us really wish we had never heard of, then surely it can do better than the $80 billion budget it gives to the VA.

So before any more idiots go running off to the Bartle Library Tower with signs reading, ‘war = good, peace = pussy-boy afraid to fight,’ or, ‘Kick their Ass, Take their Gas,’ as was the case on Nov. 9, be sure to remember that it is your blind devotion to the aggressive actions undertaken by this administration that allows our veterans to be cheated out of their deserved benefits, services and care.

While over 28,500 injured soldiers from the Iraq war will be sitting at home comfortably in their old age many years from now, there will be a veteran of the U.S. military, who has actually contributed to our nation in some significant way, who will be told to get some more sleep when they arrive at the front desk of a VA hospital with an irregular heartbeat, and most likely, a broken spirit.