Treatment of Veterans

America has always promised good care and benefits to veterans for their service to the nation. But an estimated 1.7 million uninsured veterans — including U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as veterans from the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars — were unable to get the promised support last year. While the military and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provide state-of-the-art medical treatment, ex-warriors must often fight dispiriting bureaucratic battles to get their care and benefits. The Bush administration points to record VA budgets and new procedures to make VA services more accessible to veterans. But veterans say they are increasingly losing benefits because the VA is underfunded; they want veterans' health services to become a mandatory part of the federal budget. Meanwhile, today's GI Bill offers fewer benefits than the landmark 1944 legislation that helped millions of veterans go to college and establish comfortable civilian lives after World War II.