TALKING POINTS: Support our Troops

Talking Points

76% OF AMERICANS THINK THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS NOT DONE ENOUGH TO CARE FOR IRAQ WAR VETERANS

Troops are being overworked and not getting proper time off.
Is this a “backdoor draft”?

• 31 Army combat brigades have served two or more tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, out of 44 total.
• 420,000 troops have deployed more than once.
• The Army’s policy calls for a soldier to return home for 24 months after being in a war zone for 12 months to recuperate and retrain. However, many soldiers have been called back to duty earlier than two years and many have been called back earlier than one year.
• Many troops have been deployed to the war zone for longer than 12 months.
• 50,000 troops have not been allowed to go home once their enlistment date arrives due to stop loss orders.
• The US Military is sending troops with serious psychological problems into Iraq and is keeping soldiers in combat even after superiors have been alerted to suicide warnings and other signs of mental illness.
• More than 410,000 National Guard and Reservists have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001, for an average of 18 months per mobilization. More than 84,000 have been deployed more than once.
• Suicide rate among troops deployed to Iraq hit all time high in 2006.

Even with the more than $400 billion spent on the War thus far, the troops are not being equipped properly for doing their jobs. There is a shortage of vital equipment for troops.

• The Army National guard has on-hand only 30 percent of its essential equipment in the US
• Nearly nine out of every ten Army National Guard units that are not in Iraq and Afghanistan have less than half the equipment needed to respond to domestic crises.
• Many troops and their families are buying their own body armor for deployment to the war zone.
• Although the technology for interceptor vests (Kevlar sheets) can stop shrapnel and rounds from machine guns and is 33% lighter, many soldiers sent to Iraq were issued the original flak jackets used in Vietnam that were able to block only some shrapnel. Some soldiers received the interceptor vests but not the ceramic plates that insert to protect vital organs.
• Because of the surge in troops, many are being deployed with only four months of training instead of 12. Some have only had a few days to learn how to fire their new rifles before being deployed.
• Armored Humvees have been in short supply in Iraq. To get armor on an existing Humvee would require about a year for the vehicle to be sent in for armoring.
• The Pentagon had not expected the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be so long and was not financially prepared for an intensive ground troop commitment in Iraq.

Veterans are not being given the medical attention they need.

• 9 out of 10 disabled veterans have been made to wait for benefit evaluations longer than the Pentagon’s own standard of 40 days.
• 23,417 troops have been wounded in Iraq, and more than 3,000 have been killed.
• The cumulative cost of the Iraq War is $463 billion, and counting.
• An Army survey revealed that 50% of troops are more likely to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder if they serve more than one tour.
• As of September 2006, 600,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are eligible for health care through the Veterans Affairs (VA) system. Of the 1/3 that have sought care, at least 33,754 had been seen for PTSD, and 73,157 had been seen for some kind of mental disorder.
• There are signs that the VA is seriously unprepared for the mental health needs of veterans. For example, the VA claimed it was expecting only 2,900 new veteran PTSD cases in FY2006, but the actual number is likely to be about six times that because 17,827 new veterans got an initial PTSD diagnosis.
• In 2005 the VA was supposed to allocate $100 million for mental health care, but a 2006 US General Accounting Office (GAO) report has concluded that the VA did not inform medical center officials that the funds were to be used specifically for mental health initiatives.

See the following websites:

Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Assocation
VoteVets.org
Center for Defense Information