I recently heard a very vitriolic speech by Mitt Romney about asserting America's military standing and using our soldiers as the club of America's policies. This sounds too familiar and is beyond reckless. Coming from someone who has no family serving and who got excused from Vietnam, it is disgusting. People of Romney and Paul Ryan's ilk are the bane to American exceptionalism and anathema to the pact between America and its servicemen and women. Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney have spoken openly of war while promising to gut the Veterans Administration, disability pensions and squeezing the G.I. Bill.
I would like to offer my sincere apology to Romney and Ryan for not dying in Desert Storm. For being a lowly burden to the American deficit. For clogging the VA system with my slow, drawn out death from a war, you probably don't even remember. I apologize because, like 200,000 of my brothers, I have Gulf War Syndrome (which officially exists, but cannot be a diagnosis) and instead of bleeding out in battle have to endure both a slow rot of my joints, organs and brains. I apologize to my brothers from the new wars whose disabilities will cost this country over $2 trillion during their lifetimes. Finally, I apologize for not committing suicide like the other 13 veterans a day do - that's 5,000 a year, folks.
So before you spew more "war, war, war" how about we finish taking care of the ones we have left. Before he spews about spending even more on the Pentagon, how about funding the Veterans Administration so it can take care of the maimed and shredded bodies of those still breathing from the last ones.
Finally, before he speaks of balancing the budget on my back, how about remembering that pact between America and its veterans is a solemn obligation, not a charity. Put some burden on his own wallet. After all, we gave our youth, minds and bodies to this country, and he gave what?
Ronald Allen
Davisville
