NYT editorial: When Warriors Come Limping Home

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/opinion/14wed3.html?ex=1331524800&en=83a23429bfb88a59&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Editorial
When Warriors Come Limping Home


Published: March 14, 2007

Shameful details continue to emerge on the neglectful care extended to soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army’s inspector general reports that more than nine out of 10 disabled veterans have been kept waiting for benefit evaluations beyond the 40-day limit set by the Pentagon. Some have waited up to a year and a half for benefits.

A study of 650 soldiers at 32 Army bases portrayed a system overwhelmed by the dual wars. And the number of cases needing evaluation has leapt to 15,000 in 2005 from 9,000 in 2001. The system is stymied by a lack of trained personnel, modern computer systems and even wheelchair access for some of the returning wounded.

The story isn’t much better at the Veterans Affairs Department, responsible for shepherding wounded soldiers after service. With a backlog of 600,000 claims, the agency took four to six months to process veterans’ initial paperwork and more than 20 months for appealed decisions, according to a survey by Congress’s Government Accountability Office. That study predicts that the veterans department will be swamped by 638,000 new claims in the next five years, adding up to $150 billion in costs.

Congressional critics are properly calling for the hiring of hundreds more workers to process the claims. Others urge a new policy that would automatically accept veterans’ claims for disability benefits, with spot-checks to weed out weak claims. This seems both sensible and humane because more than four out of five claims are eventually approved under the currently overwhelmed system.

It seems like every day another member of the Army brass is out because of this scandal. That’s not nearly enough. President Bush has a clear responsibility to fix this shamefully broken system.