We’re Failing Our Veterans: Time to Do Better

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People, it’s high time we actually do the right thing as a country and help our young men and women in the military because we are failing miserably. Miserably. Several weeks ago here on the program, we did a short little podcast talking about some numbers that are just, again, I want you to get your arms around this. The most recent data from the US Department of Veteran Affairs. 17.5 veteran suicides a day. And again, is the, what is that? That is the 12th leading cause of death, but it’s the second leading cause of death for veterans under the age of 45.

I remember years ago here on the program, talk about cuts and issues with the VA and the problems that took place. I remember there was one in particular, was a VA hospital near where I lived at the time on Long Island and what a disaster it is. we spend a trillion dollars a year now on our military. there’s just certain things I just quite frankly, I don’t understand.

I don’t understand. If this was put up for like, you know, they would have put this up in national polling and they were to say, know, Americans, how would you feel? How would you feel about providing free health care? Free health care made basically a card. Of course, you know, remember you have like an in monopoly, a get out of jail free card. You have a card. You volunteer. You volunteer.

for our military service, you shouldn’t have to pay a freaking dime for healthcare the rest of your life. Period. The end. Not a dime.

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not a dime. Veterans hospitals, quite frankly, should be shut down. They should be outside of veterans hospitals that are designed and are, you specifically they should be, they should be designed to work almost like, you know, the hospital for special surgery in Manhattan. That’s where professional athletes go when they get hurt. Good luck getting, you think veterans go in there? I know they talk about

Walter Reed, okay, but I’m sorry. They should be doing, you know, advanced studies in regards to dealing with wounds, a myriad of different things. And obviously we have to work with mental health. 17 and a half.

Let’s just call it 18 people a day. Veterans a day are dying due to suicide.

I saw this story. More than 10,000 veterans lost their homes to foreclosure since May of last year. Maybe, again, I don’t know, they shut this down. Maybe Trump didn’t understand what he was doing. I’m gonna give him the benefit of the doubt, but this is horrible. They shut down a key safety net in the VA home loan program.

That’s the highest pace of foreclosures for VA loans in a decade. Right now, it’s gonna be worse. 90,000 vets are heading toward foreclosure.

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This comes after years long debacle inside the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has whiplashed thousands of vets between various enacted and canceled programs and left many of them on the brink of losing their homes through no fault of their own. of the loans backed by the VA is considered one of the most valuable benefits for military service members and it’s helped millions achieve home ownership. But vets over

year now have had worse protections and options than most other homeowners if they fall behind. And this is pretty lengthy.

Again, even the mortgage industry called this, this was going to be an absolute disaster. And I look at things like this, and I’m saying to myself, you your story today, fighter jet got shot down, you know, don’t know where the pilots are. What we ask, what we’ve been asking. And, know,

than my feelings in regards to war has been above and beyond.

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above and beyond. And we’re not doing the right thing.

I think I may have talked about this before when we were talking about the VA hospital situation. And again, why every veteran should get a get out of medical care card. I’m going to I want to tell you what Rome did for their Legionnaires. When they retired. We just do from Augustus onward, this is like 27 B.C. to third century.

AD. This is their their retirement package. Okay, they served anywhere between 20 to 25 years. They enlisted between the ages of 18 and 20. That means they’re retiring in their early 40s. The Victorian guards, which were again the elite units, they sure served terms of around 16 years. When they retired, they got a one

time lumped some payment upon honorable discharge. Basically, it was 3000 denarii. So they got a bit which is 12 years worth of annual pay. Okay, right up front got 12 years worth of annual pay Praetorians received more. It’s interesting. They had a dedicated military treasury.

Saving money put aside and it was funded. Actually there was a five percent inheritance tax that was that money was Didn’t go into one day went specifically Towards the Legionnaires towards their retirement pay and they also also people would donate money as well. They also got land Veterans receive plots of farmland

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anywhere between 10 to 40 acres. And you know, got to look at the period of time was kind of genius to some degree, because they would put them out together in various different frontier provinces. They were like veteran colonies to basically basically Romanize and secure that region. And again, having a farm helps support themselves and a family for life.

And as land became more scarce, as you know, the time went on, the larger cash payments were given. Interesting as well. Soldiers had compulsory, compulsory savings deducted from their pay and held by the unit. Yeah, it was actually held by the unit. Again, this forcing them to save money, basically teaching them to build their own

nest egg and of course you know you’re conquering various different regions you’re getting some loot and booty along the way but

That was, that was a Rome desk. That’s pretty decent, if you ask me. And here we are in today’s day and age and we don’t even live up to that.

We don’t even live up to that. And there’s conversation right now floating around about, they wanna raise the military budget from one trillion to 1.5 trillion, which I am vehemently against. I can’t vote for anyone that wants to increase our military budget by a half a trillion dollars. Just can’t.

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Can I again you I don’t see the threat anywhere. Okay, 50 % I just don’t I would I would I’d like to see what I like to see this again, unfortunately You know, obviously we’re behind the eight ball as regarded as regards to the Pentagon is concerned woefully unprepared to be battling against the Inexpensive drones that the Iranians are shooting that the Houthis were shooting not long ago Seems like we could save a ton of money at the Pentagon

by getting rid of ridiculous weapons systems that are obsolete. I mean, sure, they’re cash cows. They’re cash cows for the military industrial complex. They love these very expensive weapons systems. But it seems to me if we actually were doing the right thing, we’d cut all of that out, save a ton of money, you know, kind of be like, what a site Dewey Oxburger from the movie Stripes become a lean mean fighting machine type of situation. And

do a hell of a lot more, again, for the men and women who sacrifice everything for us. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.