The selective use of facts to deliberately distort the truth is more blameworthy than telling outright lies.
Some demagogues have used a few trumped-up examples to seriously misrepresent disabled veterans as drug addicts, drunkards and cheats. In one instance, syndicated columnist William Safire charged that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' "disability payments (are) going to drug addicts to help them continue to buy illicit drugs."The truth is that federal law expressly prohibits the VA from providing disability compensation for alcohol or drug addiction.
Another distortion is that veterans who are able to work full-time yet receive payment for their service-connected disabilities are ripping off the taxpayers. Are such irresponsible assertions really a fair depiction of someone like the veteran who holds down a job despite having lost both legs and part of an arm defending this country and the ideals we hold so dear?
Veterans disability compensation is not a form of welfare. Since the Revolutionary War, our government has recognized its moral obligation to veterans whose wounds, injuries, and illnesses resulted from their honorable military service.
The VA medical system also provides a wide range of specialized care not available in the private sector, services tailored to meet the unique needs of veterans - spinal cord injury medicine, blind rehabilitation, amputee programs, advanced rehabilitation, prosthetics, post-traumatic stress disorder treatment, extended mental health services and long-term care.
Yet contrary to what some people would have the American public believe, veterans do not receive inferior health care through the VA. The fact is that all 171 VA hospitals exceed the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHCO) quality standards - the same standards the watchdog agency applies to private health-care facilities.
Detractors use highly anecdotal examples of unoccupied hospital beds in a handful of the VA's 171 facilities as evidence of systemwide waste. The reality is that VA facilities have an overall occupancy rate of 75 percent, which is considerably higher than private hospitals, which have a 65 percent occupancy rate.
Are calls to shut down the VA medical system merely the sound of the private sector lusting after America's veterans to fill its empty hospital beds and the huge profits that would bring?
Are efforts to discredit veterans compensation and other benefits aimed at justifying deep spending cuts for social programs to protect narrowly targeted tax breaks and line the pockets of the truly powerful and wealthy? Few critics, including the President's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, have recommended anything in the way of reductions in tax entitlements for corporations and the wealthy.
Whatever the motives for these attacks, the news media should not allow themselves to be used as vehicles for vicious propaganda that portrays veterans as an unworthy drain on the American economy.
Donald A. Sioss
National commander
Disabled American Veterans
Washington, D.C.