The greater threat to military veterans: An invisible enemy or broken promises?

[rangerrebew]

The greater threat to military veterans: An invisible enemy or broken promises?
Sherman Gillums Jr.


Right now, there’s a soldier or Marine who deployed to Iraq as the new year rolled in and tensions escalated between the U.S. and Iran. That service member was trained to dismount and return fire during convoy ambushes, take cover during airstrikes, and detect improvised explosives during patrols. He can confidently engage the enemy at any phase within the continuum of combat, from indirect fire to a knife fight. No enemy is too formidable to defeat, at least in his mind. But he’s wrong.

There’s one enemy he faces that he is not trained to fight, much less defeat. An enemy that respects no battle positions, needs no grid coordinates to strike, and avoids no confrontation or foe. In fact, this particular enemy is a byproduct of America’s edge in manpower and technological superiority. A veritable product of the environment in which fighting occurs. One that has killed more Americans by the droves than any other enemy since the dawn of modern-day warfare. That enemy is toxic environmental exposure.

https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2020/01/14/the-greater-threat-to-military-veterans-an-invisible-enemy-or-broken-promises/

[EdinVA]

The VA (et al) have little to no credibility because of decades of administrative misconduct, veteran neglect and downright  fraud and it will take a very large hammer to fix it.

The other side of the coin, there has also been extensive abuse of the system by Veterans falsifying disablilties,  both at the time of discharge physical or later in life.

The military has done an atrocious job of documenting where the troops are so the identification of exposures is near impossible.
Reading some of the VVA Veteran, the VVA's magazine, it is loaded with folks looking for others that were on a particular patrol to provide "proof they were exposed to AO.  This is ridiculous.