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When they packed away that military uniform for the last time, they all leaned back and thought their battles were over. Wrong!!!! The battles had just started. It matters not if they served this country for a sprinkling of years or devoted the most productive years of their lives in the service of the United States of America. They still need to battle Washington almost daily to gain even a shadow of their promised benefits for good and faithful service.

The Washington elite have historically promised much and delivered very little to anyone who wore the uniform of this nation. This is an accepted fact among those who are now on active duty, are retired from our armed forces, members of the reserve or National Guard, and of course, the veterans of one or several tours of duty. Now with the anti-war, anti-military faction holding both the White House and Capital Hill, dark clouds are forming that bode ill for the military community.

Washington D. C. has never really been "military friendly". In point of fact, the military community is the only major constituency in the country that does not have a strong advocate at the seat of power. At one point, following World War II, Congress was rich in veterans of the armed forces. Those days have become pages in history. Today, very few of our elected leaders have served the Flag under arms.

Some say the military community is represented by the Department of Defense, but this is far from being the truth. DoD is really only interested in what is taking place in the world right now. They represent the active duty military to some degree, but spend most of their energy on the war machine, big defense contracts and romancing congressional supporters.

This same DoD, in its various forms, spent more than 100 years fighting against disabled military retirees and making sure they had retirement checks reduced by the amount of any disability compensation received.

This same agency refused to support those service personnel in the hundreds of thousands who were seeking medical help after they participated in the thirty years of atomic testing and saw uncountable numbers suffer and in many cases die from cancers caused by excessive radiation.

The DoD failed in its duty to provide for the future health of those several thousand soldiers and airmen who were part of a CIA and Army drug and mind control program at the Edgewood Arsenal. In most cases, DoD claimed it couldn't even find the service records of those who volunteered for the program.

One of the most reprehensible cases participated in by the Department of Defense is its multi-year battle in the courts to keep retired military personnel from receiving medical care that had been promised them and their dependents for life, if they devoted twenty years or more to active duty service. Though all branches of the armed forces had promised these benefits as incentives for reenlistment, it was still ruled by the Supreme Court that the armed forces did not have the authority to make such promises.

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