DISSERVICE TO OUR VETS

Mr. Santorum,

Pardon the lack of a proper salutation, but I just couldn’t bring myself to use Honorable with your name.

Your crude comments on June 6, 2011 about the reason so many of our American soldiers landed at Normandy did a huge disservice to those brave young men. The young men about whom you spoke parachuted into and landed on the beaches of Normandy to help make a better world and to eliminate the Nazi influence in Europe.

You think they put their lives on the line so that they could make their own choices about health care? Not even close! They did it for far loftier reasons than you can evidently imagine.

Those same young men are the gentleman I see on a regular basis at the Oklahoma Veterans’ Center—who are now in their mid-80’s to early 90’s—when I visit my almost 95 year old father, who’s a WWII veteran.

How many of those gentlemen do you really think can make their own decisions about health care? How many of them could afford to pay more out of pocket for their medical expenses? Some of those who were severely injured couldn’t make those decisions when they were in their 50’s, much less now.

My precious father received two five year degrees simultaneously after studying four total years—one in Architecture and one in Architectural Engineering. He was an extremely intelligent man who was raised by a single mother during the Great Depression. He would never have been able to attend college without the benefit of the G.I. Bill.

He participated in the National Youth Association (a WPA program for poor youth, providing “work study” projects at their schools) and learned skills that took him later to an Aircraft Mechanic program with Beechcraft in Wichita, Kansas, that eventually led him to become an aircraft inspector in England during the War. Two of his three brothers were involved in another WPA program, CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) that targeted unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18-25. Those two gentlemen both became successful citizens who provided well for their own families, as a result of that program.

My Daddy saw firsthand the devastation the Depression brought to his family and others. He still carefully tears Kleenex into smaller sections, a carryover from the days when they were a luxury.

He worked hard all his life, well into his eighties, but never made enough money to save a great deal. His Social Security and Medicare, along with access to veteran’s health care, have enabled him to survive. He’s one of the fortunate ones who has family to care for him and kept him at home until he was no longer able to physically get around on his own.

You should be most ashamed, though, for using a day intended to honor the sacrifices our WWII heroes, living and deceased, as political fodder.