NUMBER OF DISABLED VETERANS RISING
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Excerpted from AP release, Washington DC, May 11, 2008
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Increasing numbers of US troops have left the
military with damaged bodies and minds, an ever-larger pool of disabled veterans
that will cost the nation billions for decades to come – even as the total population
of America’s vets shrinks.
Despite the decline in total vets – as soldiers
from WWII and Korea die – the government expects to be spending $59 billion a year
to compensate injured warriors in 25 years, up from today’s $29 billion, according
to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Why? Worse wounds. More disabilities. More
vets aware of the benefits and quicker to file for them.
Also, ironically, advanced medical care. Troops
come home with devastating injuries that might well have killed them in earlier
wars. American Legion deputy director Steve Smithson said the Iraq and Afghanistan
wars are resulting in more severe injuries – amputations and traumatic burns – the
kinds of injures that troops in Vietnam and earlier wars would not have survived.
Time is also a factor when it comes to disability
compensation costs. Payments tend to go up as veterans age, and an increasing number
of soldiers from the Vietnam War will be getting bigger payments as they get older
and are less able to work around their disabilities.
Inflation accounts for a big chunk of the increase. But even when the
VA factors out inflation, the compensation for disabled veterans would still grow
from $29 billion to $33 billion in today’s dollars – a more than 10 percent increase.
And the department acknowledges the estimate could rise by 30 percent.
The number of disabled veterans has jumped
by 25 percent since 2001 – to 2.9 million – and the cause is no mystery. “This is
the cost of war, says Smithson, “We’re still producing veterans. We’ve been in a
war in Iraq for five years now and the war on terror since 9/11.”
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