Letter to the Editor: Raise Your Voice

I’ve had a number of people come up to me or my wife and thank me for explaining how the Veterans Administration calculates multiple disabilities and how their “fuzzy” math serves to cheat veterans out of fair and just compensation for service connected disabilities, I even received a phone call from someone who lived in Arizona thanking me. I want you all to know I really appreciate the praise I’ve been receiving but I’m only “one voice crying out in the wilderness” what we need is to have my voice magnified if we, veterans, are going to affect a change. We didn’t get the benefits we enjoy today from a benevolent government in appreciation of our service; no we extracted them from a government that would just as soon discard us once we were used up, we only received these benefits when millions of us joined together and demanded them using the power of our votes as a weapon and that is what we need now . . . all your voices.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spoken to veterans suffering from various conditions and tried to encourage them to seek the benefits they are entitled to only to be met with the same response “I can’t, there are so many vets that are much worse off than me.” And while that is true, there are many who are worst off, but by not demanding your earned and deserved benefits you aren’t helping those that are “worse off” all you are doing is diminishing the power of our voice. Do you realize that, from what I can gather, the average veteran demands and receives less from our government than immigrants (both legal and illegal), “asylum seekers”, dreamers, and welfare recipients? Why is that? Simple . . . they have a loader voice. I’m not disparaging these groups I’m just stating a fact.
So I’m asking, if you are a vet or if you are really someone who cares about vets don’t just “thank” a vet for his/her service, although we truly appreciate it, but raise your voices and demand that veterans be treated fairly and justly; contact your representatives and demand a Veterans Fair Compensation Act to end all the practices that serve to cheat veterans.
Lou Sansevero
Ferron