Have you seen this? It's from "Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America"
Welcome to IAVA's new Legislative Action Center
These good people have taken the time and gone through the effort of “rating”, from their perspective, all our politicians. See what is said about your senators or congress people!

http://capwiz.com/iava/home/

Ya know Vaughn, I wish the military did a better job identifying PTSD than it does. I read the Marines are making a better effort than they used to.

One of the stories I read there had a guy on a double guilt trip I wish I could talk to.

First off he killed an Iraqi he thought was rigging an IED. Later he questioned himself about if he was so pumped up on adrenaline if he just thought the Iraqi was rigging an IED and he worried he'd shot an innocent man. Well, I'd like to tell him in combat you got to trust your instincts, if you don't you and your buddies will end up dead. Even if it was a mistake he did what he thought was his job. He did what a Soldier is suppose to do. Blaming himself and second guessing won't do any good and it won't bring that man back.

Second, he was confronted with an armed Iraqi in an alley. An elderly man armed with an AK. The Iraqi dropped to his knee and was trying to chamber a round in the AK and the Soldier froze. The SAW man saved the situation and dropped the armed Iraqi with a burst. The Soldier blames himself for letting his squad down, he thinks he could of got someone killed because he froze. I think this second situation played off the first one and he was so concerned about making sure he was right about killing someone he let his thinking get in the way.

I guess I shouldn't be offering advice because to my knowledge I never killed anyone. I've seen men killed in combat, I imagine you have too. It's not a pleasant experience.

It's my opinion that anyone who has been in combat has PTSD to some degree. I know I've fought demons in my head more than a few times. I manage to keep mine were they don't deabilitate me, and it's not an easy thing to do sometimes. Last year when we went on the cruise for our vacation I was worried they was going to invite me to leave the ship at the first port we got to because of a nightmare I had the first night out.

Great resource, "V"...easy to navigate, too. Thanks for posting.


My PA Senators' ratings:

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)
D-

Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)
C

My Rep's Rating:
Representative Don Sherwood (R-PA 10th)
C

I've been doin' a whole bunch of comparin' of individual legislators' results from that site since someone posted it here, and methinks when I got finished things wasn't as they was purported to be. Seems the criteria for different politicians wasn't all the same or based on exactly the same legislation as claimed, and legislation for each seemed selected and scored differently to give Democrats much higher scores.

When they gave Senator McCain R-AZ) a D and my own Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) an A- I got real suspicious. From personal experiences, includin' direct questionnin' by me, Kennedy has frequently demonstrated a complete lack of understandin' of matters related to the military and veterans (e.g. he seems to think VA and military retiree medical care's the same program). If anything methinks McCain seems supportive of the troops and veterans almost to a fault.

Although I looked at much more, methinks for sake of brevity I'll just list a couple examples. IMHO they're pretty reflective of the whole IAVA ratin' procedure, eh?

McCain was given negative marks 'cause he "Voted AGAINST Increasing Funding for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Research", when in truth he voted against a partisan amendment that would have provided $53 million in medical services for the troops, including $8 million for combat-related trauma care and $9 million for prosthetics research, but instead voted for a bill which actually provided much more, includin' $393 million in funding for prosthetics research and fulfilled the VA's request for $2.2 billion in funding for combat trauma treatment, eh? How IAVA scores lower for votin' to provide more'n what they was in favor of is beyond me.

Many GOP House members received a negative ratin' for voting against a $1,500 bonus for US troops contained in an amendment by Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan. The measure failed by the narrowest possible margin on a mostly party-line vote. Two Democrats and 211 Republicans voted against the amendment which lost on a tied 213-213 vote. On it Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), a retired Marine and the ranking member on the Defense appropriations subcommittee who voted against it too said "I know we all want to help the troops, but we struggle all the time trying to make sure we balance out the money they make. . . . I would ask the Members to vote against this amendment, no matter how all of us would like to see the troops get more money.", eh? Surprisingly he did not appear to receive a negative ratin' from his vote against this measure like the Republicans did.

If you go to the IAVA site and peruse what legislation pertainin' to the military and/or veterans each member was rated on I'm sure you'll see exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout here. Methinks you can get more info on the appropriation procedures, legislation, individual's remarks and votes from the followin' sources:



Kapp, Lawrence. "Reserve Component Personnel Issues: Questions and Answers," Congressional Research Service. 28 Jan 2006

Burrelli, David F. and Jennifer R. Corwell. "Military Death benefits: Status and Proposals," Congressional Research Service. 24 Jan 2006

Dagett, Stephen. "Defense: FY2006 Authorization and Appropriations," Congressional Research Service. 20 Jan 2006

Plummer, Anne. "House Backs More Military Spending," Congressional Quarterly Weekly. 28 May 2005

Plummer, Anne. "House Democrats Likely to Push Military Health Care Extension for Reservists," Congressional Quarterly Today. 26 May 2005

Plummer, Anne. "House Adds 'Buy American' to Defense Bill; Health Care Measure Rejected," Congressional Quarterly Today. 25 May 2005

Ives-Halperin, Benton and Gayle S. Putrich. "Bill to Speed Up Materiel Acquisitions Passes in House," Congressional Quarterly Today. 14 June 2004

Methinks 'tis amazin' how much you think an organization like this's exposin', at least 'til you look at how they came to their conclusions.

Is this a problem with perspective? Or a problem with the facts?
From all outward appearances these people don’t seem to be pushing an ideological agenda. Seems most of their contributors are combat vets; http://iava.org/index.php?option=com_conte...d=19&Itemid=146
Honorable mission wouldn’t you say; http://iava.org/index.php?option=com_conte...d=18&Itemid=145
Hard to argue with principles like these; http://iava.org/index.php?option=com_conte...=270&Itemid=147
These look like serious people to me; http://iava.org/index.php?option=com_conte...d=22&Itemid=149

Some might argue their methodology, their motives seem clear, yet that doesn’t seem to be good enough. John McCain is a conservative, right wing ideologist who cares more for the agenda than he does for the people who the agenda might effect. See; http://capwiz.com/dav/scorecard.xc for the DAV rating of McCain, then check the same page for any other congress persons rating by DAV. Not a lot of daylight between the IAVA and the DAV. Conservatives should not freak out if they see liberals with good ratings, traditional liberals have always been good at supporting the services.
I don’t see a discrepancy between the ratings, the references to Congressional Research, or Congressional Quarterly and what IAVA is saying. We know the congress has been driven by ideology and not the facts these past few years. These references speak only to the ongoing political discourse, congressional accomplishments have had little bearing on reality for Veterans. Seems it’s a simple matrix of the right talking out of both sides of their collective mouths at the same time. The idea behind the rating system is to circumvent the congressional “BS” and provide a basic method for us lay people to better see the “truth”.
Works for most open minded types.

This is really perplexing Vaughn.

I went all through the votes on issues; congressmen get a demerit for voting for an increase in funding for medical and prosthetic research? I guess they could a thought it was there bad because it wasn't enough money.

But then they give equal weight to a vote congratulating the United States Air Force Academy on its 50th Anniversary as does a pilot program in the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve recruitment and retention of nurses? Well yeah, it bothers me that they don't give the legislation for more nurses at the VA about ten times the importance as they do the feel good stuff about the Air Force academy.

I just don't get it I guess.

I not saying nothing about the people you linked to Vaughn, I just don't think this report card is giving us a real grade.

Gentlemen, we all know that most pieces of legislation are so convoluted that it takes a smart person watching very closely to have a reasonable comprehension of the facts within a bill. Not having the time to read and understand every detail within every perspective new law prohibits us regular folks from seeing all there is to see. We could simply allow things to stand as they are. or we can assume those people who do have the where with all to comprehend with some significance the issues in question, to have good hearted interests. For any of us here, outside the legislative loop, to say we understand the fine print of a particular piece of legislation is not genuine. To say a democrat or a republican would never screw around with bills concerning the military is also not realistic. I don’t think belittling the motives of IAVA serves a purpose. Unless some one can point out where they have missed the nuances of legislating or they are guided by a political agenda, I will take then for what they are, good hearted people trying to provide another avenue to the truth.