Insult to injury

In his most recent weekly radio address, President George Bush encouraged Americans to mark Memorial Day with a patriotic gesture, like placing a flag at a veteran's grave. When he says things like that, I suspect he envisions some sort of 1940's Hollywood scene of small boys in Cub Scout uniforms reverently walking from gravestone to gravestone, saluting each fallen warrior with tiny hands at brows.

"Honor a vet. Plant a flag."

I wonder how that makes our Iraq veterans feel. Due to advances in battlefield medical practices, troops hurt in the Gulf are coming home after suffering severe injuries that would have put them in caskets in a war even just a few years ago. Many suffer debilitating brain damage or loss of limbs. In many cases they come home to hospitals that would be deplorable even in a war zone. We've all heard the stories about conditions at Walter Reed, supposedly among the best of all military hospitals. And don't get me started about the lack of protective equipment that landed so many of these injured in the hospital to begin with. I suppose the part of Bush's radio address that exhorted people to hold bake sales for body armor was edited out when saner heads prevailed.

Seems to me that honoring veterans -- standing behind our troops -- starts with taking care of them. Show them the same degree of loyalty they show their country. You put them in harm's way, you protect them. If they get hurt, you do your damnedest to fix them. You live up to your end of the bargain.

I find it frankly insulting that when these men and women are basically asked to be targets, and when they're cycled in and out for multiple tours of duty, our president thinks that a flag or a pat on the back is thanks enough for their bravery. For putting their lives on hold and leaving their families. And for sustaining injures that change their lives forever.

Is Bush the only one who thinks it's enough? I'd like to hope so. Nonetheless, it's sad to think that the one person who does... is the one who's in charge.