Soldiers, protected by high-tech body armor and treated rapidly by field trauma medics, are surviving powerful explosives like never before, but they're losing arms and legs, or hands and feet.
Some 200 soldiers have lost at least one limb in the Iraq war, say veterans advocates.
Many of them left the hospital in dire financial straits.
In many cases, family members had to quit jobs to be with the disabled soldier, and overextended their credit cards to pay for airfare to Walter Reed and other expenses. Houses were lost, cars repossessed.
"I saw many buddies trying to deal with amputation, and they're on the border of social subsidies," said Kelly, 24, a bantam, boyish-looking man with the drawl of his native Texas, who lives in Arizona.
Kelly, an advocate with the Wounded Warrior Project who travels throughout the nation, came up with the idea of catastrophic disability insurance for soldiers who return from combat blind, immobile, severely burned or missing a limb.
Service members would be automatically enrolled in the insurance program unless they opt out, and would pay $12 a month. Some cost would be picked up by the government, "but it wouldn't be a burden," said Kelly.
A lump sum of $10,000 to $50,000 would be paid under his plan.
Kelly worked with Jeremy Chwat, director of public policy at United Spinal Association, a Queens-based nonprofit group affiliated with Wounded Warrior, to draft legislation.
"We're very close to ironing out the finished product, and we'll roll it out to the VA officials, and present it to a member of Congress, in the next two weeks," Chwat said. "We will be looking for a [legislative] sponsor with a strong connection to veterans."

Kelly said that ideally, the wounded soldier's arrival at the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, would trigger the payment.
Newly disabled veterans "really need to get the money within the first week to two weeks," Kelly said. "It would go a long way to relieve the stress."
Now a soldier with a grave injury stays on the military payroll but gets less money because he no longer receives combat pay. Those forced to retire because of injury do not get their veterans benefits for a month to six weeks.
Nearly 1,000 servicemen and women critically injured in this war would not benefit.
Kelly and Chwat pitched the concept to departing Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi last autumn. "He was interested and wanted to hear more," Kelly said.
He said he looks forward to making the case to Jim Nicholson, President Bush's nominee to succeed Principi.
Kelly credits his uncle, New York lawyer Larry Kelly, with inspiring the idea. Larry Kelly represented victims seeking aid from the 9/11 compensation fund.
Ryan Kelly retired as a staff sergeant in August after 61/2 years in the Army Reserves.
He had enrolled at the University of Utah on a full ROTC scholarship only 10 days before his unit was mobilized. He chose to ship out to Iraq instead of continuing his studies.
Kelly and his wife, Lindsey, were both in Iraq as civil affairs officers with the 490th Civil Affairs Battalion.
He arrived in Iraq in early April 2003.
"We were doing nation-building, hearts-and-minds stuff," he said.
On July 14, 2003, Kelly was with several comrades headed to Baghdad for a health and education conference. Their Humvee passed near explosive devices.
"They detonated three artillery shells," Kelly said. "A piece of shrapnel the size of a TV remote control cut my leg off at the knee."
A scrap of Kelly's uniform was melted onto the bomb fragment, and he keeps the piece with his Purple Heart.
"I feel obligated to help the soldiers in Iraq now to get what they need," Kelly said. "Most Americans probably feel the same way."

January 24, 2005

WASHINGTON - Representing more than 7 million military veterans, The American Legion, the Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars today reaffirmed their unanimous support for fully funding the veterans health care system. The organizations are members of the Partnership for Veterans Health Care Budget Reform.

The three largest veterans organizations firmly believe that veterans have earned the right to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care through their extraordinary sacrifices and service to this nation. Yet, each year funding levels must be determined through an annual appropriations process that is fundamentally broken. Year after year, veterans have fought for sufficient funding for VA health care and a realistic budget that reflects the rising cost of health care and increasing need for medical services. Despite these continued efforts, the cumulative effects of insufficient health care funding have resulted in the rationing of medical care.

"The nation's highest priority is national defense. VA health care is an ongoing cost of war. Every veteran answered the nation's call to arms without reservation. As wartime veterans, Legionnaires understand the importance of the VA health care system. Short-changing VA health care is short-changing every military veteran from Bunker Hill to Baghdad. America's veterans are not expendable and should never be treated as such," said American Legion National Commander Thomas P. Cadmus.

"Especially during this time of war, fully providing for the needs of this nation's past, present and future defenders is more than a mere contract between this government and its people, it is a moral obligation. No veteran must ever be denied VA health care or benefits for want of federal funding," said VFW Commander-in-Chief John Furgess.

"What's needed is a mechanism that will guarantee adequate annual budgets to meet the health care needs of America's sick and disabled veterans, a move supported by all the major veterans organizations," said DAV National Commander James E. Sursely. "We must eliminate the year-to-year uncertainty about funding levels that has prevented the VA from being able to adequately plan for and meet the constantly growing needs of veterans seeking treatment."
Millions of veterans have made the VA their first choice for health care because of the quality of the care they receive. And for many others, the VA is their only health care lifeline.

For the third year in a row, the veterans health care system has had to struggle along for months at the previous year's inadequate funding level because Congress has failed to deliver a timely appropriations bill for the Department of Veterans Affairs. As a result, our nation's veterans have been denied timely access to necessary VA health care. And the outlook isn't any better for the thousands-and potentially tens of thousands-of our men and women when they return from Afghanistan, Iraq and the global war on terror, when you consider that they will need care from the VA for decades to come.

This national crisis is well documented by, among others, the President's Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation's Veterans. In its final report released in May 2003, the task force identified a significant mismatch between demand for VA services and available funding which, if left unresolved, would delay veterans' access to care and threaten the quality of care provided. To resolve this intolerable situation, the task force recommended the federal government provide full funding for veterans health care through modifications to the current budget and appropriations process, by using a mandatory funding mechanism or by some other changes to achieve the desired goal.

Guaranteed full funding for the VA health care system is not about politics; it is a realization that taking care of America's sick and disabled veterans is a continuing cost of national defense.