SnowMageddon Vets Storm Capital!

Paul Reickhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, explains why President Barack Obama’s pledge to bring the troops home is not enough and why more focus needs to be placed on how to help them after they’re back in the U.S.

Washington (CNN) -- The blizzard that hit Washington couldn't have come at a worse time for a leading veterans group -- but the name for its legislative push this week is certainly fitting.

Despite the monster snowstorm, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization is taking its Storm the Hill campaign directly to members of Congress and administration officials to push for veterans' rights.

Because of a fresh round of snowfall Tuesday night -- and the federal government being closed much of this week -- many of their meetings have been canceled or postponed.

Group founder and Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff, an Army veteran, said that despite "snowmageddon," they've been cracking away at the meetings that are still on.

He added that members are beyond determined to show up.

"We have a guy who came in from Michigan, who took four different planes to get here," he said. "Most of our folks have been through much worse than a blizzard, so they're able to handle this and keep driving on."

Continue on CNN..

Vets group slams McCain on voting record

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/10/military_vets_congress_reportcard_100708/

Vets group slams McCain on voting record

By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Wednesday Oct 8, 2008 12:38:28 EDT

The nation’s most prestigious group for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans released a congressional scorecard on Tuesday that ranks Republican presidential candidate John McCain as having one of the worst voting records when it comes to supporting troops and veterans.
The grade is due to his absence on several key votes on military and veterans’ issues over the last two years.

McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a decorated Navy fighter pilot who spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, received a D on the report card from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He is one of nine lawmakers — four senators and five members of the House of Representatives — who received a D or F from the nonprofit, nonpartisan group.

McCain’s presidential campaign staff did not respond to calls asking for comment on the report.
Two people — both Republicans — received an F: Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

For senators, scores were based on 10 votes involving increased funding for veterans’ programs, expansions of benefits, a vote to purchase Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles and four separate votes at various stages of consideration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill of Rights and co-sponsorship of the bill.

McCain’s Democratic challenger, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, received a B on the report card, the same grade received by Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. Obama and Biden also missed key votes; Obama missed four and Biden three.
Fifty-five senators received an A on the report card.

In the House, grades were based on 13 votes and co-sponsorship of the full-tuition GI Bill benefits that became law earlier this year. Votes included increasing veterans’ funding and benefits, a veterans’ suicide prevention bill, a bill giving refugee status to translators who worked with U.S. troops in Iraq, expanded wounded warrior treatment programs and a bill ending the government’s policy of requiring repayment of bonuses for people who did not complete their military obligation because of death or disability. Five House members received a D, but 250 others received an A.

Vanessa Williamson of IAVA said the grades are based on items drawn from the association’s legislative agenda, which was provided to every congressional office.

Getting a good score was not that difficult because many of the votes on veterans’ issues were unanimous or nearly unanimous. In the Senate, only three votes on the Post-9/11 GI Bill made a significant difference in grades. In the House, two votes on the GI Bill and a 2007 vote about whether Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans should be given two years or five years of no-questions asked health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs made the difference.

One hundred fifty lawmakers received perfect scores.

Vietnam vets stirring up a McCain mutiny

Vietnam vets stirring up a McCain mutiny
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/08/25/2008-08-25_vietnam_vets_stirring_up_a_mccain_mutiny.html

Monday, August 25th 2008, 4:00 AM
Altaffer/AP
John McCain

Sen. John McCain commands support at many VFW halls across the country. But a squadron of Vietnam vets and POW/MIA advocates is strafing him with decidedly unfriendly fire.
Two-tour Green Beret Ted Sampley, who helped "Swift Boat" Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential race, is now gunning for the GOP White House hopeful.

The organizer of Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain claims the Purple Heart-winning former POW has "never admitted the full extent to which he cooperated with his captors."

Sampley also charges that, in the 1990s, the "unstable" McCain, whom he calls "the Manchurian Candidate," ignored "credible evidence" that American POWs were still alive in Southeast Asia.
"He wanted to normalize relations with Vietnam," Sampley tells us. "He took away the only leverage we had for getting those soldiers back. Why? He was paying back the Vietnamese for keeping quiet about him."

McCain has called Sampley a profiteering "enemy of the truth" and "one of the most despicable people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter." (Sampley was jailed after beating up McCain aide Mark Salter outside McCain's Senate office in 1992.)

Though he's no fan of Barack Obama, Sampley says Fox News producers haven't invited him on to bash McCain the way he bashed Kerry. But Sampley is finding other comrades. Former POW Phillip Butler asserts that McCain "allows the media to make him out to be the hero POW, which he knows is absolutely not true."

Former GOP Congressmen Bill Hendon and John LeBoutillier, who both served on the House Task Force on POW/MIA Affairs, write on Sampley's U.S. Veteran Dispatch that McCain "abandoned American POWs."

"He's totally dishonest," says LeBoutillier, who contends that, to win over the religious right, McCain "cribbed" his recent memory of a kindly guard leaving "a cross in the dirt" from Jeremiah Denton, another POW-turned-senator who told a similar story.
Other POWs have backed up McCain's story. And the senator, who refused Vietnamese offers of early prison release, has called the "evidence" of living POWs a "cruel hoax on their families."