more ways this administration "supports our troops"

From the Las Vegas Sun, Dec 14,2004

Wounded Veterans face red tape

Veterans advocates and some soldiers say the system that is supposed to care for the injured is buckling under the strain. The Defense Department, in a casualty report this past week, listed 1069 troops killed in action, 10,177 wounded in action and 367 who died in noncombat situations out of 300,000 troops who have been deployed in Iraq and Afganistan operations.

In the first Gulf War, from 1990 to 1991, U.S. and coalition forces quickly turned back an Iraqi occupation force from Kuwait in open terrain, without the costly house-to-house urban fighting going on today.

That war claimed 382 American soldiers' lives and wounded 467 out of a force of 584,000. "

OK - so in the Gulf War, which lasted a year, we deployed 584,000 troops, not to mention the fact that we had allies in that action. In the current disaster, we have deployed 300,000 in 2 years, we have almost no allies, and we have had over 4 times the casualties! Certainly sounds like someone didn't plan this out very well!
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The growing legion of survivors, many with injuries that will require a lifetime of care, often emerge from the fog of war into a tangle of red tape that is the veterans-care bureaucracy. The five-day meeting at Walt Disney World, which ended Sunday, was sponsored by the Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. The gathering was organized to provide information and guidance to about 150 wounded soldiers and to help them understand a system that often leaves them in limbo for as long as four months awaiting disability benefits.

And then, when they come back wounded, they have to wait FOUR MONTHS for disability benefits?! I guess all of those "support our troops" ribbons on all those SUVs are really doing their jobs!