WASHINGTON, Illinois (CNN) -- Ty Ziegel peers from beneath his Marine Corps baseball cap, his once boyish face burned beyond recognition by a suicide bomber's attack in Iraq just three days before Christmas 2004."Angry"?
He lost part of his skull in the blast and part of his brain was damaged. Half of his left arm was amputated and some of the fingers were blown off his right hand.
Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was deployed for his second tour in Iraq.
But he didn't expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Sometimes, you get lost in the system," he told CNN. "I feel like a Social Security number. I don't feel like Tyler Ziegel."
[...]
In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.
Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture...
(read the rest by clicking on the CNN link above)
You bet I'm angry!
Almost beyond words.
"Liberal Blogger"?
Yeah, I tend to be, but in this case who GIVES a fat rat's ass?
THIS is what our nation is doing to our brave and honorable military personnel. Anyone who ISN'T angry about this has no humanity whatsoever.
As a nation, we seem to have ALL the money in the world to wage an immoral war, but not even close to enough to properly care for these horrifically wounded veterans.
Will we EVER be able to fix our nation in the wake of such wanton recklessness?
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