Dana Priest and Anne Hull, of the Washington Post, reported on the conditions at Walter Reed's outpatient facility in Virginia, "Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers' families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment." And, this, is not on the battlefield. It's on U.S. soil.

Priest and Hull describe the army facilities, a holding place for over 700 wounded soldiers, as having mice infestation and mold growing is some of the rooms. They witnessed "mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses" and the place smelling "like greasy carry-out". Many soldiers there have vegetated for months without ever seeing a professional, and, basically being forgotten in place where the "wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide".

The blame is squarely on the shoulders of the Republicans and their leadership, in charge of Congress from 1994 to 2006. As the only appropriators of money to the VA, they cannot pass this buck. The responsibility is theirs.

Last year, and the year before - they cut Medicare, slashed Medicaid, increased the cost of student loans, threatened Social Security, and underfunded the Veterans Administration. And, what did they do with the money they removed from these programs? That Congress gave the money away to those that don't need it. As subsidies to oil companies, gifts to mega-profitable corporations, to defense contractors in generous no-bid contracts, and to themselves in their annual pay raises.

My own congressman, Jerry Moran, Republican for District 1 of Kansas deserves his share of blame for the veterans' pain. For example, Jerry Moran and a slim majority of Republicans voted in 2006 to slash $14 billion from veterans' health programs. This vote for the 2006 budget cut funding for veterans' health care by $14 billion over the next 5 years and requires $798 million in reduced veterans' benefits or increased fees to be paid by veterans in just the first year.

These cuts to veterans programs came after these same Republican congressmen, including Moran, lavished $25 billion in new corporate tax breaks on industry cronies in their "stimulus package."

Moran also voted to oppose expanding access to the military's TRICARE health insurance program to thousands of Reservist and National Guard members, even though 20 percent of all Reservists do not have health insurance, and 40 percent of Reservists aged 19 to 35 lack health coverage. It is just plain wrong to discriminate against our brave National Guard and Reserve soldiers, particularly when they are facing the same combat overseas as all other servicemen and women.

In June 2006, Moran also voted and passed a bill to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war. In this bill, Moran reduced the funding to only $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center - half of what the center received last fiscal year.

It's unpardonable that Moran and his friends voted to not provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country. The Brain Injury Center, devoted to treating and understanding war-related brain injuries, has received more money each year of the war - from $6.5 million in fiscal 2001 to $14 million last year. Preliminary research by the center shows that about 10% of all troops in Iraq, and up to 20% of front line infantry troops, suffer concussions during combat tours. In fact, brain injuries have increased dramatically during the war in Iraq due to the type of close-in blasts and the type of armor used. More than 12,000 servicemen and women have been exposed to horrendous explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan that have caused more than half of our casualties.

It seems so wrong to make cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a this kind of combat war in Iraq. The actions of this previous Congress clearly indicated that Jerry Moran and his Republican buddies of the previous Congress were simply out of touch with the realities and consequences of war. It was shocking then to watch Congress make all those cuts and it is even more shocking now to see the results of their cuts.

Regardless about how Americans feel about any particular war, I believe when you commit to take care of troops, you have to take care of them - there's no halfway measure that can ever be considered acceptable.

We have a new Congress now that will represent the needs of the people, not the powerful. We have a Congress now that will fight for our military, our veterans and our military families. I hope that they will see to it also that we stop closing VA Hospitals and Vet Centers.

I have confidence that the new Democratic leadership agree that we must properly and fully fund the Veterans Administration. We need to increase funding to community service boards and increase Vet Center program offerings. We must extend health insurance coverage for the National Guard to three years. We absolutely must make VA funding mandatory, rather than discretionary. By moving the budget for the VA into the "mandatory" bucket and taking it out of the "discretionary" bucket, we can protect the VA from future congressional cuts, should the Republicans ever return to power.

And, meanwhile, I pray for any and all veterans and military families that may be feeling alone and neglected.

If any neglected veterans are reading this, I say to you, I am so very sorry that you were caused the extra pain. You did not deserve it. You deserve so much more. You deserve the best we have to give.