Debunking the myth of the military welfare queen

Every veteran has heard a story third-hand about some guy who is proud he bilked our veterans' benefits system and now gets extraordinary benefits for life from the government. This notion of a military welfare queen is in line with Ronald Reagan's disparagement of welfare recipients in his 1976 presidential campaign. The basic idea is that someone out there is cheating the system while you are not getting what you deserve.

For many veterans who have had to deal with the struggle of filing a claim, receiving care or coming to terms that an injury is permanent, the idea that others just waltzed in and got benefits or care they didn’t deserve plays into the anger at the system.

Unfortunately, this belief that there are countless military welfare queens has festered in veteran circles and now is being used as an excuse to cut benefits for all veterans. Recently The Economist published an article which set off the alarm bells in the veteran community. “American veterans now receive absurdly generous benefits," the headline begins. "An enormous rise in disability payments may complicate debt-reduction efforts.” This plants the seed that just maybe we are all welfare queens. The rest of the anonymous article seems to back up the incredulous headline.

As mentioned in the article, the VA budget has risen from $86 billion to $336 billion in the last 20 years and went from 2.6 percent of the federal budget to 5 percent. What the article fails to mention is what happened in the last 20 years that caused this massive spike in spending. That would be the so-called Global War on Terror which lasted from 2001 to — well, has it ended even now?

Millions of men and women poured into the service and were sent to Afghanistan and then Iraq. Millions more worked in support both stateside and in overseas bases around the world. On top of that, Vietnam veterans started moving into senior citizen status and now require more care than ever.

The Economist used a chart to illustrate the rise in veterans' disability, attributing it to “sleep apnea,” while ignoring that the spike in disability payments started after 2001. I wonder what happened in 2001 that caused an increase in veterans disability? Surely it wasn’t sleep apnea.

The article also claims that there is something wrong because we rate veterans higher now than when we did during Vietnam. This is a peculiar thing to say, as no American was happy with how Vietnam veterans were treated when they returned home. Medical care is now more complex, and we have a better understanding of the effect military service has on the body and the mind.

Before I deployed to Iraq in 2007, I asked for an MRI on my knees because both had been injured but I had pushed through the pain. The MRI revealed injuries in both my knees, and I was given a “golden ticket” — that is, a pass to avoid deployment. But I still went, as it was my duty. I could not let my friends go without me.

While I was in Iraq, I took a bad fall and fractured my vertebrae. The Marines gave me two days to recover and sent me back out on convoys, patrols and missions as if nothing had happened. When I got home and got out of the military, I was told I would have problems later in life. I didn’t believe that at all ... until I did.

If I had been a Vietnam veteran, I would not have had as many opportunities to file a claim, be approved for a claim and receive top notch care for a while. It has helped me and millions of other veterans that the government expanded care and benefits, including disability payments. Those payments have helped countless veterans as they deal with unemployment, medical setbacks and regaining quality of life.

The Economist article quotes Mark Duggan of Stanford University as saying, “Once you qualify you have an incentive not to get better.” With all due respect to Duggan, I wish I could run again. And I have tried. I would do anything to not have severe back pain, not to have my knees hurt all day, not take pain meds, not to fight to get an aisle seat on an airplane, not to worry about seating at a sports event, to run a 5K race for fun — in short, a million other things that a man my age should not have to worry about. And I think I speak for all vets when I say we wish we didn’t have to deal with those tribulations we now deal with. But we do. That is the cost.

The U.S. was willing to engage in a trillion-dollar military “war” meant to keep American safe. And now the millions of men and women who did now have to worry that fiscal conservatism will brand them welfare queens in order to keep American from caring for its veterans.

Jos Joseph is a master’s candidate at the Harvard Extension School at Harvard University. He is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and lives in Anaheim, Calif.

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