July 14, 2008: Our readers write

System needs a shakeup

What in the world is wrong here? The Department of Veterans Affairs seems to have senior officials who suffer from “senior disabilities.” The mid- and low-level adjudicators seem as if they are acting against our veterans with disabilities. Ever since World War II Korea and up to now with the wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan, instead of trying to get help for those who request service-related disabilities compensation.

Look at how Vietnam vets were treated when they returned home — looked down upon, spit on and kicked around like animals.

Did they not suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? I knew a man who served on a ship during World War II who told of pulling men who had been burnt and were injured or dead out of the water from sunken ships. He could not stand to breathe the air from the older types of floor furnaces because  the dust and lint that would accumulate reminded him of the “smell of burnt flesh.” He never got any compensation for PTSD and I don’t know what else you could call that. The VA just wanted him to go to a psychiatric clinic and talk to a psychologist about his problem.

So, shouldn’t there be a shake up in the system? Seems to me we should be thanking our veterans and repaying them some way rather than pushing them aside and just telling them they are crazy.

Verna Carroll

Radcliff

Driving smarter

One way to economize on fuel consumption is the school bus pickup routine. I watch as the school bus on Falling Springs Road in Bonnieville stops to pick up three students, goes another 20 feet and stops to pick up one student, then another 30 feet to pick up another student. Why can’t there be a central pickup stop for students within a half mile  to gather with an adult to supervise?

Good heavens, I used to walk a mile every day to school, rain, snow or sunshine.

If a four-day week is adopted, what are parents who work to do when there is no school? Use more gasoline to drive them to a care center?

Dorothy Stahl

Bonnieville