Readers React: If we fight wars, we must take care of our veterans

To the editor: Thanks to columnist Steve Lopez for keeping the issues facing veterans like Paul Cooper and others with CalVet’s West Los Angeles Veterans Home in the news. (“For ailing veterans, endless government delays,” Sept. 13)

Ironically, in the same paper The Times reports that $262.5 million has been spent over the last few weeks on airstrikes in our new Iraq conflict and $1.2 trillion total has been spent on the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In contrast, it will take two years, if the funds can be found, to build a kitchen in the new CalVet facility.

From Ronald Reagan through Barack Obama, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been leasing property to non-veteran entities for a pittance. And now, we are ready to go at it again in Iraq and Syria and create a new generation of veterans.

Is there no logic (or conscience) in Washington or Sacramento?

Daniel Cano, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Long-term care for seniors has become an overwhelming issue for the middle class. Spouses and families are burdened with the economic, physical, emotional and spiritual toll of caring for a suffering senior.

There is help available, however, through the VA for wartime vets and their spouses for care at home or in an assisted-living or a board-and-care facility. Medi-Cal will fund care in a nursing home. There is no need to wait for this care. The VA and Medi-Cal will pay for some or all of a senior veteran’s care.

These agencies will tell you what you can do, not how to do it. There is a need to access information, push aside misconceptions and to obtain the quality of care a senior needs and deserves — and do it without going broke.

Michael McGuire, Lakewood

The writer is an attor-ney for the California Elder Law Center.

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To the editor: My suggestion: Hire the company that repaired a section of the 10 Freeway after the Northridge earthquake in 1994. That job was finished in remarkable time.

Those workers should be able to build a kitchen in the CalVet home in record time too.

In the United States, our veterans deserve much better than this fiasco.

Carol Rippey Castlen, San Diego

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