“SPACE A” FREE VACATIONS DENIED DISABLED VETERANS
STEVE ROBERTSON, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR OF THE AMERICAN LEGION PROMISES ACTION
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Military retirees get free flights on government planes with multi-million dollar terminals built for them near top vacation spots around the world, Hawaii, Germany, Italy and others. Disabled veterans and Medal of Honor winners aren’t allowed on these flights. The reason given:
MILITARY AIRCRAFT DO NOT HOLD WHEELCHAIRS
Thousands of retirees who are not combat disabled are in wheelchairs and allowed on flights. The Americans With Disability Act requires it. During the Vietnam War, “unpopular” veterans, with limbs traumatically amputated by boobytraps (now called IED’s) were confined to wheelchairs because prosthetic limbs were primitive and their use and the therapy needed wasn’t a priority with the military and the VA.
Today’s veterans are running marathons on their artificial limbs. Only a very few are in wheelchairs but the antiquated laws of the past are still there to slap them down. With non-disabled retirees and their families, many in very poor health, taking advantage of billions in military flights and recreation facilities denied the combat disabled retirees, a tremendous injustice is continuing.
The military, under their MWR programmes offers great facilities in the US and around the world for active duty and all retired personnel including disabled veterans and Medal of Honor winners. However, the combat disabled and Medal of Honor winners pay to fly and the others get a “free ride” at taxpayer expense.
Not every retiree lives close to an airbase. I vacation with other retirees, some both disabled and “blue card” 30 year retirees. I could get to Germany from Wright Patterson in Ohio but my friends out west get to go to Guam. “Space-A” is not perfect. Waits for flights can be long and connections unpredictable. “Space-A” is getting as bad as regular commercial travel, and you know how bad that is!
A wounded veteran from Iraq is flown to Landstuhl, Germany for initial hospitalization. Thats right across the autobahn from the huge Ramstein terminal and new hotel (350 rooms) or the temporary housing at “K-town” as we call it, Kaiserslautern. This and Aviano, Italy (just a short drive from Venice and Florence) are our two major Space A hubs in Europe. Others exist around the world.
This same veteran carried into the hospital in Landstuhl works, and works hard for months, mastering a replacement limb, sometimes two. He or she is retired from the military as “disabled veterans” and given an ID card allowing them to use all military facilities, everything but the aircraft because of the “wheelchair problem” that no longer exists.
Most military families aren’t rich. If the military is good enough to fly them into Germany I will be good enough, personally, to see they are hosted for concerts, winery tours and can see the castles up and down the Rhine and Mosel.
These deserving families should be able to enjoy the many MWR facilities all over Europe, the Far East and America. We have facilities all over Florida and California, ski lodges and lifts in Keystone, all paid for by the taxpayer, meant for our heroes, underpaid heroes many of whom “need a lift.”
Out of respect for their sacrifice and the disabilities they work to overcome, we, as a people need to respect their abilities and not punish them for their disabilities. What we have done for years is, not only wrong, not only unfair but flatly illegal.
There are groups that want to “keep the lines short” and limit use of America’s “free ride.” Given the chance to choose, would you put a Pentagon clerk or a hero with two new legs on a plane for a family vacation? I have no trouble making that choice. I have no trouble picking out who I want to reward.
Victimizing the disabled is bad enough and has been illegal for decades. Punishing disabled veterans, heroes who have fought and sacrificed for America because they lost an arm or leg or both or have PTSD or cancer from Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome is both shallow and inhuman.
I remember touring the Army hospital in San Antonio with a group of veterans advocates. I had kids pass me on the stairs on aluminum legs.
At the local commissary, wheelchair bound retirees on oxygen are not uncommon in the aisles. These are not “disabled veterans.”
Both groups earned the benefits they get.
The military has thousand of aircraft, many standard passenger planes, over 150 golf courses, several top hotels and many temporary lodging facilities (Sterling House at Fairford AFB near Oxford, England is one of my favorites) around the world. By law, disabled veterans are guaranteed use of these facilities and much much more, if they could only get there.
I was staying at Quantico, the Marine Base, during the opening of the World War 2 memorial. I have told this before, so be patient with me. A busload of WW2 vets, Marines who served in the Pacific, was brought in as honored guests.
I sat on the floor next to a wheelchair bound former Marine Raider who told me about the Makin Island raid and his experiences. I almost cried when HE thanked ME for my service. The clerk who processed his discharge papers those many years ago rode free on military planes to vacations around the world.
My friend, yes, in a wheelchair, has never seen the inside of a military aircraft. He may have been able, years ago, to paddle a rubber boat off a submarine to attack a Japanese held island but as a disabled veteran, he was moved to the end of the line.
Today, with medical science and millions we spend for rehabilitation and treatment, he would not have been in a wheelchair. For him, for me, for other vets, be they “blue card” retirees or disabled veterans, their family members and the millions of Americans and the people around the world they sacrificed to protect and free: LET THEM FLY
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat vet and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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